Tag: vaccines

Texans for Vaccine Choice

Texas: Ground zero for the politicization of school vaccine mandates

Vaccine policies and school vaccine mandates have traditionally been as close to a nonpartisan issue as there can be in the US. Unfortunately, in Texas antivaccine activists and conservative activists threaten to change that. The antivaccine group Texans for Vaccine Choice has formed an unholy alliance with antiregulation conservative activists to attack school vaccine mandates. Antivaxers all over the country are doing...

/ March 5, 2018

The So-Called Vaccine Debate: False Balance in The San Diego Union-Tribune

A recent article in The San Diego Union-Tribune presents a pair of articles that gives a false balance regarding vaccinations. Those who oppose vaccination do so on the basis of ideology rather than science, thus placing the public's health at risk.

/ February 26, 2018

Anti-vaccine sentiment associated with belief in conspiracy theories

A recent survey examined the relationship between opposition to vaccines, belief in conspiracy theories, and other factors. The results suggest that we may need to modify how we address concerns about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

/ February 8, 2018
Gardasil

Death by Gardasil? Not so fast there…

There is a type of "vaccine injury" story promoted by the antivaccine movement that is particularly pernicious, a narrative I call "death by Gardasil." The stories, which use tenuous connections between vaccination against HPV to prevent cervical cancer and the unexpected death of a teen or young adult, are always tragic, and you can't help but feel incredible empathy for the parents....

/ February 5, 2018
Aluminum in cells

Move over, Christopher Shaw, there’s a new antivaccine scientist in town

Move over, Christopher Shaw, there's a new antivaccine scientist dedicated to demonizing aluminum adjuvants in town. His name is Christopher Exley. He's got a fluorescence microscope, and he's not afraid to use it.

/ December 4, 2017

Science Moms Fight Fears with Facts

A new documentary takes a novel approach. It features scientist moms who are just like other moms except that they understand the science. They set the record straight about GMOs, vaccines, and other subjects of interest to parents. They provide the facts to counteract unreasonable fears.

/ November 28, 2017

Torturing mice, data, and figures in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience

In September, antivaccine "researchers" Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic published a study claiming to link aluminum adjuvants in vaccines to neuroinflammation and autism. Naturally, the antivaccine movement pointed to it as slam dunk evidence that vaccines cause autism. It's not. In fact, not only is it bad science, but it might well be fraudulent.

/ October 30, 2017

The Pathological Optimist: More hagiography than documentary about Andrew Wakefield

The Pathological Optimist is a recently released documentary by Miranda Bailey about Andrew Wakefield that I got a chance to see. In interviews and in the film's promotional materials, Bailey takes great pains to emphasize that she "doesn't take a side" about Wakefield. Unfortunately, her film demonstrates that, when it comes to pseudoscience, "not taking a side" is taking a side, and...

/ October 9, 2017

No, a Vaccine Court ruling does not show that vaccines cause SIDS

There was a rumbling in the antivaccine underground over the weekend about a recent ruling by the Vaccine Court compensating parents of a child who died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). In a confused and scientifically highly flawed decision, the Special Master Thomas Gowen didn't rule that vaccines cause SIDS, but did rule that they contributed to SIDS in this one...

/ August 21, 2017

Trump’s new CDC Director is very pro-vaccine, but was she also at one time a quack?

On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price announced the appointment of Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald to head the CDC. Reassuringly, her record as Georgia Public Health Commissioner was pro-vaccine and relatively non-ideological. Not so reassuringly, a news report yesterday found that before entering public service she was peddling anti-aging quackery at her private practice. Where will her balance fall now...

/ July 10, 2017