Tag: Vinay Prasad
Why Are Sensible Medicine Doctors Indifferent to the Nonsense Comments of Sensible Medicine Commentators? As Instructed, I Consider the Dualities of Interest and Motivating Biases.
Sensible Medicine doctors often utter the words "do an RCT". So why are their readers so ignorant about RCTs?
Dr. Adam Cifu: “We Now Need to Accept That This is Here to Get Infected With Again and Again.”
If Dr. Adam Cifu were genuinely concerned about vaccine hesitancy, I would strongly encourage him to learn about the anti-vaccine movement. He'll discover that it is fueled not by a lack of "robust data" on COVID boosters, but rather by exactly the sort of mistrust and anti-vaccine misinformation spread by his own blog and collaborators.
Doctors on Measles: “NEVER Listen to the Anti-Vax Cult When They Say This ‘Natural’ Disease is Harmless”. Doctors on COVID: 😂
Measles and COVID are different, of course, but they are not categorically different. With both viruses, unvaccinated children suffer the most. Yet, doctors who rightly said "measles can be a devastating childhood illness" also said it was "breathless fear-mongering" to acknowledge that COVID can also be a devastating childhood illness.
When Did “Herd Immunity” Become a Taboo Phrase?
Doctors who repeatedly predicted herd immunity in 2020 and 2021, mocking and berating those who disagreed, now treat herd immunity as a taboo phrase.
Dr. Vinay Prasad fully embraces the antivax message of “do not comply”
COVID-19 "contrarians" like Dr. Vinay Prasad have long complained about being labelled "antivaccine," which they view as unfair. Why, then, do they embrace antivax messages like "do not comply," even if they don't use the exact words?
Sensible Medicine: Medical Misinformation and Medical Groupthink From the Medical Establishment
We all have biases, including in-group loyalty. It's often easy to see such bias in others, though nearly impossible to see in oneself. As such, it's both normal and dangerous to imagine that only those who disagree with you are vulnerable to groupthink, while you are perfect beacon of independent, rational thought- along with everyone who agrees with you.
RFK Jr.: A fart-filled argument gives way to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is an “ethnically targeted” bioweapon
Last week, RFK Jr. endured hilariously bad press about an NYC press event at which two of his supporters argued over climate change, one with lots of farts. However, the fart jokes soon gave way to darker side of the event, a Q&A in which RFK Jr. shared an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that COVID-19 might have been "targeted" against Caucasians and...
RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan: Putting the old denialist technique of bad faith “Debate me, bro!” challenges on steroids
Joe Rogan conveyed a challenge by antivax crank turned Presidential candidate RFK Jr. to vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez to "debate me, bro!" In the week since, wealthy right wingers have added money to the inducement, and through an awful op-ed by Ross Douthat this weekend, even the New York Times has amped up the pressure for a "debate" about vaccines with...
Evidence-based medicine vs. basic science in medical school
Last week Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote a Substack arguing that medical students should learn the principles of evidence-based medicine before basic science.This is a recipe for amplifying the main flaw in EBM that science-based medicine was meant to correct, and Dr. Prasad's arguments would have been right at home on an integrative medicine blog. [Note ADDENDUM.]
The Cochrane mask fiasco: How the evidence-based medicine paradigm can produce misleading results
Last week, the Cochrane Collaborative was forced to walk back the conclusions of a review by Tom Jefferson et al that had been spun in the media as proving that "masks don't work." Tom Jefferson himself has been problematic about vaccines for a long time, but the rot goes deeper. What is it about the evidence-based medicine paradigm that results in misleading...