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Medicine Politics Popular culture

“Right-to-try” in 2019: Still a failure, still all about the Benjamins (and weakening the FDA)

Federal “right-to-try” legislation was passed and signed into law by President Trump over a year ago. Advocates promised that lots of terminally ill people who were dying then would be saved by having the right to “try” experimental therapies outside of the context of clinical trials. That has not happened. This should come as no surprise, because right-to-try was never about getting experimental drugs to dying patients. It was always about weakening the FDA and making money.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery

Dr. Rashid Buttar had been sick for a long time before he “died suddenly”

Last month, Dr. Rashid Buttar, a prominent antivax “integrative medicine” practitioner, died suddenly. Because he hadn’t been vaccinated, antivaxxers struggled mightily to reconcile his death with their conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines. It turns out, however, that that Dr. Buttar had not been a well man since 2016 and was as much a victim of quackery as his patients had been.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Vaccines cause autism, which leads to progressivism and…Trumpism?

Antivax transphobe Toby Rogers got the bright idea that many of the central tenets of progressivism are actually autistic traits. So vaccines cause progressivism…and Trumpism, too? WTF?

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Quackery

The accelerating war on science-based medical regulation

Last week, it was reported how increasingly there is a war on the science-based regulation of medicine and physicians. It’s an old story, but unfortunately the forces arrayed against science-based policy have been emboldened by the pandemic and an stronger alliance with political groups that are against government regulation in general.

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Bad science Medicine Politics

Oops, he did it again! John Ioannidis cries “Bias!” on COVID

My former science idol John Ioannidis, along with Kasper Kepp, has published a paper citing a Delphi consensus statement on COVID-19 as evidence that the scientific community is “biased” against his anti-“lockdown” pro-virus views. His descent continues apace.