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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Über-quack Joe Mercola falsely claims that “legally” the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are not vaccines

Antivaxxers have been falsely claiming that the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are “gene therapy,” not vaccines. Now über-quack Joe Mercola is falsely claiming that the vaccines are, from a legal standpoint, not vaccines.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science

Do COVID-19 vaccines cause heart attacks and cardiac death?

A week ago, I wrote about how antivaxxers had resurrected an old trick to weaponize the VAERS vaccine safety database to demonize COVID-19 vaccines. They’re still at it, this time trying to blame the vaccine for heart attacks and cardiac deaths.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Misuse of the VAERS database: An old antivax deception repackaged to spread fear of COVID-19 vaccines

With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines continuing apace, so are the efforts of antivaxxers to portray the vaccines as dangerous. This time around, they’ve resurrected the old antivaccine trick of deceptively misusing the VAERS database to imply causation from VAERS reports. That’s not how VAERS works, however.

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Announcements Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Pseudoscience

Orac on Thinking Critically

So Orac appeared on the Thinking Critically podcast to discuss the sorts of things he often rambles on about right here on Respectful Insolence.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Computers and social media Medicine

Dr. Hooman Noorchashm and #ScreenB4Vaccine, revisited

I recently criticized Dr. Hooman Noorchashm’s warning about COVID-19 vaccines to #ScreenB4Vaccine. Amazingly, the kerfuffle is still going on a week later. Here I will explain why his hypothesis is, from a basic science standpoint, not very plausible and not supported by epidemiology.