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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

“Adulteration”: The latest iteration of the antivax “toxins gambit” applied to COVID-19 vaccines

The latest antivax line is that trace amounts of residual plasmid DNA fragments constitutes “adulteration.” It’s just the “toxins gambit” twisted into a bad legal argument.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

Just in time for Halloween, Mark Skidmore’s zombie antivax pseudoscience rises again

Tech bro turned antivax influencer Steve Kirsch is claiming that Michigan State University economist Mark Skidmore has been “exonerated” after having had a paper retracted claiming 278K deaths from COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 alone. In reality, Skidmore’s paper is zombie pseudoscience that’s back from the grave.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

Deluded tech bro Steve Kirsch claims COVID vaccines have killed 3.5X more people than COVID-19

I thought that Prof. Skidmore’s survey, from which he extrapolated an estimate of 278K killed by COVID-19 vaccines was the worst survey ever. I was wrong. Steve Kirsch has Skidmore beat by a country mile.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

VAERS and plasmid DNA “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines: The nonsense continues

This week, a new preprint made the social media rounds falsely claiming a correlation between “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines with plasmid DNA and VAERS reports of adverse events. How does its methodology stink? Let me count the ways.

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Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Placebos without deception: Misinformation that never dies

He’s ba-ack! Longtime “integrative medicine” apologist and exaggerator of the “power of placebos” Ted Kaptchuk is promting misinformation again in an op-ed in The New York Times.