Yesterday, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Dr. Joseph Ladapo, an apostle of the Great Barrington Declaration’s eugenics lite “focused protection” approach to COVID-19, as Florida Surgeon General. If you want to see the harm caused by the GBD and crank “COVID contrarian” physicians, look no further.
Ivermectin has been hyped without good evidence as a highly effective treatment for COVID-19. Yesterday it was reported that the main study that has driven positive meta-analyses was either fraudulent or so incompetent as to be meaningless. Bottom line: Ivermectin almost certainly doesn’t work.
BMJ senior editor Peter Doshi has been casting doubt on vaccine safety and efficacy since 2009. Now he’s “just asking questions” about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in a BMJ article reprinted verbatim by antivaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Why does The BMJ still employ him?
Antivaccine alternative health tycoon Joe Mercola claims that the unblinding of participants in the clinical trials of Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines was intended to “blow up the trials” and undermine the science, making it impossible ever to identify long term adverse events. What he’s really doing is deceptively oversimplifying complex ethical and scientific issues surrounding these trials in the middle of a deadly pandemic, all in the service of his grift.
Looking back on 2020, if there’s one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it’s that crises reveal character. Unfortunately, even as many doctors bravely risked their lives taking care of COVID-19 patients, the character of too many other physicians was been found wanting, as they spent 2020 denying the pandemic and spreading misinformation. What can be done?
