As I’ve said many times, in the age of COVID-19 everything old is new again, with antivaxxers resurrecting every old trope and tactic they’ve used for decades and repurposed them for the pandemic. Now it’s the false claim of religious exemptions to COVID-19 mandates.
On Monday the FDA granted full approval to Comirnaty, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. By Tuesday, antivaxxers had a propaganda line that the vaccine is still “experimental.”
The claim that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US is one of those slasher statistics that just won’t die. This time around STAT News gave space to Michael Saks and Stephan Landsman to parrot that claim credulously in the service of selling their book.
Antivaxxers/antimaskers harassed breast cancer patients outside of the Cedars-Sinai Breast Health Services building in Los Angeles. There is no bottom, and antivaxxers now appear to be aligning themselves with fascists.
The veterinary deworming drug ivermectin has become the new hydroxychloroquine in that it is being promoted as a highly effective treatment against COVID-19—and by many of the same people who previously promoted HCQ—despite evidence that is, at best very weak and at worst completely negative. Unfortunately, with the publication of two new and biased reviews, the “HCQ vibe” about ivermectin is stronger than ever.
