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Antivaccine nonsense Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine safety during a pandemic

Last year, the Trump administration essentially disbanded the National Vaccine Program Office, folding it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. What does this mean for monitoring the safety of the soon-to-be-approved COVID-19 vaccines?

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Bad science Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

AIER likens anti-“lockdown” cranks to abolitionists. Hilarity ensues

Cranks love a heroic persecution narrative, and the climate science-denying right wing think tank American Institute of Economic Research (AIER) has a doozy: COVID-19 “anti-lockdown” cranks like Scott Atlas and those behind the Great Barrington Declaration are the new abolitionists! This is a page from the antivax playbook.

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Cancer Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Mike Adams: Why doesn’t Rush Limbaugh try “natural” treatments for his lung cancer?

Mike Adams has long used celebrities with cancer to claim “natural” treatments could cure them. Now he’s doing the same with Rush Limbaugh, although, compared to prior celebrities with cancer on whom he’s pulled this routine, this time Adams’s attack is muted.

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Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Oblivion Agenda: Mike Adams’ COVID-19-inspired update to his alien vaccine holocaust conspiracy theory

There’s nothing new under the sun in conspiracy theories. That’s why Mike Adams “Oblivion Agenda” is just an antivaccine “depopulation” conspiracy theory updated for the era of COVID-19.

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Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

“Masks make you sicker”: The unkillable COVID-19 conspiracy theory

Masks work to slow the spread of COVID-19, but the “masks make you sicker” narrative, like antivax nonsense, has proven to be unkillable and to be a killer.