Category: Popular culture

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

“Censorship!”: The common bogus complaint of science deniers

Criticism ≠ censorship
Criticism ≠ censorship.

Once more, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. cries “Censorship!” over efforts to counter COVID-19 and antivaccine disinformation. Hilarity ensues.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine safety during a pandemic

National Vaccine Program Office is at HHS
The headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is seen in Washington Nov. 4. A rule issued in August by the department mandates coverage of contraception and sterilization in most private health insurance plans. The U.S. bishops, saying the directive does not offer appropriate exclusions for religious institutions, view the mandate as an attack on religious liberty. (CNS photo/Nancy Wiechec) (Nov. 4, 2011) See HOUSE-CONSCIENCE Nov. 2, 2011.

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?

Categories
Bad science Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

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

AIER HQ

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.

Categories
Cancer Entertainment/culture Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

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

Rush Limbaugh

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.

Categories
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

Oblivion Agenda: The wildest COVID-19 conspiracy theory yet

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.