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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience

Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19: Science-based medicine has no chance against Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, and Dr. Oz

President Trump’s COVID-19 advisors include Dr. Oz, Rudy Giuliani, and Peter Navarro, the latter an economist who thinks he can science better than Anthony Fauci. Can science- and evidence-based medicine prevail with respect to hydroxychloroquine and coronavirus?

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Bad science Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience

Drs. Vladimir Zelenko and Stephen Smith: Abandoning evidence-based medicine to promote unproven drugs for COVID-19

Drs. Vladimir Zelenko and Stephen Smith have been claiming that hydroxychloroquine is a miracle drug based on anecdotes. Their shoddy, poorly reported case series are not evidence of efficacy.

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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

The FDA’s emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: Dangerous politics, not science

Yesterday, the FDA issued emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroqine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19. Politics, not science, is why.

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Antivaccine nonsense Popular culture Pseudoscience

No, the flu vaccine does not increase your chance of getting coronavirus by 36% due to viral interference

An antivaccine meme claiming that, because of viral interference, the flu vaccine increases the risk of coronavirus by 36%. It’s a lie based on a cherry-picked result of a negative study and confusing benign coronavirus with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 30: Kevin Tuttle “drops the mic” at ACIP

An antivaxxer named Kevin Tuttle thinks he “dropped the mic” at the meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He didn’t Instead, he demonstrated just how antivaccine he is.