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Medicine Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Is the lab leak conspiracy theory dead?

Two new studies published last month strongly support a natural zoonotic origin for COVID-19 centered at the wet market in Wuhan, China. Naturally, lab leak proponents soberly considered this new evidence and thought about changing their minds. Just kidding! They doubled down on the conspiracy mongering, because of course they did.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture Science

Jeffrey Tucker: The antivaccine movement and the far right

Jeffery Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute, is a far right wing Neo-Confederate hack. What does this say about the confluence of the far right and antivax?

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Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad team up to lecture social media about “obsessive criticism”

Formerly respectable academics John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad published a complaint about “obsessive criticism” on social media. Hilarity ensued, and many irony meters were reduced to sparking, smoking, sputtering ruin.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

When “old school” antivaxxers meet the “new school” antivaxxers

An old school “vaccines cause autism” antivaxxer hosted new COVID-19 antivaxxers at an antivax conference last month. Although one new antivaxxer, Geert Vanden Bossche, was discomfited and pushed back against old antivax tropes, the rest joined Del Bigtree in spewing longstanding antivax tropes.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

Radical COVID-19 antivax sentiment is metastasizing to childhood vaccines

COVID-19 has radicalized the antivaccine movement. Unfortunately, that radicalization is metastasizing to encompass all vaccines.