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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery Science

The New Republic on a two decade war against medical quackery

A story is told in “The New Republic” about a certain entity that readers here might know well, at least longtime regulars.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine Politics Science

Projection and methodolatry over COVID-19

Projection, thy name is Dr. Vinay Prasad, who complains about “ad hominem” coming from his critics while siding with some nasty COVID-19 minimizers, as he engages in obvious methodolatry about every study of vaccines, masks, and COVID-19.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Science

NIH grant funding decisions: Reality vs. antivax conspiracies

Earlier this month, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a plan to decrease the problem of reputational bias in grant funding. I couldn’t help but contrast how hard the NIH tries to use the most rigorous scientific criteria to decide whose grants to fund with the conspiracy theory that Anthony Fauci personally doles out NIH dollars like a mob boss to scientists who support him.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Zebrafish and Jessica Rose versus vaccines?

Orac had thought he’d seen everything from antivaxxers; that is, until he saw Jessica Rose invoke a zebrafish study to claim that the spike protein from COVID-19 vaccines is deadly.

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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.