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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Bioethics Medicine Pseudoscience

False analogies and pseudoscience as “moral arguments” against the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines

Antivaxers frequently object to the use of fetal cell lines to manufacture vaccines on “moral” grounds. Über-quack Joe Mercola lays down some astonishingly bad moral arguments based on pseudoscience.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Science

Corvelva and “Vaccinegate”: Italian antivaxers produce a dubious “scientific report” on fetal DNA in vaccines

The Italian antivaccine group Corvelva published a really bad “scientific report” claiming fetal DNA in vaccines is dangerous based on a dubious next generation sequencing analysis whose methods are not described. It’s not. To believe its claims, you have to believe that DNA can do anything.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

Justice Clackson and his miscarriage of justice in the acquittal of David and Collet Stephan

On September 19, in a retrial ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada, Alberta Justice Terry Clackson issued a ruling acquitting David and Collet Stephan of failing to provide the necessities of life to their son Ezekiel, whose bacterial meningitis they had chosen to treat with quackery instead of medicine, leading to his death in 2012. The news reports showed that this was a very bad decision, but you have to read Justice Clackson’s actual decision to see that it’s an even worse decision than the news reports indicate, full of bad medicine, bad science, and even a hint of racism.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Science

Harlem Vaccine Forum: Is Al Sharpton antivaccine?

Rev. Al Sharpton is hosting the Harlem Vaccine Forum. Unfortunately, his “forum” looks like an antivaccine quackfest.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Marysville High School has a chickenpox outbreak, and antivaxers don’t want their children kept home

Last week, there was a small chickenpox outbreak at a Marysville High School in my state. Unvaccinated students were sent home. Now antivaxers are protesting. Same as it ever was.