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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

A “not antivax” COVID-19 contrarian: “RFK Jr. makes ‘reasonable’ points”

Podcaster Joe Rogan conveyed a “debate” challenge by antivax conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. to Dr. Peter Hotez. COVID-19 contrarian Dr. Vinay Prasad, wanting to be on Rogan’s podcast, sucked up to both, saying RFK Jr. made many “reasonable” points. What gives? And should scientists ever agree to debate cranks?

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

RFK Jr. “in his own words”: Fiercely antivax

An antivaxxer challenged her readers to judge RFK Jr. by his own words before deciding if he’s antivax. Challenge accepted. He’s antivax as hell.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Physicians who promote COVID-19 and antivaccine misinformation should lose their medical license

The Federation of State Medical Boards warned physicians that spreading COVID-19 misinformation might jeopardize their license to practice. It’s about time the FSMB said that, but I have serious doubts that anything will happen.

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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 Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Overconfidence as a contributor to science denial among physicians and scientists

The pandemic has brought scientists who have rejected science with respect to COVID-19 public health measures a disturbing level of influence. Recent research suggests reasons why and who among the public susceptible to such misinformation remains persuadable.