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Antivaccine nonsense Religion

“Fetal cells” in COVID-19 vaccines…again

In the age of COVID, everything old is new again in antivax conspiracy world. This time around, antivaxxers are trying to claim (yet again) that COVID vaccines contain “fetal cells.” Once more into the breach.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Medicine

Bioethics recycles old antivax tropes about COVID vaccines for children

A recent article in Bioethics makes ethical arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19. If you change the word “COVID-19” to measles, chickenpox, or rotavirus (or others), this article could have been published on one of the higher-brow antivax websites in 2010. Antivax arguments never change; they’re just continually recycled.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring: The J&J vaccine and blood clots

Yesterday, the FDA paused use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 due to a rare association with a very uncommon type of blood clot. Detecting one-in-a-million potential adverse events shows that our monitoring is working, but predictably antivaxxers are weaponizing this development to spread fear of COVID vaccines.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience

On “natural immunity” to COVID-19 (and every other vaccine-preventable disease)

Antivaxxers have long appealed to “natural immunity” as being somehow inherently superior to vaccine-induced immunity, which is apparently “artificial”. This is a trope that comes from alternative medicine concepts about purity and contamination that is now endangering us in the age of the pandemic.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Lipid nanoparticles: The antivax “toxins gambit” reborn for COVID-19 vaccines

Remember the “toxins gambit,” that antivaccine talking point falsely claiming that vaccines are loaded with “toxins”? It’s back for COVID-19 vaccines, and this time lipid nanoparticles are the new mercury and aluminum.