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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 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.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

2021: The year the weaponization of VAERS went mainstream

Misuse of the VAERS database to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines has been a favorite technique of antivaxxers for decades. Unfortunately, 2021 was the year when this particular antivax trope was turbocharged. (Note: Orac will be taking a week off after this—see note in post.)

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Popular culture

Is the current generation of children the “sickest generation,” as antivaxers claim?

Presidential candidate and New Age self-help guru Marianne Williamson has been repeating a claim that over half of our children have chronic illness and implying that the expansion of the vaccine schedule since the late 1980s is responsible. But is it true? Are over half of our children sick? Is this “the sickest generation”?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Biology Medicine Science

No, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do NOT “hack the software of life”

Antivaxxers and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists were always going to spin conspiracies about COVID-19 vaccines. Unfortunately, some scientists have made it so much easier for them by having likened mRNA vaccines to “hacking the software of life” and being unclear on what gene therapy is.