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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaxxers don’t want COVID-19 vaccines to “impurify” their “purity of essence”

Antivaxxers frequently make the false claim that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines “permanently alter your DNA.” These claims are really a concern about “impurifying” their “purity of essence.”

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

AMPFest: Antivaxxers team up with QAnon and COVID-19 cranks

AMPFest is happening this week, and it’s a conspiracyfest featuring QAnon, Trump supporters, COVID-19 deniers, and antivaxxers. It should surprise no one how easily antivaxxers fit in with QAnon.

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Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Integrative medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Fabrizio Benedetti asks: “Does placebo research boost pseudoscience?”

Professor Fabrizio Benedetti is the most famous and almost certainly also the most influential researcher investigating the physiology of placebo effects. In a recent commentary, he asks whether placebo research is fueling quackery, as quacks co-opt its results. The answer to that question is certainly yes. A better question is: How do supporters of science counter the placebo narrative promoted by quacks, in which placebos represent the “power of the mind to heal the body”?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Evolution Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Geert Vanden Bossche is to COVID-19 vaccines as Andrew Wakefield is to MMR

Geert Vanden Bossche is a scientist who published an open letter warning of global catastrophe due to deadly variants of COVID-19 selected for by mass vaccination. His argument sounds a lot like an argument Andrew Wakefield once made for MMR. There’s even grift likely involved!

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

“We need to catch that cold!”: Antivaxxers and COVID-19 deniers vs. public health

Antivaccine activist Del Bigtree posted a rant denying the severity of COVID-19, blaming the chronically ill for having made themselves vulnerable to severe disease through their lifestyle choices, and urging the young and healthy to “catch this cold”. His rant shows exactly why COVID-19 conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers have such an affinity for each other and resist public health initiatives.