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Bad science Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture

These days, ivermectin reminds me of acupuncture

As high-quality evidence increasingly and resoundingly shows that ivermectin does not work against COVID-19, advocates are doing what acupuncture advocates do: Turning to lower quality “positive” studies to claim incorrectly that their favorite ineffective treatment actually does “work.”

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

The Ohio statehouse has an antivaccine problem

Ohio, you have a definite antivaccine problem in your statehouse. Unfortunately, Ohio is not alone. Antivaxers have outsized influence in too many state legislatures.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Vaccine Guide: A “guide” to cherry picked antivaccine pseudoscience

Sometimes there are weeks where I decided to take care of something that’s been in the old Blog Fodder Folder on my computer and that I’ve been meaning to do a post about. Usually, because many of these are not time-sensitive, they get pushed back in priority whenever something that is time sensitive catches my […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Quackery

RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary will be a catastrophe for public health and medical research

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated antivax activist, conspiracy theorist, and all around crank Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. We are so screwed.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Quackery

AB 2098 is not “censorship”

One of the oldest tropes favored by quacks of all stripes, including antivaxxers, is to portray any attempt at regulating their quackery as an assault on freedom of speech. It’s therefore not surprising that after its passage by the California legislature prominent spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation are labeling AB 2098, which seeks clarify and codify the power of the Medical Board of California to discipline physicians for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, as creating “thoughtcrimes.”