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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

The Brownstone Institute: Promoting antivaccine misinformation in Africa

The signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration and its “spiritual child” the Brownstone Institute, swear up and down that they are not anttivaccine. If that’s so, why are Brownstone-affiliated academics spreading antivaccine misinformation in Uganda (and everywhere else)?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Clinical trials Medicine

Update: An antivax preprint is now antivax propaganda disguised as a peer-reviewed publication in…Vaccine!

In order portray COVID-19 vaccines as dangerous, Peter Doshi has now managed to get poorly designed and performed “reanalyses” of the clinical trial data used by the FDA to grant emergency use approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines published in two reputable journals, The BMJ and Vaccine? What happened?

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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Politics

Remdesivir: Gilead wins with unimpressive results announced by press release

On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced positive results for the antiviral drug remdesivir treating COVID-19. They were unimpressive and, suspiciously, announced by press release rather than scientific paper. It’s all very fishy, but one thing’s for sure. Gilead Sciences will make boatloads of money.

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Medicine Popular culture Science Skepticism/critical thinking

“COVID parties”: Almost certainly an urban legend

There have been stories of “COVID parties,” where young people intentionally try to catch COVID-19. They are almost certainly urban legends.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

No, the rush for a COVID-19 vaccine is not turning provaccine advocates into antivaxxers

There is already widespread distrust of a COVID-19 vaccine, even before a vaccine is approved. Contrary to claims from antivaxxers, that doesn’t mean provaxxers are becoming antivax.