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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine

“Whole body scans”: Back from the grave and ready to party

Two decades ago, I cut my skeptical teeth countering advertising for whole body scans by companies making extravagant promises for their products. This particular medical fad faded for a while, but now it’s back with a vengeance…with AI! Looking at these products, what I see is basically the quackery that is functional medicine on steroids and powered by AI.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Evolution History Surgery

An antivaxxer abuses evolution to go full transphobe

Antivaxxer James Lyons-Weiler, like so many antivaxxers, just let his transphobe freak flag fly high. Does he have to abuse evolution too?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science

A mouse “died suddenly” of “turbo cancer” after COVID-19 vaccination

Last week, Stew Peters Tweeted out a link to a study in which a mouse “died suddenly” of “turbo cancer” after being vaccinated with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. This study is even more ridiculous than the usual “turbo cancer” study.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials

“No saline placebo-controlled vaccine trials”: An old antivax trope

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has resurrected the antivax claim that the childhood vaccine schedule has never been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a saline placebo controls (and therefore the vaccine schedule is unsafe). This is an old and deceptive antivax half-truth that ignores both what constitutes a scientifically valid placebo and the ethical requirements for RCTs.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Bill Ackman is shocked that people think he’s antivax

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wonders why people are calling him antivax. All he did was to defend RFK Jr. and amplify old antivax tropes on Twitter.