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Antivaccine nonsense Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Quoth antivaxxers: “Big pharma got Tucker Carlson!”

Tucker Carlson was fired on Monday. Antivaxxers are blaming big pharma because he had aired a segment attacking Pfizer and its COVID-19 vaccine.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

Return of the revenge of “no saline placebo RCTs” for childhood vaccines

Thanks to RFK Jr. the deceptive claim that the childhood vaccine schedule has never been tested in a randomized controlled trial with a saline placebo control is making the rounds again.This is an old and deceptive antivax half-truth that ignores both what constitutes a scientifically valid placebo and the ethical requirement that RCTs have clinical equipoise.

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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

Antivaxxers rejoice over the spillover of distrust of COVID-19 vaccines to all vaccines

Distrust of COVID-19 vaccines has led to spillover of distrust to all childhood vaccines, and among antivaxxers antivaxxers is much rejoicing.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery

Antivax quacks: It’s always (also) about the grifter and grift

When it comes to the behavior of antivax quacks, I like to say: Come for the quackery and ideology, stay for the grift. A Washington Post story this week confirms this characterization.