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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Transmission gambit: An old antivax trope is resurrected

Recently, antivaxxers were all over social media after Tucker Carlson touted a “revelation” that the phase 3 clinical trial used to support licensure of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine didn’t examine its ability to block transmission as meaning that its inability to block transmission had been “covered up”. It wasn’t, and antivaxxers are ignoring everything we’ve learned over the last two years to make the claim that vaccines “don’t prevent transmission”.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture

Defeat The Mandates: Green Our Vaccines reconstituted for COVID-19

A month ago, Dr. Robert Malone announced the “Defeat the Mandates” rally on Joe Rogan’s podcast, to be held this Sunday. I sensed many echoes of Jenny McCarthy’s 2008 “Green Our Vaccines” rally, although what’s different is even more disturbing than the antivaccine misinformation that’s the same.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Misuse of the VAERS database: An old antivax deception repackaged to spread fear of COVID-19 vaccines

With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines continuing apace, so are the efforts of antivaxxers to portray the vaccines as dangerous. This time around, they’ve resurrected the old antivaccine trick of deceptively misusing the VAERS database to imply causation from VAERS reports. That’s not how VAERS works, however.

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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 Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Christian Elliot’s “18 Reasons I Won’t Be Getting a Covid Vaccine”: 18 antivaccine lies

Christian Elliot is a self-proclaimed “natural health nerd” and entrepreneur who recently published 18 reasons why he wouldn’t take the COVID-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, it’s viral disinformation based on conspiracy theories, bad science, pseudoscience, and nonsense.