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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

The latest antivaccine lie about COVID-19 vaccines: “They’re gene therapy!”

There’s a new antivaccine talking point in town, and it’s just as much disinformation as other antivaccine talking points. It’s the claim that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not really vaccines but “medical devices,” “gene therapy,” or “experimental biologics” and that they were falsely classified as vaccines in order to bypass safety testing. Here, we discuss why this claim is utter nonsense based on the highly deceptive use of terminology.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Skepticism/critical thinking

Grifters gonna grift: Cancer quacks Ty and Charlene Bollinger pivot to antivaccine and “Stop the Steal” conspiracies

Ty Bollinger and his wife Charlene were noted for their promotion of cancer quackery. Now they’ve pivoted to antivaccine and COVID-19 quackery plus “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theories because grifters gonna grift. Always.

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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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Announcements Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Pseudoscience

Orac on Thinking Critically

So Orac appeared on the Thinking Critically podcast to discuss the sorts of things he often rambles on about right here on Respectful Insolence.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Computers and social media Medicine

Dr. Hooman Noorchashm and #ScreenB4Vaccine, revisited

I recently criticized Dr. Hooman Noorchashm’s warning about COVID-19 vaccines to #ScreenB4Vaccine. Amazingly, the kerfuffle is still going on a week later. Here I will explain why his hypothesis is, from a basic science standpoint, not very plausible and not supported by epidemiology.