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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Biology Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience: PubPeer versus antivaxers

Last week, I wrote about a truly execrable bit of science by Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic purporting to show that aluminum adjuvants cause brain inflammation, which causes autism. Since then, I’ve learned that, not only is it bad science, but that there are red flags about several of the figures to raise the specter of fraud. This might not be just bad science. It might be fraudulent science. The only way to resolve this would be for the authors to release the original full resolution images of their blots.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Wake up, Sheeple! Or how a dubious sheep study is being spun by antivaxers

A group of Spanish veterinary researchers claim that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines make sheep sick. To prove it, they injected a small number of sheep with massive amounts of adjuvants and vaccines and did a whole lot of comparisons, including behavioral observations with a large subjective component. Surprise! They think they’ve found something. Less surprising, the antivaxers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are pointing to the study as evidence of how dangerous vaccines are.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bioethics Biology Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Torturing more mice in the name of antivaccine pseudoscience, 2017 aluminum edition

Over the last couple of days I noted a disturbance in the antivaccine force, another study claimed to be slam dunk evidence that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines cause autism. It’s not. Also, a word to antivaxers challenging Orac to look at this study: Be very careful what you wish for…

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Movies Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Death by Gardasil? Not so fast… (2018 edition)

There is a type of “vaccine injury” story promoted by the antivaccine movement that is particularly pernicious, a narrative I call “death by Gardasil.” The stories, which use tenuous connections between vaccination against HPV to prevent cervical cancer and the unexpected death of a teen or young adult, are always tragic, and you can’t help but feel incredible empathy for the parents. However, none of these stories constitute compelling evidence that Gardasil kills young people. Basically, antivaxers exploit the grief of these parents and their understandable desire to find a cause for their child’s demise to demonize HPV vaccinations as dangerous and deadly.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

One more time: HPV vaccination is not associated with primary ovarian insufficiency

Antivaxers claim that HPV vaccination causes primary ovarian insufficiency, also known as premature ovarian failure. A large epidemiological study has just shown them to be wrong. As usual.