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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Rappin’ Hillary Simpson, #crazymothers, and #DearDoctor: Antivaxers blaming doctors for vaccinating children. Again.

Hillary Simpson created the Facebook group #crazymothers to co-opt the perception that the science-based world has of her and her fellow antivax mothers. Now, she’s cooked up a hashtag and social media campaign called #DearDoctor to encourage mothers to harass their child’s former pediatricians by writing letters blaming them for vaccinating and supposedly causing their children’s autism. Oh, and she does freestyle rap, too. Badly. Oh, so badly.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

How antimaskers co-opt techniques of scientific data analysis to generate COVID-19 propaganda

There’s a new paper out analyzing how antimask activists weaponize the tools of data visualization and scientific argumentation to produce convincing antimask propaganda. Antimaskers are claiming that it shows that they are more “scientific” than those supporting the consensus viewpoint with respect to COVID-19 and masks. What it really shows is that they are good at weaponizing the tools of data visualization and scientific arguments to come to the conclusions that they want to come to.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Quackery

AAPS sues for its “right” to promote antivaccine misinformation

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) sues Adam Schiff for the right to promote antivaccine misinformation, accomplishing nothing more than demonstrating that the group is indeed antivaccine.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Quackery

Why did the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities elect antivaccine quack Yehuda Shoenfeld to its ranks?

Last month, the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities elected antivax quack Yehuda Shoenfeld to its ranks? Why and how could this have happened?

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

An antivaccine “Circle of Mamas” has “questions” about vaccines. Orac has answers.

An antivaccine Circle of Mamas has asked a bunch of disingenuous questions about vaccines that have gone viral. Fortunately, Orac has answers.