Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Pseudoscience

The Centner Academy: A private school run by wealthy COVID-19 conspiracy theorists

David and Leila Centner run an expensive private school in Miami. Unfortunately, it’s a microcosm of what happens when antivaxxers and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists educate children. It’s not good.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Pseudoscience Quackery

Adventures of a science-based mole at an antivaccine crankfest (conclusion)

[Orac note: Welcome back, my friends, to the antivaccine show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend. Come inside, come inside. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Earlier this week, I published a rare guest post by a mole whose services were loaned to me by our great imperious leader Lord Draconis Zeneca (All hail!), to […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

Geert Vanden Bossche is back and still blaming vaccines for COVID-19 variants

Geert Vanden Bossche is back, and this time he’s blaming COVID-19 vaccines for driving the evolution of more dangerous “escape variants” of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease, that are capable of evading vaccine-induced immunity. As antivaxxers making this argument always do, unfortunately, he ignores the much larger problem in which free circulation of the virus is a far more powerful driver of evolution than the relatively small proportion of the world population that has as yet been vaccinated.

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

Oblivion Agenda: Mike Adams’ COVID-19-inspired update to his alien vaccine holocaust conspiracy theory

There’s nothing new under the sun in conspiracy theories. That’s why Mike Adams “Oblivion Agenda” is just an antivaccine “depopulation” conspiracy theory updated for the era of COVID-19.

Categories
Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Quacks misuse Koch’s postulates to deny that SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19

Science denialists and quacks love abusing Koch’s postulates to deny that various microorganisms are the true cause of disease; so it was inevitable that they’d do it for COVID-19.