Antivaccine activists and quacks often weaponize legitimate concerns about industry conflicts of interest in medicine into the “shill gambit,” in which they accuse critics and defenders of science-based medicine of being in the pay of big pharma. However, the rise of physician-influencers and, in particular, Subscription Substack show that not all conflicts of interest are from industry or even financial.
Antivaxxers love surveys. This time BMC Infectious Diseases has the dubious “honor” of publishing a truly awful one by an economist named Mark Skidmore that claims that COVID-19 vaccine have killed nearly 300K people.
Thanks to Elon Musk, two-year-old videos showing people claiming to have “seizures” and “spasms” due to #CovidVaccines have resurfaced and gone viral. Antivaxxers are partying like it’s 2009—or 2021.
Since Dr. Harriet Hall (a.k.a. The SkepDoc) died last week, antivaxxers have been blaming COVID-19 vaccines. Their vileness knows no limits.
In a classic case of projection, Joe Mercola claims a “pandemic of misinformed doctors.” He’s right, but not for the reason he thinks. The misinformed doctors are him and his fellow antivax docs.
