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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Stanford University promotes disastrous “natural herd immunity” approaches to the pandemic

A week and a half ago, Stanford University announced a conference on pandemic policy that features several of the usual suspects who spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Truly, Stanford has become the “respectable” academic face of efforts to undermine public health.

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

Michael Yeadon turns on ivermectin, and hilarity ensues

Antivaxxer Michael Yeadon helped initiate and popularize the myth that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility. Now he’s turned on ivermectin, the favorite quack cure for COVID-19, and I’m here for it.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Politics Popular culture

“Lab leak” is now very much like antivax in its harms to public health

Ever since COVID-19 first emerged in 2020, evidence-free claims that it had arisen due to a “lab leak” have proliferated and caused as much harm as antivax. A recent paper argues that this conspiracy theory has been very harmful to science. I argue that it’s more than just lab leak that is harmful.

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Antivaccine nonsense News of the Weird Politics

RFK Jr. is incredibly bizarre

The New Yorker published a story reporting that RFK Jr. picked up a bear cub killed by a car and dumped it in Central Park as a joke. WTF? I knew that RFK Jr. and his antivax conspiracy theories were bizarre, but WTF?

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Medicine Politics Popular culture

Public health science saves lives

Christopher Ruhm, COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccine, cross-sectional study, epidemiology, excess deaths, excess mortality, public health, vaccines.