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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Antivax rhetoric from Dr. Lee Hieb in 2015: The Song Remains the Same

The names change, but the song remains the same. Such is antivax rhetoric during the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cue Dr. Lee Hieb from 2015, who very much resembles a familiar figure in 2022.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Pseudoscience

A risible attack on the “priesthood” of “scientific gatekeeping”

A surgeon attacks “scientific gatekeeping” over COVID-19 in Reason. It goes so poorly that I might have to resurrect an old shtick that I used to use with creationist surgeons.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Medicine

Bioethics recycles old antivax tropes about COVID vaccines for children

A recent article in Bioethics makes ethical arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19. If you change the word “COVID-19” to measles, chickenpox, or rotavirus (or others), this article could have been published on one of the higher-brow antivax websites in 2010. Antivax arguments never change; they’re just continually recycled.

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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Yet another negative ivermectin study, this time in the NEJM

Yesterday the The New England Journal of Medicine published a high quality clinical trial that found no benefit in treating COVID-19 with ivermectin. Cue attacks on the study.

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Bad science Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture

These days, ivermectin reminds me of acupuncture

As high-quality evidence increasingly and resoundingly shows that ivermectin does not work against COVID-19, advocates are doing what acupuncture advocates do: Turning to lower quality “positive” studies to claim incorrectly that their favorite ineffective treatment actually does “work.”