"A statement of fact cannot be insolent." The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine, quackery, science, and pseudoscience (and anything else that interests him).

Tag: plasmid

Antivaccine nonsense Quackery

Antivaxxers launch a frontal assault on the Killer Rabbit of plasmids

Post author By Orac
Post date October 28, 2024
No Comments on Antivaxxers launch a frontal assault on the Killer Rabbit of plasmids

Ever since recombinant DNA has been used to develop and manufacture vaccines, antivaxxers have portrayed it as evil. This weekend, an antivaxxer decided that fear mongering about SV40 in COVID-19 vaccines wasn’t enough. Here we go again…

Tags 2nd Smartest Guy in the World, Ah Kahn Syed, antivaccine, Arkmedic, COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccine, David Speicher, DNA contamination, Kevin McKernan, mRNA vaccine, Phillip Buckhaults, plasmid, polio vaccine, SV40, vaccines

Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

VAERS and plasmid DNA “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines: The nonsense continues

Post author By Orac
Post date October 21, 2023
151 Comments on VAERS and plasmid DNA “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines: The nonsense continues

This week, a new preprint made the social media rounds falsely claiming a correlation between “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines with plasmid DNA and VAERS reports of adverse events. How does its methodology stink? Let me count the ways.

Tags antivaccine, bad science, contamination, COVID vaccine, COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, DNA, fluorometry, Kevin McKernan, molecular biology, PCR, plasmid, plasmid DNA, qPCR, qRT-PCR, quantitative PCR, Qubit, vaccines, Wafik El-Deiry

Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine

“Contamination” of COVID vaccines with SV40: The stupidity continues

Post author By Orac
Post date July 20, 2023
24 Comments on “Contamination” of COVID vaccines with SV40: The stupidity continues

SV40 Peter McCullough — Being interviewed by Alex Jones is not a good look for a physician.

It’s ba-ack. Dr. Peter McCullough has latched onto a recent claim that COVID-19 vaccines are contaminated with cancer-causing “SV40.” It’s all biobabble bereft of understanding of basic molecular biology. Again.

Antivaccine nonsense Biology Cancer Medicine Science

Return of the revenge of “vaccines permanently alter your DNA”

Post author By Orac
Post date June 6, 2023
104 Comments on Return of the revenge of “vaccines permanently alter your DNA”

In a new twist on the “vaccines permanently alter your DNA” trope that antivaxxers love, a microbiologist named Kevin McKernan is falsely claiming that contaminating plasmid DNA from COVID-19 vaccines can get into the nucleus during cell division and “permanently alter your DNA” to horrible effect.