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Antivaccine nonsense Politics Popular culture

SB 277 and bogus medical exemptions to vaccine mandates in California

In 2015 California passed SB 277, which eliminated nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. Unfortunately quacks are writing bogus exemptions. What can be done?

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

The violent rhetoric of the antivaccine movement intensifies

Violent rhetoric has always been part of the antivaccine movement.Leaders of the antivax movement, like Del Bigtree, use apocalyptic and violent rhetoric, and then deny that they’ve done so. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting worse, and I fear violence.

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 27: Vaccine mandates as “medical rape” (again)

It’s ba-ack. In response to efforts to make personal belief exemptions harder to obtain, an old and particularly vile antivax trope is back: Vaccine mandates as rape, with a new #metoo-inspired twist, namely “vaccine injured” children as victims of sexual assault whose assaulters are trying to silence them.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

The problem with SB 277, the law that eliminated personal belief exemptions (PBEs) in California

in 2015, SB 277 was passed in California, eliminating personal belief exemptions (PBEs) to its school vaccine mandate beginning in 2016. Two years on, health officials express frustration with shortcomings of the law, the two most glaring of which involve their lack of authority to deny scientifically bogus medical exemptions sold by antivaccine doctors and their lack of authority and resources to track medical exemptions.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Bioethics Medicine Politics

A belated Fourth of July antivaccine rant about “zero tolerance vaccine laws,” courtesy of Barbara Loe Fisher

It may be two days after the 4th of July, but it’s never too late to deconstruct a holiday-inspired antivaccine rant about “zero tolerance vaccine laws” by the grand dame of the antivaccine movement.