Faye Flam of Bloomberg Technology defended Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson against charges of being antivaccine and antiscience. It does not go well. Flam ignores the worst nonsense and misunderstands science.
Tag: vaccine
Vaccine Injury Epidemic (VIE) Event: Antivaxers will march on Washington again
Antivaxers are going to descend on Washington for their Vaccine Injury Epidemic (VIE) Event in November. Meet the new antivax march, same as the old antivaccine march.
Facebook joins Google in deprioritizing medical misinformation: Are social media companies finally “getting it”?
Yesterday, social media giant Facebook announced that it was acting against medical misinformation by using keyphrases to deprioritize results promoting misinformation and scams? Is it enough, and is it too late?
Chad Hermann and Todd Wolynn: On the nature of the antivaccine movement and lighting the signal fires of Gondor
Chad Hermann and Todd Wolynn published a study about antivaxers that basically confirmed a lot of what we know about how they use Facebook to harass their perceived enemies. More important is the work they're doing provide a way for those targeted by antivaxers for harassment to light signal fires to attract reinforcements.
Harassment of doctors and grieving mothers: A feature, not a bug, of the antivaccine movement
Harassment of its opponents is a feature, not a bug, of the antivaccine movement, even if the victims are grieving mothers. The idea is to harass and intimidate their opponents into silence.
James Lyon-Weiler and IPAK are running a dubious “vaxxed versus unvaxxed” study
An antivaccine group in Washington is raising money for a dubious "vaxxed/unvaxxed" study for IPAK, James Lyons-Weiler, a bioinformatics scientist turned antivaxer, who plans on analyzing data from a large practice.
Dr. David Brownstein versus the New York Times on vaccines
Dr. David Brownstein is a local "holistic medicine" doctor. Unhappy at a pro-vaccine New York Times editorial, he tried to refute it. It didn't go well—for Dr. Brownstein. His self-own was epic.
Another Waldorf School, another outbreak. Quelle surprise!
There's been an outbreak of chickenpox in North Carolina. Guess where it happened? Yes, at a Waldorf school. Quelle surprise! Waldorf Schools are a danger to the children who attend them and the communities in which they are located.
The ACIP, Paul Offit, and harassment by antivaxers
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is the committee that decides on the CDC-recommended vaccine schedule. Naturally, antivaxers don't like it—or any scientist on it. Or any vaccine advocate, for that matter. Paul Offit is a particular target of their ire, and they can be quite scary.
The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 was caused by an experimental vaccine? A conspiracy theory I hadn’t heard of before…
In this installment of Conspiracy Theory Bingo, Kevin Barry blames the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 on an experimental vaccine. Yes, Mr. Barry lets the conspiracy mongering and antivaccine tropes flow as he "investigates" the influenza pandemic of 1918. Being the antivaccine crank that he is, he concludes that the influenza virus didn't cause the disease that killed over 50 million people a hundred years ago. No! It was—of course—an experimental meningitis vaccine that caused bacterial pneumonia in Army recruits. Let's just say that there are numerous holes in Barry's claims.