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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 19: Del Bigtree and Polly Tommey edition

It’s been a while since I paid attention to the movie, but the publicity among the antivaccine movement for Andrew Wakefield’s and Del Bigtree’s movie VAXXED: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe continues apace. Sadly, I missed my opportunity to see Bigtree himself doing a Q&A for the movie when it rolled through Detroit a a week […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Politics

“Voices of the Vaccine-injured”: Old school antivax nonsense on steroids

Yesterday, Sen. Ron Johnson held a hearing, “Voices of the Vaccine-injured.” As expected, the misinformation and conspiracy theories flowed.

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Antivaccine nonsense Politics

Antivaxxers will testify before a Senate committee…again

Sen. Ron Johnson is at it again, this time promoting an antivax hearing called Voices of the Vaccine Injured at the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

The soft eugenics of MAHA: Measles and RFK Jr.

I’ve long said that the antivax movement is borderline eugenicist (or at least social Darwinist) in nature. Given the ongoing measles outbreak, with two children dead so far, it’s time for me to take a look at the “soft eugenics” of the antivax movement and, more generally, the MAHA movement.

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine

Myrna Mantaring and the bogus claim that COVID-19 vaccines caused a 1,432.33% increase in cancer

Myrna Mattaring, a retired scientist who worked in diagnostic labs, claims that COVID-19 vaccines caused a 1432% increase in cancer cases, a clearly impossible claim. Here I make a plea for examining such claims, including a much more famous and accepted one, with basic math.