Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Jennifer Margulis goes from antivax to anti-COVID-19 vaccine

Old school antivaxxer Jennifer Margulis goes new school with COVID-19 antivaccine conspiracy theories as satire. Her satire fails, both as satire and in accuracy.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Quackery

The accelerating war on science-based medical regulation

Last week, it was reported how increasingly there is a war on the science-based regulation of medicine and physicians. It’s an old story, but unfortunately the forces arrayed against science-based policy have been emboldened by the pandemic and an stronger alliance with political groups that are against government regulation in general.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Coronaphobia: How COVID-19 minimizers shame the responsible

Dr. Lucy McBride, a concierge medicine doctor who has become famous as a pandemic minimizer and one of the drivers of “Urgency of Normal”, Tweeted an article that she had written over a year ago about “coronaphobia”. Whether she understands it or not, this is a very old antivax trope: To pathologize fear of infectious disease as mental illness.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

Jennifer Margulis: The intersection between antivaccine beliefs and cancer quackery

Antivaccine activist Jennifer Margulis announced last week that she likely has ocular melanoma. She is also seeking “alternative healing,” thus demonstrating how tightly antivax views are intertwined with anti-medicine views.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science

Prions. Why did it have to be prions?

Prions. Why did it have to be prions? (Again.) The antivax trope that vaccines cause prion disease is an old one, and antivaxxers are trying desperately to resurrect it to apply to COVID-19 vaccines.