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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

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.

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Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Placebos without deception: Misinformation that never dies

He’s ba-ack! Longtime “integrative medicine” apologist and exaggerator of the “power of placebos” Ted Kaptchuk is promting misinformation again in an op-ed in The New York Times.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

Quoth Phillip Buckhaults: Oh, no! There’s DNA in COVID-19 vaccines!

It’s back! Just when you thought the “DNA in vaccines” stupidity had subsided, it’s back, courtesy of Dr. Phillip Buckhaults.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

Vaccines and SIDS: Steve Kirsch amps up the stupid

Antivaxxers have long claimed that childhood vaccines cause sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Now “new school” antivaxxer Steve Kirsch has resurrected this hoary old lie using the thinnest of evidence plus a lot of handwaving.

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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine

“Whole body scans”: Back from the grave and ready to party

Two decades ago, I cut my skeptical teeth countering advertising for whole body scans by companies making extravagant promises for their products. This particular medical fad faded for a while, but now it’s back with a vengeance…with AI! Looking at these products, what I see is basically the quackery that is functional medicine on steroids and powered by AI.