I have been critical about John Ioannidis over a number of his statements about the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he’s done it again, producing a poor-quality paper whose unwritten assumptions suggest that the Carl Sagan effect, in which scientists are penalized professionally by their peers for becoming popular science communicators, still holds considerable sway in science and medicine.
Ivermectin has been hyped without good evidence as a highly effective treatment for COVID-19. One major “positive” ivermectin study was shown to be likely fraudulent. Now others are looking dicey.
Tom Chivers takes Lee McIntyre to task over his book How to Talk to a Science Denier. In the process he shows himself to be a crappy Bayesian and a “reasonable” apologist for science denial.
There have always been “reasonable” apologists for the antivaccine movement. Thanks to COVID-19 their prominence has increased as they mistakenly conflate “antivaccine” with “vaccine hesitant.”
The Federation of State Medical Boards issued a statement that doctors spreading COVID-19 misinformation should be disciplined. It’s toothless, of course, as evidenced by the rarity of a state medical board taking action against such doctors.
