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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery

A case study in fake news: Did the FBI raid the CDC based on the CDC whistleblower’s allegations?

Fake news has become an enormous problem. Here, Orac takes a look at a rather fascinating tidbit of fake news aimed at the antivaccine movement. Did the FBI really raid the CDC with the “CDC whistleblower” showing them what to find? Of course not. But a story like this is nearly irresistible to true believers that vaccines cause autism.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Television

Amazon, Facebook, and other streaming and social media platforms are finally cracking down on antivaccine misinformation

Over the last two weeks, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms started to crackdown on the spread of antivaccine misinformation on their services. Will it be enough?

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Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Antivaxers are petitioning the White House and Antivaxer-in-Chief President Donald Trump to listen to their demands.

Antivaxers think they have a friend in the White House, and they might very well be right.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Pseudoscience Quackery

Adventures of a science-based mole at an antivaccine crankfest (conclusion)

[Orac note: Welcome back, my friends, to the antivaccine show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend. Come inside, come inside. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Earlier this week, I published a rare guest post by a mole whose services were loaned to me by our great imperious leader Lord Draconis Zeneca (All hail!), to […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture

Are Russian bots being used to sow division over vaccines? Maybe.

A study released yesterday has led to numerous breathless headlines in the media about Russian bots on Twitter sowing discord about vaccines by spreading polarized antivaccine and provaccine messages. The stories imply that this is a huge problem. But is it? There’s no doubt that this study showed some Russian bots Tweeting polarized messages about vaccines, but, contrary to the news stories, it doesn’t support the concept of a widespread Russian effort to stoke conflict about vaccines. It’s unclear whether the Russian effort was opportunistic or experimental, but it wasn’t huge.