Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

The latest antivaccine lie about COVID-19 vaccines: “They’re gene therapy!”

There’s a new antivaccine talking point in town, and it’s just as much disinformation as other antivaccine talking points. It’s the claim that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are not really vaccines but “medical devices,” “gene therapy,” or “experimental biologics” and that they were falsely classified as vaccines in order to bypass safety testing. Here, we discuss why this claim is utter nonsense based on the highly deceptive use of terminology.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Dr. Joseph Mercola: A quack tycoon funding antivaccine causes

Dr. Joseph Mercola has built a massive alternative health empire. Unfortunately, he’s now using his wealth to fund antivaccine propaganda.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

It’s September. That must mean it’s time for fear mongering about the flu vaccine.

September is the time for antivaccine fear mongering about the flu vaccine, this time with a hint of COVID-19 pseudoscience.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Anti-lockdown ideologues’ “science” is now as bad as antivaccine “science”

Anti-lockdown ideologues are now falling prey to the ecological fallacy in their bad epidemiological studies in the same way antivaxxers have been doing for years. Cranks gonna crank, I guess.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

WTF happened to The BMJ?

The BMJ recently published an “exposé” by Paul Thacker alleging patient unblinding, data falsification, and other wrongdoing by a subcontractor. It was a highly biased story embraced by antivaxxers, with a deceptively framed narrative and claims not placed into proper context, leading me to look into the broader question: WTF happened to The BMJ? (Updated and revised from a week ago.)