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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Popular culture

Doctors who should know better dumpster dive in VAERS

“Dumpster diving” is a term used to describe studies using data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System database by authors, almost always antivaxxers, who don’t understand its limitations. Last week, non-antivax doctors who should know better fell into this trap when they promoted their study suggesting that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are more dangerous to children than the disease.

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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.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Cancer Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

“Naturopathic oncologist” Colleen Huber goes full COVID-19 quack

Colleen Huber has gone full COVID-19 quack, because of course she has. She’s a “naturopathic oncologist,” and it was always to be expected.

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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine

Ecological fallacy: When a scientist (inadvertently, I hope) uses a favorite antivax form of study

A longtime favorite technique of antivaxxers has been to do bad ecological studies to imply that vaccines cause harm. Why is a Harvard investigator inadvertently using the ecological fallacy the same way antivaxxers used to do before COVID-19?

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Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 5: But it won the Nobel Prize!

Ivermectin continues to be the new hydroxychloroquine, an unproven repurposed drug promoted to treat COVID-19. Now the advocates are pointing to the history of the drug’s developers being awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, as though that has anything to do with its effectiveness against COVID-19.