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

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 24: Antivaxers threaten to dox Boston Herald employees over the newspaper’s use of imagery much less offensive than what antivaxers use on a daily basis

Last week, the Boston Herald published an editorial about how antivaxers deceived a community of Somali immigrants in Minnesota, referring to the spreading of deadly misinformation as a “hanging offense.” Antivaxers took an ill-advised idiom and turned it into a threat of mass lynchings, ignoring their own violent imagery about vaccines and portraying themselves as “pro-vaccine,” and used it as justification to threaten to publish the home addresses and phone numbers of newspaper employees. Yes, they are disingenuous and hypocritical as hell.

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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.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Bioethics Medicine Politics

A belated Fourth of July antivaccine rant about “zero tolerance vaccine laws,” courtesy of Barbara Loe Fisher

It may be two days after the 4th of July, but it’s never too late to deconstruct a holiday-inspired antivaccine rant about “zero tolerance vaccine laws” by the grand dame of the antivaccine movement.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Surprise! Relatively small decreases in vaccine uptake can lead to big increases in vaccine-preventable disease!

Whenever vaccine uptake falls to a level below that needed to maintain herd immunity, the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases climbs. It doesn’t take that dramatic of a decline. Here’s a study that shows how a small decrease in vaccine uptake can lead to a large increase in disease.

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Antivaccine nonsense Homeopathy Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Dr. David Brownstein fought Shingrix, and Shingrix won

Dr. David Brownstein is a “holistic” family practice physician in my area. Consistent with being “holistic,” he is antivaccine to the core. That’s why he’s unhappy with the recent CDC recommendation that adults over 50 receive the new shingles vaccine. He thinks he’s found a clever argument to show it doesn’t work. Unfortunately, his argument only reveals his bias and misunderstanding.