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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

Jessica Biel: The latest celebrity antivaxer comes out

Actress Jessica Biel Joined Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lobby California lawmakers to reject SB 276, a bill to stop bogus vaccine exemptions. Despite her claims that she’s “not antivax,” lobbying with a long time antivax crank like RFK, Jr. and expressing to legislators your belief that vaccines are both dangerous and ineffective are pretty much the definition of antivax.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Bioethics Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Peter Gøtzsche and the antivaxers

Recently, it was noted that Peter Gøtzsche, formerly of Cochrane Nordic, was featured on the speaker list for an antivaccine quackfest. Two days later, he announced that he would not be speaking there. So what happened and why did Prof. Gøtzsche agree to speak at an antivax conference in the first place?

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

The benefits of vaccinating against measles go beyond preventing measles (2019 edition)

It’s indisputable that vaccines protect against specific infectious diseases. What’s less well known is how a vaccine like the measles vaccine protects against more than just measles.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Wake up, Sheeple! Or how a dubious sheep study is being spun by antivaxers

A group of Spanish veterinary researchers claim that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines make sheep sick. To prove it, they injected a small number of sheep with massive amounts of adjuvants and vaccines and did a whole lot of comparisons, including behavioral observations with a large subjective component. Surprise! They think they’ve found something. Less surprising, the antivaxers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are pointing to the study as evidence of how dangerous vaccines are.

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine Politics Quackery

The problem with SB 277, the law that eliminated personal belief exemptions (PBEs) in California

in 2015, SB 277 was passed in California, eliminating personal belief exemptions (PBEs) to its school vaccine mandate beginning in 2016. Two years on, health officials express frustration with shortcomings of the law, the two most glaring of which involve their lack of authority to deny scientifically bogus medical exemptions sold by antivaccine doctors and their lack of authority and resources to track medical exemptions.