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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

No License for Disinformation: Why are doctors so threatened?

It’s not “cancel culture” to take away the medical licenses of physicians promoting dangerous COVID-19 disinformation. It’s quality control. Why do so many doctors seem to think otherwise and react as though the concept threatens them?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Claiming the mantle of “reasonableness” by attacking even worse cranks

A couple of days ago, Joe Mercola tried to seem “reasonable” by contrasting himself to other quacks by “conceding” that SARS-CoV-2 actually exists. Last night Dr. Vinay Prasad tried to do the same thing by “analyzing” the appearances of conspiracy theorists on Joe Rogan’s show. The parallels are eerie.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Brownstone Institute embraces its inner antivaxxer

The Brownstone Institute, a spinoff of AIER and the “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” is now embracing its inner antivaxxer by likening vaccine mandates to “othering,” including slavery and Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine

Who could ever have seen this coming?

Since the pandemic I’ve said, “Everything old is new again”, referring to antivaxxers. As 2022 dawned, I thought I’d expand a bit on what I mean. Is there a term for déjà vu, but what I’m seeing now is amplified a thousand-fold? Who could ever have seen this coming? Only nearly all of us who have been paying attention to antivax misinformation and conspiracy theories.

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Autism Bad science Cancer Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

R.I.P., Gayle DeLong

Gayle DeLong was an antivaxxer best known for blaming HPV vaccines for infertility and blaming her breast cancer on her children’s autism. Yesterday, I learned that her “autism-induced breast cancer” had recently claimed her life.