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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Religion

Richard Dawkins’ painfully simplistic take on measles among Orthodox Jews: “Religion poisons everything.”

Richard Dawkins saw the measles outbreaks among the Orthodox Jews of Brooklyn and Rockland County, and Tweeted, “Religion poisons everything.” Unfortunately for him, it’s way more complicated than that.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

The violent rhetoric of the antivaccine movement intensifies

Violent rhetoric has always been part of the antivaccine movement.Leaders of the antivax movement, like Del Bigtree, use apocalyptic and violent rhetoric, and then deny that they’ve done so. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting worse, and I fear violence.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Religion

Ginger Taylor, MS dubiously invokes “religious freedom” to argue against vaccination

On the eve of Easter and Passover, Ginger Taylor, MS (the MS is in Dunning-Kruger, apparently) tried to invoke several religions to argue for the right not to vaccinate on religious grounds. As usual, it did not go well.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

The GOP has become the party of antivaxers, 2019 edition

Antivaccine beliefs occur at the same prevalence on the left and right, only the GOP promotes policies to make opting out of vaccines easier. All over the country, Republican politicians are opposing making school vaccine mandates stricter, proposing laws to loosen vaccination requirements, and falling for antivaccine pseudoscience.

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Anti-Semitism Antivaccine nonsense Autism Bad science

Measles outbreaks among Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and Michigan: Compare and contrast

There’s an ongoing measles outbreak among the Orthodox Jewish community in southeast Michigan. The genesis of the outbreak is more complex than the usual “antivaxers did it” narrative, and this outbreak shows how we’re all interconnected.