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Naturopathy Quackery

Resurrecting old tropes about naturopathy

Way back in prepandemic times, naturopaths claimed that they could help with the shortage of primary care docs. They’re doing it again in 2023. They were wrong then and are wrong now.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking Sports

Why did antivaxxers seize on the Damar Hamlin case?

When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed from an on-field cardiac arrest most likely due to chest trauma, antivaxxers quickly blamed COVID-19 vaccines. The reason was a particularly nasty preexisting variant of the “died suddenly” myth in which athletes are dropping dead from the vaccine. They aren’t.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine Politics Science

Projection and methodolatry over COVID-19

Projection, thy name is Dr. Vinay Prasad, who complains about “ad hominem” coming from his critics while siding with some nasty COVID-19 minimizers, as he engages in obvious methodolatry about every study of vaccines, masks, and COVID-19.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Science

NIH grant funding decisions: Reality vs. antivax conspiracies

Earlier this month, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a plan to decrease the problem of reputational bias in grant funding. I couldn’t help but contrast how hard the NIH tries to use the most rigorous scientific criteria to decide whose grants to fund with the conspiracy theory that Anthony Fauci personally doles out NIH dollars like a mob boss to scientists who support him.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Movies Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery

“Died Suddenly”: Resurrecting the old antivax lie of depopulation

Everything old is new again when it comes to antivax tropes. Died Suddenly resurrects the old antivax conspiracy that vaccines kill, the plan being to cause “depopulation” that would allow “global elites” to control the world.