Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Popular culture

Doctors who should know better dumpster dive in VAERS

“Dumpster diving” is a term used to describe studies using data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System database by authors, almost always antivaxxers, who don’t understand its limitations. Last week, non-antivax doctors who should know better fell into this trap when they promoted their study suggesting that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are more dangerous to children than the disease.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience

Vaccines cause female infertility: Another antivax lie resurrected and repackaged for COVID-19

Antivaxxers have been claiming that vaccines cause female infertility for as long as I can remember. So it’s not surprising that they are now claiming that COVID-19 vaccines will make women infertile. Their assertion is based on a highly speculative and incredibly unlikely immunologic mechanism. Same as it ever was.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Skepticism/critical thinking

Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine safety during a pandemic

Last year, the Trump administration essentially disbanded the National Vaccine Program Office, folding it into an office focused on infectious diseases. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. What does this mean for monitoring the safety of the soon-to-be-approved COVID-19 vaccines?

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Stroke: An underappreciated complication of chickenpox that we should never see

An 11-month old boy suffered a stroke after chickenpox, an underappreciated risk of varicella zoster infection. This catastrophe could have been avoided if his parents had just vaccinated his two older siblings.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

One more time: HPV vaccination is not associated with primary ovarian insufficiency

Antivaxers claim that HPV vaccination causes primary ovarian insufficiency, also known as premature ovarian failure. A large epidemiological study has just shown them to be wrong. As usual.