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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

Study laundering: Retracted antivax studies resurrected in fake journals

Antivaxxers don’t like it when one of their crappy studies that they somehow managed to sneak into a decent peer-reviewed journal is deservedly retracted, as happened to Mark Skidmore’s paper that estimated that 278K people might have died from COVID-19 vaccines. Fortunately for Skidmore and others, there exist fake journals that will launder their study by republishing it so that antivaxxers can continue to claim the work has been published in a “peer-reviewed journal.”

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery

Quackery and antivax are inseparable

A recent study reaffirms the high degree of correlation among physicians between antivax views and an embrace of quackery. This is an old finding that needs to be documented periodically and shows why the acceptance of non-science-based treatments by physicians endangers vaccination efforts.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture

Powerful people like Rep. Jim Jordan are promoting health misinformation

Misinformation and conspiracy theories about health had long been a growing problem before the pandemic, but it took COVID-19 to get the government and researchers to take it seriously. Now, a new report in The Washington Post adds to previous reporting from multiple sources describing how allies of misinformation—and not just health misinformation—are striking back under the guise of defending “free speech.”

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Homeopathy Medicine Naturopathy Quackery

The WHO endorses quackery…even homeopathy!

A week ago, the World Health Organization held the First WHO Traditional Medicine Global Summit this weekend. Unfortunately, its claims of being “evidence-based” aside, the conference followed the WHO’s usual pattern of serving as one-sided propaganda.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Quackery

State medical boards have always been toothless

A recent report in The Washington Post last week reveals just how badly state medical boards have been failing when dealing with physicians spreading COVID-19 misinformation and using quackery to prevent and treat the disease. None of this is anything new, unfortunately. The pandemic has merely stress tested state medical boards, and most have failed because of political choices made long ago.