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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience

Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19: Science-based medicine has no chance against Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, and Dr. Oz

President Trump’s COVID-19 advisors include Dr. Oz, Rudy Giuliani, and Peter Navarro, the latter an economist who thinks he can science better than Anthony Fauci. Can science- and evidence-based medicine prevail with respect to hydroxychloroquine and coronavirus?

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Bad science Bioethics Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience

Drs. Vladimir Zelenko and Stephen Smith: Abandoning evidence-based medicine to promote unproven drugs for COVID-19

Drs. Vladimir Zelenko and Stephen Smith have been claiming that hydroxychloroquine is a miracle drug based on anecdotes. Their shoddy, poorly reported case series are not evidence of efficacy.

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Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

The FDA’s emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19: Dangerous politics, not science

Yesterday, the FDA issued emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroqine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19. Politics, not science, is why.

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Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Religion

An embarrassing paean to reiki in The Atlantic

For some inexplicable reason, The Atlantic published an embarrassing paean to the mystical magical woo that is reiki.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Children’s Health Defense: Ten lies about vaccines

Children’s Health Defense is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s antivaccine group. Recently it posted a list of ten “facts” about vaccines. In reality, it’s ten bits of disinformation, half-truths, and lies.