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Antivaccine nonsense Computers and social media Medicine Politics Popular culture

Defeat The Mandates: Green Our Vaccines reconstituted for COVID-19

A month ago, Dr. Robert Malone announced the “Defeat the Mandates” rally on Joe Rogan’s podcast, to be held this Sunday. I sensed many echoes of Jenny McCarthy’s 2008 “Green Our Vaccines” rally, although what’s different is even more disturbing than the antivaccine misinformation that’s the same.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Claiming the mantle of “reasonableness” by attacking even worse cranks

A couple of days ago, Joe Mercola tried to seem “reasonable” by contrasting himself to other quacks by “conceding” that SARS-CoV-2 actually exists. Last night Dr. Vinay Prasad tried to do the same thing by “analyzing” the appearances of conspiracy theorists on Joe Rogan’s show. The parallels are eerie.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Brownstone Institute embraces its inner antivaxxer

The Brownstone Institute, a spinoff of AIER and the “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” is now embracing its inner antivaxxer by likening vaccine mandates to “othering,” including slavery and Nazi persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

2021: The year the weaponization of VAERS went mainstream

Misuse of the VAERS database to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines has been a favorite technique of antivaxxers for decades. Unfortunately, 2021 was the year when this particular antivax trope was turbocharged. (Note: Orac will be taking a week off after this—see note in post.)

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

The BMJ editors strike back against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook

The BMJ’s outgoing editor Fiona Godlee and incoming editor wrote open letter to Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s labeling Paul Thacker’s conspiracy-filled Pfizer story as lacking context. It did not go well. Actually, it was downright embarrassing.