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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

“New school” anti-(COVID-19)-vaxxers are all-in on “old school” vaccines-cause-autism antivax

Over the last month, Orac has noticed that “new school” COVID-19 antivaxxers are rediscovering old school “vaccines cause autism” pseudoscience in a huge way. Also, there’s transphobia. Lots of transphobia. WTF is going on?

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

ProtocolKills.com revisited: Misinformed refusal turned up to 11

Back in the day, I used to refer to something I dubbed “misinformed refusal,” a term that refers to how antivaxxers had weaponized “informed consent” by inverting it to frighten parents against vaccinating. In the age of the pandemic, ProtocolKills.com generalizes misinformed refusal to all COVID-19 treatments.

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

Jennifer Margulis: The intersection between antivaccine beliefs and cancer quackery

Antivaccine activist Jennifer Margulis announced last week that she likely has ocular melanoma. She is also seeking “alternative healing,” thus demonstrating how tightly antivax views are intertwined with anti-medicine views.

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

ProtocolKills.com: An old quack narrative reborn for COVID-19

Quacks claim that medicine, not the disease, kills, with their nostrums as the cure. ProtocolKills.com shows that victims and their families are often their best spokespeople because they are so sympathetic and questioning their testimonials is easily portrayed as attacking very sympathetic victims, just as Stanislaw Burzynski did for decades before the pandemic.

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Antivaccine nonsense Politics Popular culture Skepticism/critical thinking

Quoth antivaxxers: “Big pharma got Tucker Carlson!”

Tucker Carlson was fired on Monday. Antivaxxers are blaming big pharma because he had aired a segment attacking Pfizer and its COVID-19 vaccine.