Categories
Bad science Biology Clinical trials Medicine Science Skepticism/critical thinking

SBM versus ivermectin and other implausible treatments

Another large randomized controlled trial for ivermectin showed no efficacy for the early treatment of COVID-19. This is not a surprise to science-based medicine advocates. Here’s why the story of ivermectin shows that SBM isn’t just for “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) —and never was.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Antivax rhetoric from Dr. Lee Hieb in 2015: The Song Remains the Same

The names change, but the song remains the same. Such is antivax rhetoric during the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cue Dr. Lee Hieb from 2015, who very much resembles a familiar figure in 2022.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Pseudoscience

A risible attack on the “priesthood” of “scientific gatekeeping”

A surgeon attacks “scientific gatekeeping” over COVID-19 in Reason. It goes so poorly that I might have to resurrect an old shtick that I used to use with creationist surgeons.

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Bioethics Medicine

Bioethics recycles old antivax tropes about COVID vaccines for children

A recent article in Bioethics makes ethical arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19. If you change the word “COVID-19” to measles, chickenpox, or rotavirus (or others), this article could have been published on one of the higher-brow antivax websites in 2010. Antivax arguments never change; they’re just continually recycled.

Categories
Bad science Clinical trials Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery

Yet another negative ivermectin study, this time in the NEJM

Yesterday the The New England Journal of Medicine published a high quality clinical trial that found no benefit in treating COVID-19 with ivermectin. Cue attacks on the study.