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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

VAERS and plasmid DNA “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines: The nonsense continues

This week, a new preprint made the social media rounds falsely claiming a correlation between “contamination” of COVID-19 vaccines with plasmid DNA and VAERS reports of adverse events. How does its methodology stink? Let me count the ways.

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine

“Contamination” of COVID vaccines with SV40: The stupidity continues

It’s ba-ack. Dr. Peter McCullough has latched onto a recent claim that COVID-19 vaccines are contaminated with cancer-causing “SV40.” It’s all biobabble bereft of understanding of basic molecular biology. Again.

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Antivaccine nonsense Biology Cancer Medicine Science

Return of the revenge of “vaccines permanently alter your DNA”

In a new twist on the “vaccines permanently alter your DNA” trope that antivaxxers love, a microbiologist named Kevin McKernan is falsely claiming that contaminating plasmid DNA from COVID-19 vaccines can get into the nucleus during cell division and “permanently alter your DNA” to horrible effect.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

CGGCGG: The latest new-old wrinkle in the COVID-19 “lab leak” conspiracy theory

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial claiming that the sequence CGGCGG in SARS-CoV-2 means that the coronavirus must be engineered. It’s utter nonsense.

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine

Molecular biology has a “central dogma,” so why not alternative medicine. Here, I argue that the central dogma of alternative medicine is The Secret.