BMJ senior editor Peter Doshi has been casting doubt on vaccine safety and efficacy since 2009. Now he’s “just asking questions” about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in a BMJ article reprinted verbatim by antivaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Why does The BMJ still employ him?
A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that nearly two thirds of antivaccine disinformation on social media comes from 12 sources, dubbed the “disinformation dozen.”
I recently criticized Dr. Hooman Noorchashm’s warning about COVID-19 vaccines to #ScreenB4Vaccine. Amazingly, the kerfuffle is still going on a week later. Here I will explain why his hypothesis is, from a basic science standpoint, not very plausible and not supported by epidemiology.
Regular readers of this blog know that many forms of quackery and science denial have conspiracy theories associated with them, but a further examination suggests that all science denial a form of conspiracy theory. In the middle of a deadly pandemic, it is a form of conspiracy theory with potentially deadly consequences.
Dr. Hooman Noorchashm has raised a concern about vaccinating people who’ve had COVID-19 before. Unfortunately, he is allowing antivaxxers to co-opt his concern to spread fear of COVID-19 vaccines. [Note: There is an addendum to this post. Please read it.]
