Tag: Tess Lawrie

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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Medicine Quackery

Are ivermectin and fenbendazole the new laetrile? (Part two: ivermectin)

Ivermectin propaganda
This is an example of propaganda that promotes ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19. (It's also being promoted for cancer.)

Last week, I noticed fenbendazole being “repurposed” to treat cancer. Now it’s ivermectin. Truly, in the age of COVID-19 these two drugs are the new laetrile.

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Antivaccine nonsense Homeopathy Medicine

Dr. Tess Lawrie expands from ivermectin quackery to homeopathy

Homeopathy
Truly, homeopathy is the air guitar of medicine, except that it's usually not even entertaining.

Tess Lawrie has been promoting ivermectin for COVID-19 for two and a half years. Of late, she has become more of a general multipurpose quack, promoting ivermectin to treat cancer. Now she’s promoting homeopathy for COVID and long COVID while a Research Fellow at St. Mary’s University Twickenham. What does this tell us about medicine?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Cancer Medicine Quackery

Tess Lawrie: “You might not believe this, little fella, but it’ll cure your cancer too”

Frank Zappa vs. Tess Lawrie
Frank Zappa's classic song applies just as well to quacks like Tess Lawrie as it did to a fictional New Age guru 50 years ago.

In a turn that should surprise exactly no one, the BIRD Group’s Tess Lawrie effortlessly pivots from promoting ivermectin as a cure for COVID-19 to promoting it as a cure for cancer. It’s another example of how single-issue quacks almost inevitably embrace more diverse quackery.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Popular culture Pseudoscience

When “old school” antivaxxers meet the “new school” antivaxxers

"Beter Way" old school antivaxxer vs. new school antivaxxers
Antivaxxers like Dr. Robert Malone (second from left, the one who looks like Kenny Rogers) refuse to defend the childhood vaccination schedule at the Better Way Conference 2022 in Bath, England. Geert Vanden Bossche is the one sitting next to him adjusting his glasses and wishing he were somewhere else than with all these rabid antivaxxers.

An old school “vaccines cause autism” antivaxxer hosted new COVID-19 antivaxxers at an antivax conference last month. Although one new antivaxxer, Geert Vanden Bossche, was discomfited and pushed back against old antivax tropes, the rest joined Del Bigtree in spewing longstanding antivax tropes.

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Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, take 2: FLCCC conspiracies

The FLCCC flogs ivermectin

The other day, I discussed why ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine:, basically a “miracle cure” that isn’t. The FLCCC, a group of COVID-19 “brave maverick doctors,” brings the conspiracies.