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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Pseudoscience

Autopsies for everyone will end vaccine misinformation immediately?

Tech bro turned antivaxxer Steve Kirsch has a simple solution that will end vaccine misinformation: An autopsy for everyone who dies within 2 months of COVID vaccination. So simple, yet so wrong.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience

The Guardian: “Explaining” vaccine hesitancy by amplifying antivax disinformation

Writing in The Guardian, Musa al-Gharbi tries to explain vaccine hesitancy to “the left.” Unfortunately, he parrots antivax conspiracy theories to do it.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine

DMED: Another database abused by antivaxxers

Antivaxxers have found another health database to abuse, DMED, to falsely claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause all sorts of horrible things.

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Computers and social media Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

2021: The year the weaponization of VAERS went mainstream

Misuse of the VAERS database to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines has been a favorite technique of antivaxxers for decades. Unfortunately, 2021 was the year when this particular antivax trope was turbocharged. (Note: Orac will be taking a week off after this—see note in post.)

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Popular culture

Doctors who should know better dumpster dive in VAERS

“Dumpster diving” is a term used to describe studies using data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System database by authors, almost always antivaxxers, who don’t understand its limitations. Last week, non-antivax doctors who should know better fell into this trap when they promoted their study suggesting that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are more dangerous to children than the disease.