Science of vaccines, cancer, nutrition, evolution
Ignoring quackery and Trump’s ignorance about chloroquine, it seems like everyone is throwing stuff at the wall to see if it works. Recently, while researching an article on coronavirus vaccines, I noticed that some were pushing the BCG vaccine for COVID-19.
I wanted to see if there was any evidence supporting the BCG vaccine for COVID-19, so here’s what I found. Continue reading “BCG vaccine for COVID-19 – is a 100-year-old vaccine beneficial?”
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the interest in coronavirus vaccines has been quite high (to say the least). I have been keeping an updated list of vaccine candidates in another article, but it was becoming so cumbersome to update, and I wanted to make information clearer to read, I decided to completely rewrite it.
This article about coronavirus vaccines will also be regularly updated, so stay tuned. Continue reading “Coronavirus vaccines – massive list of vaccine candidates for COVID-19”
This article about COVID-19 vaccine research has been completely updated and can be found here. The comments section for this article has been closed.
Because the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine is of massive interest currently, and because I have a passion for vaccine research and development, this article will a guide for vaccines involved with the coronavirus. It will be updated regularly, and I will post to social media when it is updated.
Right now, there are several COVID-19 vaccine candidates being developed by large and small pharmaceutical companies. Of course, social media will make it sound like they are all just around the corner, and they will all work.
It doesn’t work that way, so let me keep you updated with this guide to COVID-19 vaccine research and development. Continue reading “COVID-19 vaccine research for coronavirus – updated 26 March 2020”
I’m sure you’ve all heard that President Trump has pushed chloroquine for coronavirus treatment. He claims that there is good evidence supporting it, but if we actually look at that evidence, is there anything there?
Once again, here’s a spoiler alert – the evidence supporting chloroquine for coronavirus is extremely weak. And there seem to be some risks in taking it, so the actual risks may far outweigh the actual benefits.
Let’s take a look. Continue reading “Chloroquine for coronavirus, I mean the Trumpvirus – evidence is weak”
This article about the Nick Catone Facebook lawsuit was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.
Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease.
Recently, Nick Catone – who lost his son tragically in 2017, and blamed vaccines for it, with no good supporting evidence – sued – or tried to sue – Facebook in federal court for, allegedly, removing his account.
The Nick Catone Facebook lawsuit is problematic, and the story, in its entirety, seems strange. Continue reading “Nick Catone Facebook lawsuit – more questions than answers”
Rand Paul thinks there’s a “debate” about vaccines. On one side, the ignorant, the uneducated, and the logical fallacy lovers, without any evidence whatsoever, invent some dubious and truly head-shaking nonsense about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
On the other side (as if there really are two sides), are the educated, the logic lovers, and the skeptics who value published scientific evidence as to the most important and fundamental guide to determining a scientific consensus. This scientific consensus has determined that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, that all organisms on this earth have evolved from a single organism 3 billion years or so ago, and that vaccines are safe and effective. A scientific consensus exists not because I say it, it exists because a vast majority (not 51-49, more like 99-1) of experts in the field agree to this consensus.
Some people believe that a scientific consensus is based on some vote, political maneuvering, without understanding that a consensus in the US Congress (as if that’ll ever happen) is almost the opposite of how science works, and eventually arrive at a scientific consensus.
If there were a debate about vaccines, the pro-science/pro-vaccine side would score about 1547 points to 1 pity point for the deniers. In other words, it would be a world record victory for the real science side.
But let’s get back to Rand Paul.
Continue reading “Rand Paul is wrong about vaccines – there is no debate”
Recently, Physicians for Informed Consent (PIC) claimed they hold a bombshell, by claiming there is an erratum in the study published by Mitkus and colleagues (1). Using some PR mouthpiece (such as PRNewswire) to spread the breaking news around, PIC, under the patronage of Shira Miller (who runs PIC), claimed they provided a rebuttal to the study of Mitkus stating that there is an important factual error.
In this breaking news, Physicians for Informed Consent announced that a study published by Mitkus and colleagues (1) contained a major flaw in the estimation of aluminum burden, using differences in oral bioavailability used in the study (allegedly 0.78%) and reported by the FDA (0.1%). In their conclusion, the authors claim that such differences were significantly underestimating the exposure of aluminum from vaccines with the claim that the actual “safe” level is 7.8X lower than Mitkus established.
Is there any part of the truth in it? And does the PIC statement hold any scientific evidence? Let’s figure this out. Continue reading “Physicians for Informed Consent goes after aluminum in vaccines again”
I have tried to answer questions across the internet about COVID-19 vaccines, but it is getting frustrating. Some of these fantasies are as amusing and annoying as any of Del Bigtree’s ignorant claims about any vaccine on the market.
Although I have written an article, which is regularly updated, about coronavirus vaccine development, apparently people want to believe that there are miraculous, magical COVID-19 vaccines just around the corner.
Here’s a list of FAQs debunking some of the most pernicious myths about COVID-19 vaccines. Continue reading “COVID-19 vaccines – rampant myths as annoying as Del Bigtree’s claims”
You could have predicted that coronavirus prevention quacks would show up on the internet about 4.7 nanoseconds after the disease was found outside of China. Every uptick in reports about the disease causes a doubling in the number of coronavirus prevention pseudoscientific websites.
Of course, the FDA has tried to crack down on some of the offenders, but it’s like Whac-A-Mole – you smack down one swindler, two more show up elsewhere.
This article is going to list out some (but certainly not all) of the most quack-filled coronavirus prevention woo that I’ve seen. Since I don’t consciously try to find this junk, I may not catch them all.
There’s one thing you’ll notice – almost all of this nonsense is the exact same thing that the anti-vaccine crowd pushes as “alternatives” to vaccines. And as much as they don’t work for measles, flu, whooping cough, and other diseases, they don’t work for coronavirus. Continue reading “Coronavirus prevention – quacks are using the anti-vaccine woo cookbook”
And here we go again. The interwebs are filled with quacks trying to claim that they have something for boosting immunity to protect oneself from COVID-19. Of course, once you read that someone has the magical potion for boosting immunity, you can almost guarantee that it’s pseudoscience and woo.
Boosting immunity is always the go-to for scam artists whenever there is a deadly outbreak or pandemic like we are seeing now. The pseudoscience of the immune system is pernicious and possibly dangerous.
The problem with these immune system myths is that they overlook or ignore a basic physiological fact – the immune system is a complex interconnected network of organs, cells, and molecules that prevent the invasion of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pathogens and other antigens every single day.
And no matter how much individuals try to trivialize the complexity of the immune system, it does not make it so. If it were easy as downing a handful of supplements or the magical blueberry-kale smoothie for boosting immunity to coronavirus or any disease, every physician in the world would prescribe.
Unfortunately, even if we could boost our immunity, we shouldn’t – a hyperactive immune system is frequently dangerous to an individual.
Yeah, the pseudoscience crowd doesn’t know their immune system.
Continue reading “Boosting immunity for COVID-19? Only when we get a coronavirus vaccine”