Lately, I keep seeing commercials that push aluminum-free deodorants and antiperspirants, and I was wondering if I missed some important health issue that is causing some sort of epidemic across the world. Now, those who debunk anti-vaccine tropes know all… Read More »Aluminum antiperspirants and breast cancer? Probably no link
Christopher Aluminum Exley, who thinks that the aluminum in vaccines causes everything from autism to Alzheimer’s disease and is a favorite target of my snark, disappeared after he left his academic appointment at Keele University in the UK.
In case you were wondering, Christopher Exley is still pushing false information about aluminum and vaccines. Of course, when does an anti-vaxxer ever really disappear from the world of pushing their nonsense?
Let’s catch up on Christopher Aluminum Exley, just so you know he’s alive and well. And still inventing claims about vaccines.
Read More »Christopher Aluminum Exley is still around after leaving academia
If you spend any amount of time on the internet researching science and pseudoscience, you’ll find alarming claims about toxic vaccine chemicals – you know, aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, and whatever unpronounceable molecule are all the rage for the anti-vaccine crowd. Of course, we obsess over substances not only in our vaccines, but also in our foods, air, water, and coffee. Many of us try to present scientific evidence about those toxic vaccine chemicals. It can be frustrating and time-consuming.
Generally, the pseudoscience argument proceeds along the lines of “these unpronounceable chemicals are going to cause cancer.” Followed by a new trope or meme that something in vaccines does something, often without a picogram of evidence.
But what the vaccine deniers are pushing about vaccines is based on a lack of knowledge about how toxicology – the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms, determines what is or isn’t toxic.
Paracelsus, a 16th-century Swiss-German physician, alchemist, and astrologer, is traditionally thought to have founded the discipline of toxicology, an important branch of medicine, physiology, and pharmacology. Paracelsus wrote one of the most important principles of toxicology:
All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.
In other words, if you’re speaking about substances in foods or vaccines or anything, the most important principle is that the dose makes the poison (or toxin). Everything that we consume or breathe is potentially toxic but most important, the overriding principle must be the dose.
So, I’m going to do a disservice to the whole field of toxicology, which takes a lifetime of research and study, and I will attempt to digest it down to a few paragraphs, especially as it relates to those vaccine chemicals.
Read More »The facts about vaccine chemicals – debunking more pseudoscience
This is the story of Heather Simpson who went from an anti-vaccine influencer, with whom many of us argued, to a strongly pro-vaccine advocate, and dare I say, influencer. Heather, first and foremost, is a mom, and as you will read, that strongly influenced how she viewed vaccines.
Her story, in her own words, is taken from a Facebook post she recently wrote. I am reposting it with her permission. And I just want to thank Heather Simpson for allowing me to republish this and for the strength it took her to write this post.
Read More »Heather Simpson — from anti-vaccine influencer to pro-vaccine advocate
I have debunked a lot of anti-vax claims that childhood vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines, are linked to type 1 diabetes. Of course, there is no evidence of a link between vaccines and diabetes — in fact, there is lots of evidence that some vaccines can actually reduce the risk of diabetes.
Of course, there is a continuing effort to stop this particular anti-vax myth (as if anti-vaxxers actually care about science and evidence), so another peer-reviewed study has been published that once again discredits these claims. And once again, for those who just want the tl;dr version, this research team found no link between vaccines and diabetes.
Read More »The childhood vaccines schedule is not linked to type 1 diabetes
We know that there are no links between vaccines and type 1 diabetes mellitus, and now a new study shows that the aluminum in vaccines also isn’t linked to the disease. I’m sure that Christopher Aluminum Exley and James Lyons-Weiler are crying. Or they will just claim that all other scientists are wrong and they are right.
A lot of the vaccine deniers believe that vaccines cause Type 1 diabetes (or here), based on little evidence. As far as I can tell, this myth is based on the “research” from J. Barthelow Classen, M.D., who has pushed the idea that vaccines cause type 1 diabetes, through some magical process that has never been supported by other independent evidence.
In another example of the anti-vaccine zealot’s cherry-picking evidence to support their a priori conclusions, they ignore the utter lack of plausibility supporting any link between vaccines and Type 1 diabetes. But once again, real scientific research has found no link between vaccines and diabetes.
And new research has provided robust evidence that there is no link between the aluminum in vaccines and type 1 diabetes mellitus.
Read More »Aluminum in vaccines does not cause type 1 diabetes
This article about Vaxxed producer, Del Bigtree, 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. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.
Over the past few months, Vaxxed producer Del Bigtree, who formerly worked on the show The Doctors, has made numerous statements about vaccines and vaccine safety. His claims about fraud by the CDC have been addressed in the past, and the evidence doesn’t support his beliefs. But the claims he makes about vaccines go beyond the movie, and he makes an effort to present himself as an authority on the issue.
Mr. Bigtree’s statements are consistently inaccurate, suggesting he is not a good source of information about vaccines. It’s impossible to address every single wrong claim Mr. Bigtree has made about vaccines, of course. But these problems should demonstrate that Mr. Bigtree’s claims about vaccines cannot be relied on.
Read More »Is Vaxxed producer Del Bigtree credible on vaccines? Not really.
Here we go again, anti-vaccine pseudoscientist, James Lyons-Weiler, publishes a paper that says something about aluminum about vaccines, and the anti-vaccine crowd genuflects in his general direction. The anti-vaccine side has nearly zero evidence supporting their claims, so they have to cling to anything they can get.
The anti-vaccine religion is littered with these false authorities that have few credentials or experience in vaccines, yet, because of a “Ph.D.” after their name, the anti-vaxxers make it appear they speak for millions of scientists. There’s Tetyana Obukhanych, a former immunologist who has published no peer-reviewed articles about vaccines, who has denied all of her scientific education and training, and who makes egregious and simplistic mistakes about vaccines in all of her proclamations.
Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic are multiple-retracted “researchers” who shill for the anti-vaccine religion by publishing weak and easily critiqued research that doesn’t even stand up to the tiniest of criticism. We’ve often speculated as to why the University of British Columbia, where they do their “research,” hasn’t ended their relationship.
Look, I’m not impressed by credentials and degrees. I don’t care if someone is a janitor or a Ph.D. in immunology at Harvard University. If you deny established scientific consensus based on your whims, cherry-picking evidence, or rhetoric, you have nothing. You bring nothing to a scientific discussion. If you want to overturn the scientific consensus on vaccines then you better be an expert in the area of vaccines, and you better have a broad, robust body of evidence that shows problems with the scientific consensus.
Now, it’s time to look at this new false authority in the land of vaccines, James Lyons-Weiler, and his ideas about aluminum and autism. Is he another false authority and pseudoscientist? Or does his new paper give us something new to examine about vaccines? Yes. No.
Read More »Aluminum in vaccines not linked to autism – James Lyons-Weiler begs to differ
Here we go again. Anti-vaccine pseudoscientist, James Lyons-Weiler, publishes a paper that says something about aluminum about vaccines, and the anti-vaccine crowd genuflects in his general direction. The anti-vaccine side has nearly zero evidence supporting their claims, so they have to cling to anything they can get.
The anti-vaccine religion is littered with these false authorities that have few credentials or experience in vaccines, yet, because of a “Ph.D.” after their name, the anti-vaxxers make it appear they speak for millions of scientists. There’s Tetyana Obukhanych, a former immunologist who has published no peer-reviewed articles about vaccines, who has denied all of her scientific education and training, and who makes egregious and simplistic mistakes about vaccines in all of her proclamations.
Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic are multiple-retracted “researchers” who shill for the anti-vaccine religion by publishing weak and easily critiqued research that doesn’t even stand up to the tiniest of criticism. We’ve often speculated as to why the University of British Columbia, where they do their “research,” hasn’t ended their relationship.
Look, I’m not impressed by credentials and degrees. I don’t care if someone is a janitor or a Ph.D. in immunology at Harvard University. If you deny established scientific consensus based on your whims, cherry picking evidence, or rhetoric, you have nothing. You bring nothing to a scientific discussion. If you want to overturn the scientific consensus on vaccines then you better be an expert in the area of vaccines, and you better have a broad, robust body of evidence that shows problems with the scientific consensus.
Now, it’s time to look at this new false authority in the land of vaccines, James Lyons-Weiler and his ideas about aluminum and autism. Is he another false authority and pseudoscientist? Or does his new paper give us something new to examine about vaccines? Yes. No.
Read More »Aluminum in vaccines is not linked to autism – James Lyons-Weiler is wrong again
Anti-vaccine crank and self-proclaimed aluminum expert, Christopher Exley, has announced that he’s departing the University of Keele (Staffordshire, England) for unknown reasons, but since he’s an anti-vaxxer, I’m sure he will blame Bill Gates and Big Pharma.
I have written about Exley quite a bit over the years, mainly because he keeps “publishing” opinion pieces about aluminum adjuvants in vaccines while making claims without a femtogram of clinical or epidemiological data that sits at the top of the hierarchy of biomedical research.
Unfortunately, because the anti-vaccine world lacks any robust scientific data to support their preconceived beliefs, they have to cherry-pick pseudoscience from not only Christopher Aluminum Exley but also from Tetyana Not-An-Immunologist Obukhanych and Christopher Retraction Shaw. These are just some of the false authorities beloved by the anti-vaccine religion.
Let’s take a look at the very strange “resignation letter” from Christopher Exley. And I’ll try to keep the celebrations to a minimum. Or not.
Read More »Christopher Aluminum Exley, anti-vaccine “scientist”, gone from Keele University