David Hawkes

HPV vaccine unrelated to primary ovarian insufficiency – debunking anti-vaccine myth

The HPV vaccine causes infertility through primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) – a belief unsupported by evidence. And the claim appears to be based on anti-vaccine ideology instead of real science.

Yes, I know, this story seems to repeat itself, but stay tuned, this is a good one. So let’s examine this myth from a scientific aspect and show how the HPV vaccine is actually unrelated to POI.

Retracted anti-vaccine papers – ultimate list of pseudoscience and bias

by Michael Simpson
2020-01-16
Andrew Wakefield, Christopher Shaw, Retraction, Vaccines

Retracted anti-vaccine papers are a staple of my articles published here. Usually, they try to create some fake link between vaccines and autism, but these papers try to say anything that casts vaccines in a bad light.

As we know, real science has established that there is no link between vaccines and autism. Anti-vaccine papers generally try to show this link without epidemiological or clinical studies – they just try to make some specious biologically implausible claims trying to link something about vaccines to autism.

Much of the anti-vaccine research is so bad, so poorly designed, that it’s relegated to low quality, predatory journals which have laughably poor peer-review systems. Even then, we can find the occasional retracted anti-vaccine papers, because they are often so bad that even these predatory publishers are embarrassed.

So, I present to you, the loyal reader, a list of retracted anti-vaccine papers (and I use that term very carefully). It’s not a comprehensive list, it’s just what I’ve seen over the past few years. If you know of a retracted paper that I missed, leave a citation in the comments.Read More »Retracted anti-vaccine papers – ultimate list of pseudoscience and bias

HPV vaccine autoimmunity – more bad science from Shoenfeld

We just posted an article by Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss who criticized many of Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld‘s anti-vaccine ideas, which include HPV vaccine autoimmunity. We need to examine and critique a new paper from Shoenfeld which tries to establish why the HPV vaccine might cause autoimmunity. Spoiler alert – it’s not very good.

For some reason, Shoenfeld has targeted the HPV cancer-prevention vaccine in much of his “research” lately. He has taken that niche and run with it. And, because the anti-vaxxers love their argument from false authority, Shoenfeld is a hero to them.

So is there any validity to the HPV vaccine autoimmunity claim? Not really, but let’s take a scientific critique of it.Read More »HPV vaccine autoimmunity – more bad science from Shoenfeld

Anti-vaccine pseudoscientist Christopher Shaw retracted – shocking news

If you hang out around here reading the ruminations of the feathered dinosaur, you’d have read about the anti-vaccine “researchers” who continually get their fake science retracted by journals, even really low-quality ones. This brings us to the fourth publication over two years authored or co-authored by Christopher Shaw and his shoddy anti-vaccine research.

I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that I could probably run a website just writing about the antics and pseudoscience of Christopher Shaw, and his sometimes co-conspirator, Lucija Tomljenovic. In fact, I’ve written about Shaw about 40 times over the past six years – his false facts are perfect fodder for this blog.

But Shaw’s newest foray into retraction has got to be the strangest. It was a letter to the editor that was retracted. Honestly, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it, so lets jump right into the fray.Read More »Anti-vaccine pseudoscientist Christopher Shaw retracted – shocking news