Research has shown that adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination are very rare. Another large study of VAERS reports strengthens this conclusion.
CDC
The media likes to compare COVID-19 outcomes in different states based on carefully selected metrics. A closer look indicates that these match-ups are less compelling than reporters think. This has consequences for the public's trust in science.
Many tobacco control advocates have attacked vaping by emphasizing the risk it poses to teenagers. While children should never use any nicotine product, there's a strong case to be made that the campaign against teen vaping has distracted us from tackling a critical public health threat: adult smoking.
Some experts have argued that America's expensive, inefficient health care system is to blame for our intense vaccine hesitancy. While this is a plausible explanation, it misses the key problem—the politicization of medicine, along with almost everything else in our culture.
As the Biden Administration's booster shot roll out approaches, we have plenty of evidence that the primary COVID vaccines are still very effective, a growing number of experts say, but very little data to justify widespread use of boosters. This kind of open policy debate is exactly what we need.
Yet another study has found that the authorized COVID-19 vaccines greatly reduce infection. Let's take a look at this latest paper in the context provided by previously published research on vaccine efficacy.
A new clinical trial examining the efficacy of masking on COVID-19 transmission has garnered a lot of media coverage. What the study shows and what people have been told the study shows are very different.
Anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense is abusing a new study of COVID-19 breakthrough cases to badmouth very effective shots.
In their rush to correct "misinformation" about the efficacy of masks, fact-checkers have obscured some important limitations surrounding the science they insist we all follow.
Vaccine skeptics continue to insist that the COVID shots are dangerous. As always, their favorite sources are the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and other similar passive surveillance databases. As cases of supposed vaccine injury are investigated, we come to the reassuring, though admittedly boring, conclusion that COVID-19 jabs pose a low risk to most people.
Maia Szalavitz's terrifying article in Wired, which described the cruel laws and punitive regulations that pain patients are forced to abide by, brought to mind hundreds of similarly tragic comments I've been reading for years. These can be found following any of my ~100 articles about pain, opioid denial, or government malfeasance and ineptitude. Here are a few.
Always eager to win friends and influence people, The Conversation recently published an article claiming that people who refuse to get COVID shots are selfish and un-American. This is not how you convert vaccine skeptics.