Image source: David P. Hughes, Maj-Britt Pontoppidan – http://www.plosone.org/article/showImageLarge.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004835.g001 CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17917778 Back in 2010 I wrote about the strange tale of the zombie ants, which do the bidding of their fungal overlords. (They’re not an isolated example; a range of parasites change their hosts’ behaviour. See here and here for example – though as you’ll find, […]
Continue readingA couple days ago the NZ Herald published a story with the headline, “Science says Bella Hadid is world’s most beautiful woman“, and followed up with the ridiculous statement that Supermodel Bella Hadid has been declared as the world’s most beautiful woman following a scientific study into what constitutes as a “perfect face”. Really, NZ […]
Continue readingA couple of days ago, a friend sent me a link to a health-related FB page that had published a post from a homeopathist, offering homeopathic “vaccination”¹ against measles (using something called a “Morbillinum nosode” at a “potency” of 200C, which I’ll explain shortly). I followed the link, left a comment asking for evidence that […]
Continue readingOn Monday this week, Seven Sharp carried the story of a Whangārei school where so many of the students are immunised that the school has attained herd immunity against measles. This is an enviable achievement – tautoko, Hora Hora Primary School! Most of the comments are strongly supportive at the moment, but – predictably, not […]
Continue readingI’ve written previously about an anti-vaxx plague enthusiast claim that measles can cure cancer (it doesn’t). However, it seems that the search for positive attributes for a measles infection knows few bounds. Thus a friend shared this with me – it’s something posted by an antivaxxer in a FB thread: Presumably this is an example […]
Continue readingPretty much everyone in NZ should be aware by now that the country is facing its biggest measles outbreak in years, with Counties Manukau being particularly hard-hit. Here’s the data for the week ending August 23rd, from ESR’s Public Health Surveillance page: This hasn’t stopped those opposed to vaccination plague enthusiasts pushing all their usual […]
Continue readingRecently I came across the claim that cystic fibrosis (CF) can be cured by diet. This was news to me, given that the mutation that causes CF is well-documented, as are the necessary treatments, and I wasn’t aware of any evidence that diet alone would correct the faulty membrane pump involved. So I said so. […]
Continue readingScience has known for a while now that there is a strong genetic component in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), although those opposed to vaccination tend to deny this. (David Gorski points this out in his commentary on this new 2019 paper.) In this paper, Bai et al. cite data from a meta-analysis of twin studies that […]
Continue readingOne of the things that strikes me about the commenters actively opposing vaccinations – e.g. on the many news stories about NZ’s measles outbreak – is their continued readiness to state and repeat mistruths and inaccuracies. You see it all the time, & I have to wonder – is there just this underlying assumption that […]
Continue readingNew Zealand’s measles outbreak keeps on ticking along. So do the media stories about it. (The FB posts associated with each article aren’t moderated and I suspect this is partly because they generate so many clicks.) A couple of days ago, TVNZ’s Breakfast show carried an interview with a doctor, on the importance of Gardasil, […]
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