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David Gorski, MD, PhD Profile picture
David Gorski, MD, PhD
@gorskon
Surgeon/scientist promoting science-based medicine. Editor, Science-Based Medicine blog. (He/him.) Also at https://t.co/2LecwK3CP9.
9 subscribers
Sep 8 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
.@jeffreyatucker was the @aier hack who managed to bring together three contrarian laptop class scientists to write the #GreatBarringtonDeclaration in October 2020, a document that advocated letting the virus rip through the working class to achieve "natural herd immunity." 1/ It was a profoundly social Darwinist idea in which the working class would have to keep functioning normally (living with a higher risk of suffering and maybe dying from COVID), so that they could become immune and contribute to "natural herd immunity." 2/ sciencebasedmedicine.org/great-barringt…
Oct 23, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Some recent prepandemic history: Antivaxxers blamed residual DNA in HPV vaccines for all sorts of autoimmune diseases. They claimed that the DNA passed the blood-brain barrier, got into neurons, and then led to the production of nonself proteins that caused autoimmune responses. That autoimmune response was blamed for autism. (Never mind that the age at which children get HPV vaccines is way past the age at which autism is most commonly diagnosed.) Just Google "homologous recombinaltion tiniker" if you don't believe me.
Aug 2, 2023 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
Antivaxxers have long made exactly the same sorts of accusations against scientists they don’t like. Conspiracy theorists labor under the delusion that NIH funding is strictly quid pro quo, rather than based on scientific merit as determined by rigorous study section review. The @NRO op-ed to which he's responding is pure conspiracy theory. Just because #lableak is a *possible* explanation for #COVID19, that does not make it likely or evidence-based, nor does it render the story spun by NRO any less a conspiracy theory.
Aug 1, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The real subtext is, of course, the same message promoted by charlatans throughout history: Don’t trust *them*. Trust *me*. I wonder if @VPrasadMDMPH knows that @nickgillespie has long advocated the dismantling of @US_FDA because, like a lot of deluded libertarians, he thinks it’s keeping life saving drugs from the people when in reality its approval standards have slipped. thedailybeast.com/kill-the-fda-b…
Jul 3, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Once again, @RobertKennedyJr has resurrected the deceptive antivax claim that most childhood #vaccines have never been tested in randomized controlled trials with #Saline #placebo control to portray vaccines as unsafe (or at least as inadequately tested). sciencebasedmedicine.org/rfk-jr-resurre… Crossover study designs, how do they work?🙄🤦🏻‍♂️
Jun 27, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Reporters, now ask @RobertKennedyJr and his spokespeople this question at every event. EVERY EVENT! Don't let them weasel out of answering like this. Hammer them with this question every time they complain about being called "antivaccine." Use the tactic that I've been advocating for many years now. It frustrates the hell out of me that so few reporters use this very simple technique when interviewing RFK Jr. respectfulinsolence.com/2022/12/05/wha…
May 24, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Breaking: Antivaxxers are regurgitating antivax misinformation from two decades ago.🙄 Mr. Kirsch has moved the year up now years, to 2014; so I guess that's...progress? 🤷🏻‍♂️
May 24, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
The funny thing is, in the one video in which Dr. Buttar is hanging out with Ty Bollinger and a couple of other antivaxxers, he says that he first noticed his ankles were swelling in September 2022. As I discussed, Dr. Buttar also reported that he'd become so short of breath that he couldn't do his full talk at Reawaken America and showed videos instead. The shortness of breath and lower extremity swelling lasted several days and seemed to resolve. respectfulinsolence.com/2023/05/23/ant…
May 24, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Gee, somehow @mercola seems to think that the existence of a 2005 video in which @JoeNBC appeared to agree with @RobertKennedyJr is evidence that the media is now biased against antivaxxers. Image I (and others) have been telling you for a long time that there were a lot of antivax-sympathetic reporters out there; so it should be no surprise that antivaxxers can find old clips demonstrating just that.
Mar 17, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This pathetic “mole” did exactly what I thought it’d do and used the same technique Jake Crosby used 13 years ago, Specifically, he tried to ascribe undisclosed conflicts of interest to me based on funding my university got from certain corporations, even though the foolish mole can’t show a direct link (mainly because there isn’t one).
Mar 17, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Ivor forgot one. I know that cranks like him crave “debates” like this mainly to project to their followers the illusion that their pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are legitimate scientific alternative viewpoints. He also has a lot of gall to think that, even if I thought his intentions were actually to educate about science and have a real debate, I’d agree to his offer after all the insults he’s been throwing my way today.
Feb 22, 2023 • 14 tweets • 8 min read
I wonder if Mr. Stephens and @nytopinion know much about the background of the first author of this @cochranecollab review, which is truly atrocious. Here, let's tell them. We at @ScienceBasedMed, including @MarkCrislip, first noticed Tom Jefferson in 2009, when he started saying dubious things about the flu vaccine right as the H1N1 pandemic was bearing down.
Feb 20, 2023 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
Predictable. @GabrielleJBauer of @brownstoneinst just admitted that the key premise behind the "natural herd immunity" approach of @gbdeclaration was false—oopsie!—while touting #GreatBarringtonDeclaration has having been "vindicated." sciencebasedmedicine.org/brownstone-ins… I mean, I laughed out loud when I read this passage, which is an implicit admission that what GBD critics, such as the John Snow Memorandum authors, were right all along that "natural herd immunity" is not achievable for #COVID19 because postinfection immunity is too short-lived. Image
Feb 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"Natural immunity" by definition can't be as good as the vaccine because to get "natural immunity" you have to get sick with the disease and risk all of its complications. OF course, @billmaher has been an antivaxxer for many years; so none of this is surprising. Seriously, the first time I wrote about @billmaher's antivax bleatings was in 2005. Of course, he's parroting old antivax tropes about "natural immunity." He was parroting them long before the first case of mysterious viral pneumonia appeared in Wuhan in late 2019.
Jan 3, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
That took about as long as I thought it would, as in not long at all. Antivaxxers are so predictable. Basically...
Jan 2, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Says the guy who wrote a book like this, which, I suppose, is “satire” too. But, hey, if I’ve been taken in I’ll ‘fess up, admit my mistake as not starting 2023 off too well, and take my lumps. I suspect that such is not the case, given the prominent blurb from RFK Jr.😏 In any event, since I forgot to Tweet a link to the post addressing his “gaslighting” narrative, here it is. I’ll let my readership tell me if I feel for some satire. It wouldn’t be the first time—or the last time—but I suspect it’s at least not this time. sciencebasedmedicine.org/was-2022-the-y…
Nov 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Dr. Drew is officially antivax now. This particular antivax talking point completely ignores that elevated rush of cardiac events for a full year after #COVID19 infection. As this weren’t enough, he had RFK Jr. on his show. Dr. Laxton brings the receipts.
Nov 3, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I explicitly warned about the politicization of vaccines nearly six years ago. Here's the receipt. respectfulinsolence.com/2017/02/22/in-…
Jun 25, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
At @sciencebasedmed this morning, contrary to the false messaging of lawmakers promoting laws criminalizing such care for gender dysphoria and trans adolescents, gender-affirming care is NOT experimental.sciencebasedmedicine.org/gender-affirmi… I'm going to say it again. The claims by the "gender critical" and by the ideologues promoting laws criminalizing gender-affirming care that such care is "experimental" is straight from the antivax playbook. 2/
Jun 6, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
From the comment section of my blog, here's a lesson on how to determine when someone claiming "I'm not antivax" but just "pro-safety" or "skeptical of some vaccines" is, in fact, antivax, provided in three parts.

Part 1: Ask them a simple question. respectfulinsolence.com/2022/06/03/whe… Part 2: Await the (predictable) response.
Jun 6, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Hilariously, Walsh doesn't come off the way he thinks he does in this clip. He comes across like a student who hasn't done the assigned reading but is sufficiently arrogant to think he can challenge the professor. Also, this professor has the proverbial patience of a saint. It is hilarious to watch him school Makary using the Socratic method, particularly asking Walsh why he is asking the questions he asks. Given his hesitation answering, Walsh must realize that his purpose is dishonest.