Tag: falsehoods

Trump Blames Autism on Tylenol While Americans Prep for the Rapture on TikTok | The Daily Show

Posted on by Lone Candle

The president of the United States rambled falsities about important health science. Not good. Bad.

I’m all for a serious evidence-based discussion on the risks and benefits of different medications, but the nation’s leader ad libbing bullshit is not helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTf2MdntsF0

Joe Rogan Doesn’t Understand Graphs

Posted on by Lone Candle

Joe Rogan spread false information based on a graph that he appeared to misunderstand. The article that the graph is from explained why what he was saying is false, so he appears to have not read or understood the article. Many other popular influencers and show hosts brought up Rogan’s false information, spreading it further and cheering on Rogan’s spread of falsity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1bMJekCiBw

RFK Jr. Shifts $500 Million From mRNA Research to ‘Safer’ Vaccines. Do the Data Back That Up?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“in June, vaccine manufacturer Moderna reported the results of a clinical trial pitting its mRNA influenza vaccine against both high-dose and standard-dose licensed seasonal influenza vaccines. The conventional vaccines used inactivated flu viruses to induce an immune response. Moderna’s mRNA-1010 achieved a relative vaccine efficacy against influenza illness of 26.6 percent in the trial. That means that the mRNA-1010 group had 26.6 percent fewer influenza cases than the group that got the standard-dose flu shot. For example, if the standard flu vaccine group had 100 cases per 1,000 people, the mRNA-1010 group would have had about 73–74 cases per 1,000.

The clinical trial roundly contradicts RFK Jr.’s claim that mRNA vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections, especially in comparison to old-fashioned flu vaccines.

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A simple Google Scholar search for mRNA vaccine trials for infectious diseases turns up over 10,000 results for just 2025 alone. But let’s just take a look at a comprehensive new review of promising vaccine formulations for emerging infectious diseases. In that study, a team of Korean researchers compares the pros and cons of different vaccine production platforms, including whole-organism-based, live-attenuated, subunit, virus vector-based immunity, and nucleic acid-based (DNA and RNA) vaccines.

The researchers’ analysis concludes that “mRNA vaccine formulations offer significant advantages, such as rapid development and production, over other vaccine platforms.” They also note that it is “necessary to develop an analysis system that can verify the effectiveness and safety of the mRNA vaccine, as well as the development process of the vaccine itself.” Just what the now-cancelled BARDA mRNA vaccine contracts could have helped to figure out.

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These vaccines might indeed have a significant impact on mitigating the spread of infectious diseases, if RFK Jr. would just stop standing athwart biomedical progress yelling, “Stop.””

https://reason.com/2025/08/07/rfk-jr-shifts-500-million-from-mrna-research-to-safer-vaccines-does-the-data-back-that-up/

Does reflection increase accuracy rather than bias in the assessments of political fake news?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Our findings indicate that individuals from
both political affiliations are prone to believing and disseminating politically aligned fake news via social media. Despite
employing a stronger reflection manipulation in contrast to past research, we failed to replicate the mitigating effect of
the reflection on the acceptance of fake news. We observed that reflection reduced Democrats’ willingness to spread fake
news, yet it did not affect Republicans.”

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12144-025-07578-5.pdf

Three reasons why Republicans cut Medicaid

Posted on by Lone Candle

“As Republicans began to consider their bill in January, Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid. But he ultimately embraced the cuts as necessary to get the bill passed and lobbied reluctant GOP representatives and senators to go along.”

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“Other entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, which both serve elderly people, were deemed too politically risky to touch. Trump has been even more adamant about not reducing benefits in Medicare and Social Security, a cornerstone of his first campaign in 2016, than he was about Medicaid.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-republicans-t-quit-medicaid-184536906.html

Jon Stewart – One of My Favorite People – What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Posted on by Lone Candle

‘Social media like Twitter/X isn’t free speech. It’s ultra-processed speech. It’s speech like how Doritos is food. It is toxic and designed as such.’

‘Conspiracy believers are not just asking questions. They question the narrative but not the counter narrative. Their questioning isn’t the problem, but their certainty.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44uC12g9ZVk

Trump’s Ceasefire Chaos

Posted on by Lone Candle

Seems like Trump announced a ceasefire before many Israeli and Iranian government officials knew about the talks or agreement. There was a period between the announcement of a ceasefire and the time it went into effect when Israel and Iran struck each other while they still could. The ceasefire appears to have been broken, but may be holding now.

Claims that the Iranian nuclear program was obliterated sound like silly propagandistic lies by the Trump administration. The nuclear program was greatly damaged, but not obliterated, and Iran can rebuild. Depending on how fast Iran can rebuild, this may have ultimately been a futile attack that only makes Iran more determined to get a nuclear weapon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCTS8h7hjZw