The Skeptical OB

My email and Facebook messages are filled with the same question over and over again: Are the new COVID vaccines safe for use in pregnancy? I don’t know … and the truth is that no one knows. Yet the American College of Obstetrician Gynecologists (ACOG) is recommending the vaccine for pregnant persons. They have issued […]

Over the past four years it has become increasingly clear that many Americans are suffering from the sickness of science denial. It’s a dangerous infection that profoundly weakens the body politic, is transmitted through the air(waves), and mutates easily, making it difficult to control. As with any illness it helps to recognize the symptoms so […]

Hi, folks, Ima Frawde here. I spend every working day denying the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, denying the reality of climate change and denying the deadliness of the COVID pandemic. How do I relax? I’m a football fan! I spend all my free time watching football, following my team on social media and reading […]

Science denialists believe the opposite of scientists. Science shows that vaccines are safe and effective; anti-vaxxers believe they’re neither. Science shows that the earth’s climate is changing as a result of human activity; climate denialists either claim it isn’t changing or the change is not the result of humans. Science shows COVID-19 is a coronavirus […]

Science denialists have a deeply fraught relationship with scientific evidence. On the one hand, even the most outlandish forms of denialism attempt to invoke the imprimatur of science. Claims range from the simple (“studies show …”) to the elaborate (lists of scientific citations of papers that appear to support the claims being advanced, but actually […]

I spend my days wrangling with science denialists on the Skeptical OB Facebook page. I don’t really argue with them since a doctor can no more argue science with a denialist than a mathematician can argue calculus with a four year old. Neither denialists nor four year olds know enough to come to grips with […]

Imagine this scenario: A woman, after reviewing the evidence from both sides, after carefully considering the increased risks, and after deciding that she is willing to accept the responsibility for the outcome, decides to … smoke cigarettes. This situation happens all the time. Indeed, a substantial portion of the population smokes cigarettes. In 2021, everyone […]

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the misogynist playbook: declare that any woman who tells inconvenient truths is mentally ill. Physicians of the 19th and early 20th Century even had a name for the purported mental illness: hysteria. That’s why it is the bitterest irony that Australian midwives have declared that women who request […]

Why do people believe things that even the most cursory exploration would reveal to be untrue? Why do people fervently embrace vaccine denialism, climate denialism and even election denialism? It’s only partly because they find these delusional beliefs comforting. The real reason is because belief in fantastical delusions has become a form of identity signaling, […]

It’s been a dream for so long, but scientists have finally created the first vaccines against human stupidity. Early tests show that they are more than 90% effective at selectively extending the life and promoting the health of intellectual elites. They have the added advantage of also protecting those who are smart enough to follow […]