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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

Calley Means is a wellness grifter who doesn’t know science.

Chimps DO get cancer.
Chimps have different expression of genes like p53, that play a role.

MOSTLY:
Chimps die of other things before they’d get cancer.
Captive chimps that live longer? They sure do.

Watch ⬇️
youtu.be/TtB3OyuRqs4?...

Calley Means doesn’t know science

YouTube video by Andrea Love, PhD

youtu.be

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

RFK Jr. is HARKing in human form.

“hypothesizing after results are known,” is a tactic to “fit” a narrative to data.

It’s how he’s going to “make proof” for false health claims.

RFK Jr isn’t a scientist. He doesn’t know how to do science. He HAS profited off health disinformation for decades.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

And if you don’t realize your immense privilege, read the article for a tiny snapshot into other parts of the world.

Like toilets in much of Uganda:

I used them but had soap, sanitizer, bottled water, antibiotics, antimalarials, insect repellent, typhoid & hep A vaccines: things locals don’t.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

We have the cleanest hands & air in human history—yet we’re letting one of the most preventable diseases return.

Hygiene didn’t fail. Science didn’t fail.

We failed public health by letting ideology override evidence.

Read the full article for more:
news.immunologic.org/p/were-losin...

🧵

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

Vaccines are the same kind of infrastructure:

you don’t notice them when they’re working (and many take them for granted) and it’s devastating when they’re gone.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

We don’t question the need for clean water, functional plumbing, or food safety regulations—because we know what happens without them.

So why do people question vaccines—when we KNOW what happens without them too?

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

Current prevalence is low because people get vaccinated.

Not as many as should be—which is why previously-controlled diseases are resurging—but still a majority.

If we stop vaccination as a public health measure, these diseases will return.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

We don’t have rampant spread of Giardia, Shigella, Vibrio. The prevalence of these diseases are low because we have sanitation.

Remove the scientific measures that keep those pathogens at bay, they will return. Quickly.

That’s the SAME phenomenon with vaccine-preventable diseases.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

You’d immediately think of the disease risks without clean water & plumbing.

When people say, “we don’t need vaccines because rates of tetanus, polio, & hepatitis are low,”

It’s the SAME logic as “we don’t need water treatment because no one’s gotten cholera lately.”

They’re both wrong.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 1d

How would you react if someone decided you’d no longer have water treatment & plumbing?

That you’d be rolling a dice with water from your faucet. That you’d have to poop in a bucket & dump it in the street, your yard, a ditch.

You’d probably be horrified & outraged, right?

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 2d

Jordan Peterson claims he has CIRS, a pseudoscience condition supposedly caused by “toxic mold”

This is a “diagnosis” of the wellness industry. His daughter, Mikhaila, has a history of the same claims.

I wrote about this last year in Skeptical Inquirer:

skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/to...

Toxic Mold: Is It Really the Cause of All Maladies? | Skeptical Inquirer

If you listened to the wellness and alternative health industries, you might think so. Everywhere you look, there are articles extolling the harms associate ...

skepticalinquirer.org

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 4d

mRNA COVID-19 vaccines don’t cause cancer.

Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand immunology, vaccinology, or how to interpret studies.

Hope this helps!

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 5d

I recommend reading my recent newsletter on bad observational studies being used as causal evidence:

news.immunologic.org/p/correlatio...

Correlation Isn't Causation, But It Makes Profitable Clickbait

Tylenol and autism, diet soda and depression, pesticides as bad as smoking: sloppy observational epidemiology drives panic and ignores biology, chemistry, and toxicology.

news.immunologic.org

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 5d

My feed was FLOODED with absolutely reckless disinformation from @washingtonpost.com today, as usual.

They are one of the worst perpetrators of clickbait chemophobic disinformation.

And yet scream about the threat that is RFK Jr while parroting the exact same lies.

🧵

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 5d

And it’s a serious problem.

Because on all sides, we see anti-science legislation and policy being made that undermines data, science, and public health.

Read the full article and watch my 2024 CSICon talk on this topic here:

🔗 news.immunologic.org/p/science-sa...

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Science says...but my group chat disagrees

Even self-proclaimed science supporters have blind spots when misinformation fits their worldview.

news.immunologic.org

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 5d

EVERY left-leaning media outlet contributes to this—most are instigators.

+ most Dem politicians, especially ones who pass legislation sponsored by groups like EWG.

Selective science denialism crosses ALL ideologies —bc strong opinions replace logic even with those who think they follow data.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 5d

You CANNOT call yourself
"pro science" if you support vaccines yet believe and support falsehoods about "chemicals," food ingredients, pesticides/farming, and biotech.

That's cherry-picking.

It’s exactly the same tactic that people you demonize do when it comes to being anti-vaccine.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 7d

That’s true for all topics: cancer, infectious diseases, vaccines, nutrition, hormones, “chemicals,” & more.

Read more:
news.immunologic.org/p/cancer-mis...

🧵

Cancer misinformation kills. Chemotherapy saves lives.

Rejecting evidence-based treatment in favor of false hope and wellness industry lies is deadly.

news.immunologic.org

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 7d

This — medical conspiracism — is the foundation of the wellness industry’s business model.

They MUST convince people that science-based medicine & credible professionals are villains to get customers for their unproven, ineffective, & dangerous products.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 7d

It’s the difference between life & death.

The wellness industry profits by creating distrust of medicine, falsely claiming “real” cancer cures are being hidden so doctors can keep patients sick & poison them with chemotherapy.

They are lying to you. With fatal consequences. While making money.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 7d

Patients with lung cancer?
2.17-fold increased risk of death
Five-year survival declines from 41.3% to 19.9%.

Breast cancer patients?
5.68-fold higher risk of death.
Five-year survival drops from 86.6% to 58.1%.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 7d

Cancer misinformation kills. Literally.

Cancer patients who refuse conventional treatments and rely on unsupported therapies die more often and faster.

Colorectal cancer patients:
A 4.57-fold increased risk of death
Five-year survival plummets from 79.4% to 32.7%.

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 8d

The MAHA movement claims to improving our health, but by every measure, it’s doing the opposite.

Watch ⬇️⬇️

youtu.be/-dHd0XbeFD0?...

MAHA is the opposite of healthy.

YouTube video by Andrea Love, PhD

youtu.be

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 10d

Yup, I used a couple of his in this article :)

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Andrea Love, PhD | Biomedical Scientist @drandrealove.bsky.social · 10d

Wrote about this here—and many other places:

news.immunologic.org/p/the-congre...

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