A view-reviewed neurosurgery journal published a piece of writing peddling false statements in regards to the pandemic — with none proof to present a enhance to its claims, an professional acknowledged.
The editorial by Russell Blaylock, MD, in Surgical Neurology Global, declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic used to be “one in all essentially the most manipulated infectious disease occasions in historical past.”
The percentage, entitled “COVID UPDATE: What’s the fact?” claims that the pandemic used to be characterised by lies from government officers and medical societies. It claims that the media is orchestrating cowl-ups, below the regulate of pharmaceutical companies. And it claims that “hundreds of hundreds” had been killed by mRNA vaccines, and quite a lot of times extra had been injured.
Nonetheless despite the indisputable truth that the editorial is published in a view-reviewed scientific journal, it offers no solid scientific proof to support up its claims, entirely unfiltered conjecture from its author, in step with Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, PhD, an epidemiologist with the University of Wollongong in Australia.
Meyerowitz-Katz wrote a Twitter thread outlining his concerns with the editorial, calling the percentage “abnormal” and “astonishingly unscientific.” The epidemiologist told MedPage This present day that most of the papers cited within the editorial no doubt disagree with the capabilities made within the editorial.
Additionally, Meyerowitz-Katz eminent that essentially the most frequently cited reference within the editorial is anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s e book, The Staunch Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Enormous Pharma, and the Global Battle on Democracy and Public Health – a offer he deemed “obviously no longer decent.”
Blaylock also links to conspiracy thought blogs, Meyerowitz-Katz acknowledged. One quotes Ryan Cole, MD, a pathologist in Idaho below fireplace for spreading COVID misinformation, as seeing a “dramatic spike” in aggressive cancers among vaccinated contributors but offers no records to present a enhance to that recount.
Various quite a lot of references in Blaylock’s article are to items by physicians notorious for spreading COVID misinformation, being active in political movements, and speaking at conservative rallies, equivalent to Peter McCullough, MD, Pierre Kory, MD, Meryl Nass, MD, and Joseph Mercola, DO, to name a couple of.
“Whereas Dr. Blaylock is, for optimistic, entitled to his thought, right here is supported within the article largely by low-quality sources that fully lack credibility or simply manufacture no longer give a enhance to his argument,” Meyerowitz-Katz acknowledged. “A lot of the editorial is supported by no references in any appreciate and simply represents the author’s fill views.”
In an electronic mail to MedPage This present day, Blaylock acknowledged that he has by no methodology seen this kind of “blatant search facts from from a community of medical doctors” to total free speech and debate. “The pandemic is over, so there is not any longer any such thing as a justification for persevering with this totalitarian suppression of dissenting views,” he acknowledged.
James Ausman, MD, PhD, the emeritus editor-in-chief of Surgical Neurology Global, acknowledged in a statement to MedPage This present day that the journal “is originate to comments from any reader as lengthy because the comments are ultimate and free of non-public comments.”
Blaylock has a historical past of spreading misinformation within the food scheme world, claiming that obvious food components are “excitotoxic” to the brain in usual doses. Many fill credited the frail neurosurgeon for starting the health dread spherical monosodium glutamate (MSG), after he wrote in his 1994 e book, Excitotoxins: The Style that Kills, that it’d even be linked to brain wound and neurodegenerative ailments.
The physician has also historically opposed vaccines, particularly declaring that the swine flu used to be a human-made virus, and promoting cool showers as a therapy to counter the “harmful outcomes” of the H1N1 vaccine.
Blaylock currently sells dietary supplements known as “Mind Repair System” and writes for the conservative news outlet Newsmax. He also serves as affiliate editor of the neuroinflammation piece of Surgical Neurology Global.
That journal is an “self sustaining newsletter that is no longer affiliated with any society or group,” in step with the journal site. It used to be established in 2010, and is published by MedKnow, a company owned by Wolters Kluwer.
Because it used to be founded, the journal states, it has remained “apolitical,” noting that it would no longer discriminate against authors in step with political, non secular, racial, geographical, or sexual characteristics.
The journal states that the articles it publishes could also light be “truth-basically basically based,” but added that it “understands that facts could be interpreted in any other case by quite a lot of readers.”
-
Amanda D’Ambrosio is a reporter on MedPage This present day’s endeavor & investigative workers. She covers obstetrics-gynecology and quite a lot of medical news, and writes capabilities in regards to the U.S. healthcare system. Declare
