Journal Runs Editorial Fraught With COVID Misinformation
A peer-reviewed neurosurgery journal printed an write-up peddling bogus statements about the pandemic — without having any evidence to aid its promises, an specialist reported.
The editorial by Russell Blaylock, MD, in Surgical Neurology Global, stating that the COVID-19 pandemic was “a person of the most manipulated infectious disorder situations in historical past.”
The piece, entitled “COVID UPDATE: What is the truth?” promises that the pandemic was characterised by lies from government officers and clinical societies. It statements that the media is orchestrating address-ups, below the command of pharmaceutical firms. And it statements that “hundreds of 1000’s” have been killed by mRNA vaccines, and a lot of situations additional have been injured.
But whilst the editorial is revealed in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, it gives no solid scientific evidence to back up its claims, only unfiltered conjecture from its creator, in accordance to Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, PhD, an epidemiologist with the University of Wollongong in Australia.
Meyerowitz-Katz wrote a Twitter thread outlining his issues with the editorial, calling the piece “strange” and “astonishingly unscientific.” The epidemiologist explained to MedPage Now that numerous of the papers cited in the editorial actually disagree with the details built in the editorial.
Moreover, Meyerowitz-Katz famous that the most frequently cited reference in the editorial is anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s ebook, The True Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Huge Pharma, and the International War on Democracy and Community Wellness – a resource he deemed “certainly not responsible.”
Blaylock also backlinks to conspiracy idea blogs, Meyerowitz-Katz reported. A person prices Ryan Cole, MD, a pathologist in Idaho less than fireplace for spreading COVID misinformation, as viewing a “dramatic spike” in intense cancers between vaccinated people today but gives no details to assist that declare.
A number of other references in Blaylock’s report are to items by medical professionals infamous for spreading COVID misinformation, currently being lively in political movements, and speaking at conservative rallies, these as Peter McCullough, MD, Pierre Kory, MD, Meryl Nass, MD, and Joseph Mercola, DO, to identify a handful of.
“When Dr. Blaylock is, of program, entitled to his impression, this is supported in the post largely by reduced-good quality sources that absolutely absence credibility or basically do not help his argument,” Meyerowitz-Katz stated. “Substantially of the editorial is supported by no references at all and just represents the author’s own views.”
In an e mail to MedPage Right now, Blaylock stated that he has by no means found such a “blatant need from a team of medical doctors” to finish no cost speech and discussion. “The pandemic is over, so there is no justification for continuing this totalitarian suppression of dissenting sights,” he stated.
James Ausman, MD, PhD, the emeritus editor-in-main of Surgical Neurology International, explained in a statement to MedPage Today that the journal “is open up to responses from any reader as long as the opinions are factual and cost-free of particular comments.”
Blaylock has a history of spreading misinformation in the diet globe, claiming that specified food items additives are “excitotoxic” to the mind in standard doses. Numerous have credited the former neurosurgeon for beginning the health scare all around monosodium glutamate (MSG), just after he wrote in his 1994 e-book, Excitotoxins: The Style that Kills, that it could be joined to mind damage and neurodegenerative ailments.
The physician has also historically opposed vaccines, notably stating that the swine flu was a human-created virus, and promoting chilly showers as a remedy to counter the “dangerous consequences” of the H1N1 vaccine.
Blaylock at this time sells health supplements named “Brain Repair service Formulation” and writes for the conservative information outlet Newsmax. He also serves as affiliate editor of the neuroinflammation part of Surgical Neurology International.
That journal is an “unbiased publication that is not affiliated with any culture or group,” in accordance to the journal web page. It was proven in 2010, and is revealed by Scientific Scholar.
Considering the fact that it was founded, the journal states, it has remained “apolitical,” noting that it does not discriminate in opposition to authors centered on political, spiritual, racial, geographical, or sexual attributes.
The journal states that the content it publishes have to be “truth-primarily based,” but extra that it “understands that points may possibly be interpreted in another way by diverse readers.”
Correction: An previously variation of this posting cited the incorrect publisher of Surgical Neurology International.
