FSM News and Articles
Why didn’t others get hotel coronavirus? Immunologist John Dwyer (and co-founder of Friends of Science in Medicine) offers an explanation for why infected quarantine hotel worked were fortunate enough to not infect other members of the community. “It’s possible these workers got infected by people who are close to the end of their course with COVID-19, a person who was shedding the virus but not in an infectious form… The PCR tests that diagnose COVID-19 are extremely sensitive and would give a positive result even if an infected person has contracted only remnants of the virus.”
FSM Friends’ News and Articles
The efforts of anti-vaxxers to portray COVID-19 vaccines as harmful or even deadly continue apace (VAERS edition): “The anti-vaccine movement has always been about more than just vaccines. It’s basically against public health and any collective action to protect public health.”
General
Complementary medicines: Cancellations from the ARTG: After years of complaints, some by FSM, the TGA cancelled the listing of Cat Media’s ‘Fatblaster FatMagnet’ in product December, on the basis of inappropriate advertising claims and lack of efficacy. Despite this, the product is still being sold by multiple outlets. However, in what appears to be an effort to replace FatMagnet, Cat Media have launched a new product this month: FatMagnet Max. The new product contains another popular extract in the diet-pill industry: Opuntia ficus-indica (cactus pear). A systematic review found no significant effect of cactus pear extract on body weight (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25837206/) so this new product is not likely to be more efficacious than the previous version.
Conspirituality: Where New Age wellness meets right wing conspiracy thinking: “Yoga practitioner and ‘shaman’ Jacob Chansley has been on a hunger strike in a Washington DC jail because his request to eat only organic food, free of ‘unnatural chemicals’ was denied, despite claims that ‘preservatives’ affect his serotonin levels.”