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2020 UPDATE on the Tim Noakes Report

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2020 UPDATE on the Tim Noakes Report 2020 UPDATE on the Tim Noakes Report Summary: In a recent blog post, Tim Noakes continued to spread anti-vaccine misinformation and common anti-vaccine/vaccine hesitant tropes. Such misinformation included the flawed science done by anti-vaccine activist, Brian Hooker. This was used to defend Noakes’ 2014 social media post on Twitter that also included anti-vaccine misinformation (a video directed by Andrew Wakefield with the false autism-vaccine connection and CDC “coverup” conspiracy). He calls on Nathan Geffen, PhD to remove a previous article about him due to concerns about potential falsehoods, but Noakes has failed to do this with the very factual errors he has expressed and spread, which indeed can have public health consequences. Noakes also doubles down by implying support to the discredited, flawed paper by Andrew Wakefield. Previously, Noakes’ social media had been assessed for not just what type of anti-vaccine misinformation was spread, but how much. This included observations of an increasing relationship between those who follow Noakes on Twitter, and those who also follow anti- vaccine accounts — this relationship has continued to increase dramatically in 2020. Noakes has continued to support several anti-vaccine leaders, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his organization Children’s Health Defense, and now recently Judy Mikovits and her documentary “Plandemic”. When assessing the overall vaccine narrative that Noakes broadcasts to his audience, it seems that 93% of it has been anti-vaccine in nature. Furthermore, in the first four months of 2020, Tim Noakes generated a maximum of ~7 million exposures to anti-vaccine misinformation. Across all tweets from August 2014 to May 7th, 2020, this number adds up to a staggering 11 million possible exposures. The claim that Noakes “is not anti-vaccine” and has not shared anti-vaccine misinformation is terribly weak and not based on the evidence. Noakes has spread, expressed and supported unscientific, disproven claims and the majority of what he has shared about vaccines is dangerous to public health and can cause harm to the reputation of those in his profession. Continuing to do so, as he has done, is a complete contradiction to what Noakes stands for, what others in his profession stand for, and what his own country’s regulatory body, as well as international organizations, stand for. 1 CONTENTS Response to Vaccine Misinformation in Noakes’ May 4th, 2020 Blog Article ............................. 3 Analysis of Tim Noakes’ Social Media: 2020 UPDATE ............................................................... 6 Additional Twitter Concerns......................................................................................................... 13 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 17 References ..................................................................................................................................... 18 2 Response to Vaccine Misinformation in Noakes’ May 4th, 2020 Blog Article On May 4th, 2020, an article was published by Tim Noakes on The Noakes Foundation’s website. In this article, Noakes addresses concerns and claims made by Nathan Geffen, PhD about vaccine related issues and COVID-19 information — here we will touch on the topic of vaccines. Noakes continues to defend his 2014 CDC Coverup Whistleblower tweet and claims that what he posted was “factually correct.” This could be farther from the truth as the video posted and concerns implied in the tweet are not scientifically correct and are explicit anti- vaccine tropes and rhetoric. The CDC whistleblower coverup story and risk of autism have shown to be false.1–13 Noakes claims that these allegations (about a risk of autism from MMR) are correct based on a reanalysis study by Brian Hooker. However, the study cited can no longer be found and has subsequently been removed from the journal’s site. Noakes includes that the reanalysis was published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons and this might be an appeal to authority since it sounds academically legit. What Noakes might be unaware of, is that this journal is not a respectable journal; it has been criticized for promoting fringe views and for being a predatory journal.14–16 Put bluntly by Dr. David Gorski, “The AAPS is, basically, a far right wing doctors’ organization masquerading as a medical professional society, with a world view that rejects nearly all restrictions on physicians’ practice of medicine, purportedly for the good of the patient.”3 It is disappointing that Tim Noakes did not look deeper before citing this study, journal and evidence. In the future, it would be quite concerning if this did not raise red flags with Noakes since he enjoys focusing on the issues of “Bad Science.” The 2018 reanalysis by Hooker was flawed.3 • “the numbers are so small that this is almost certainly a spurious result, particularly given that it wasn’t seen in any other subgroup and there is no biologically plausible mechanism why MMR would increase the risk of autism in only African-American males who received the MMR after 24 months.”3 Hooker’s attempted reanalysis in 2014 was also flawed and retracted.2–4,10,17,18 The publisher also issued “serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions because of possible undeclared competing interests of the author and peer reviewers.”19 Noakes’ believes that this makes the information conveyed in his original tweet “proven to be factually correct.” However, it does nothing of the sorts. The video Noakes tweeted is posted by an anti-vaccine account, which is directed by an anti-vaccine leader which claims there is a coverup in the CDC, which is an anti-vaccine claim, and the coverup is about a false autism association, which also happens to be an anti-vaccine claim. This checks all the boxes for being explicit anti-vaccine misinformation. Noakes also includes part of a quote that suggests these findings (now shown to be flawed) “could yield important clues regarding the current enormous increase in autism.” Thus, Noakes 3 continues to conflate autism and vaccines in order to explain the increase in autism — however, if Noakes referred to the current scientific evidence on the topic, he would find that vaccines do not explain this apparent increase. Vaccines do not cause autism, they do not increase the risk of autism, and the epidemiologic and mechanistic evidence does not show any link whatsoever.20–41 A brand new 2020 Cochrane Systematic Review, which included 138 studies and totaled over 23 million participants, concluded once again, that there is no increased risk of autism.41 Noakes once again claims that his tweet was about “Bad Science” and not vaccine safety or the flawed autism connection. However, the content/video he tweeted was indeed about vaccine safety and the flawed autism connection. Furthermore, he is only partially correct since his tweet does in fact demonstrate “Bad Science”, that is, the bad science that tried to show vaccines increased the risk of autism and the lack of critical thinking that can follow when posting about such topics. This is about “Bad Science”, but not in the way that Noakes thinks — in this case, he has been the one that has posted bad science. On the topic of bad science, but off topic from vaccines, it is incredibly odd that Noakes seems to endorse the research findings of Professor Didier Raoult, when it appears as though Raoult has exemplified the act of bad science. Much of Raoult’s work on COVID-19 has been flawed.42–45 There is some additional irony within Noakes’ response, as he calls out the CDC’s conflict of interest and often brings up “Big Pharma”, but little does he know that Raoult seems to have pharmaceutical financial ties.46 He continues to defend this 2014 tweet by mentioning that the tweet “posed as a question and ended with a question mark.” In 2020, we could continue to ask questions about the topic, however, this then should be closely followed by the scientific evidence that shows no connection between vaccines and autism. Asking questions for the sake of asking questions and ignoring the scientific answers is simply not science. It appears Noakes tries to lessen the impact of what he had posted by saying the tweet “just happened to involve the suppression of what proved to be legitimate findings relating to vaccine safety.” It is unclear why Noakes writes this the way he does. Not only were these findings flawed and the concerns about vaccine safety proven to be scientifically unsound, Noakes dodges the anti-vaccine nature of what he posted by claiming the tweet “just so happened” to also contain vaccine misinformation — as if it was sheer coincidence and as if he has no control, or responsibility, in what he posts. Ironically, Noakes’ claims that Geffen’s article is dishonest, when the content that Noakes has spread is also dishonest. 4 I am unsure why Noakes brings up the fact that “The CDC is the largest single buyer and distributor of vaccines in the United States” — this conflict of interest is besides the point and can be considered a strawman fallacy or the “poisoning the well” fallacy. It might be helpful to include this additional detail from the same document Noakes cited: “CDC does not directly purchase vaccines; state and local grantees are each given a vaccine budget for the purchase of vaccines at the negotiated contract prices. With that budget, states can purchase, store, and redistribute these vaccines from their own depots or through contracts with pharmaceutical distribution companies.”47 What Noakes is expressing also happens to be a common “Big Pharma” trope and it could be concluded that the CDC profits are most likely less than what Noakes thinks.48,49 Noakes also doesn’t acknowledge the major conflicts of interest and profits from those within the anti- vaccine movement.50,51 It is unclear why Noakes wants Geffen to try and correct information when Noakes himself won’t correct his own falsehoods.
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