Link: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/could-a-vaccine-prevent-dementia-shingles-shot-data-only-getting-stronger/

While lifesaving vaccines face a relentless onslaught from the Trump administration—with fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leading the charge—scientific literature is building a wondrous story: A vaccine appears to prevent dementia, including Alzheimer’s, and may even slow biological aging.

For years, study after study has noted that older adults vaccinated against shingles seemed to have a lower risk of dementia. A study last month suggested the same vaccine appears to slow biological aging, including lowering markers of inflammation.

“Our study adds to a growing body of work suggesting that vaccines may play a role in healthy aging strategies beyond solely preventing acute illness,” study author Eileen Crimmins, of the University of Southern California, said.

Another study this month suggested the positive findings against dementia from the past may even be underestimates of the vaccination’s potential, with a newer vaccine against shingles providing even more protection.

While the topic is important, the absurd number of em-dashes in that article leads me to discard it out of hand as Assumed Intelligence slop .. which is unfortunate since the premise is interesting.

People falsely assuming ai is its own kind of Assumed Intelligence at this point lmao

Beth Mole is not known to produce AI slop.

It is truly amazing to me that apparently no one ever ran into an emdash before LLMs. If humans didn't regularly use them, they wouldn't appear in the training corpus.

AI copied Beth, not the other way around. Check out a random article she wrote in 2022 https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/us-covid-death-toll-would-be-4x-higher-without-vaccines-modeling-study-finds/