The Real Horror of the Anti-Vaxxers

[littlemissmartypants]

This isn’t just a public health crisis. It’s a public sanity one.

By Frank Bruni
Opinion Columnist

March 9, 2019

How many studies do you have to throw at the vaccine hysterics before they quit? How much of a scientific consensus, how many unimpeachable experts and how exquisitely rational an argument must you present?

That’s a trick question, of course. There’s no magic number. There’s no number, period. And that’s because the anti-vaccine crowd (or anti-vaxxers) aren’t trafficking in anything as concrete, mundane and quaint as facts. They’re not really engaged in a debate about medicine. They’re immersed in a world of conspiracies, in the dark shadows where no data can be trusted, nothing is what it seems and those who buy the party line are pitiable sheep.

And, boy, are they living at the right time, when so much information and misinformation swirl by so quickly that it’s easy to confuse the two and even easier to grab hold and convince yourself of whatever it is you prefer to believe. With Google searches, you find the ostensible proof you seek. On social media, you bask in all the affirmation you could possibly want.

The parents who are worried or sure about grave risks from vaccines reflect a broader horror that has flickered or flared in everything from the birther movement to “Pizzagate,” that nonsense about children as Democratic sex slaves in the imagined basement of a Washington pizza joint. Their recklessness and the attendant re-emergence of measles aren’t just a public health crisis. They’re a public sanity one, emblematic of too many people’s willful disregard of evidence, proud suspicion of expertise and estrangement from reason.

More at the link.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-real-horror-of-the-anti-vaxxers.html

[TreasonousBastard]

1. This is nothing new. Humans have this amazing ability to get hysterical over...

the most ridiculous things.

Science and knowledge is work, since it involves background, learning and even (gasp!) math. Some big mouth who gets right into your basic fears without half trying will win every time.

I've got Bruni's piece sitting around here somewhere and I'll be interested in seeing if he understands that Google and Facebook also give access to the truth about these things in ways we've never seen before.

[Lucky Luciano]

2. Pro-plaguers

[mn9driver]

3. The internet gives people with loony ideas permission to become loonier.

Anti-vaxxers, flat Earthers, 9/11 truthers, QAnon believers, climate change deniers, and lots more.

The sheer volume of steaming bullshit out there, all nicely formatted and professional looking, is driving human intelligence right into the ground.

[Larrybanal]

4. exactly

these idiots refuse to believe anything founded in reality...including trump being a lying crook who only cares about himself

[mart48]

5. OK but . . .

Not to defend anti-vaxxers but they are far exceeded by the number of people who disbelieve evolution and/or who would vote for Trump again.

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Or the Flat Earthers? I'm pretty sure that venn diagram overlaps in several places. nt

[Haggis for Breakfast]

7. "The Panic Virus" by Seth Mnookin

reveals the beginnings of the anti-vaxxer movement in detailed research. It got its real impetus from a Canadian internist, named Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield fled to England just as Canadian authorities were examining his license.

He had long sought a cure for Crohn's disease, an inflammatory condition of the bowel, a truly nasty, debilitating illness. While researching possible connections between Crohn's and other ailments, he wanted to rule out potential candidates for inclusion. His work came to the attention of a company that manufactured vaccines, a competitor to the most popular pharmaceutical vaccine on the market at the time. More to the point, they wanted him to provide evidence that their vaccine was superior/safer/more readily tolerable and with fewer side effects than the competition. They gave him strong financial incentive.

He conducted "research" that validated their claims. Shoddy, unethical, manipulation of science, chemistry and medicine. Much of his "evidence" was impossible to replicate and produce identical results - THE standard in scientific research. His results were pure fiction.

He then wrote a paper and submitted it to the oldest, most prestigious medical journal in the world, The Lancet. Rushing the story into print, they failed to undertake the exhaustive peer review and research required of such a claim. IF his findings were true, this was information they believed that the world should have this immediately.

After publication, the outcry and condemnation was fast, furious and overwhelming. Doctors, the world over, were outraged that the Lancet would publish something this significant without conclusive, irrefutable backing research. The Board at the magazine realized the enormity of their mistake, and for the first time in the magazine's history, they printed a retraction, an apology and a promise that something like this would never happen again.

But it was too late. The damage had been done. Nothing the Lancet or anyone else could do would ever erase this outrageous fiction. The British government pulled Wakefield's medical license and no country will issue him one now or ever again.

Since then, over a thousand research papers and medical follow studies have been conducted and published that determined that there is NO connection between vaccines and Autism. Most recently a study was published from the Danes that followed 650,000 children for ten years and once again validated that vaccines DO NOT cause Autism.

Now, Autism is a heartbreaking condition for the parents of these children. More research should be conducted to attempt to unearth the causes of this illness. But vaccines are not the problem. This has been proven over and over and over again.

But a lie travels the world with blinding speed while the truth is still getting out of bed. Sadly, this entire fiction had its roots in GREED.

If that doesn't make you sick . . . .