So, my an online american friend said"My mom didn’t want to vaccine vax cuzs autism". Is he joking? I know many people say thing like that but i thought they all were joking?
In my country which is a third world country no one believe shit like that even my Grand mother who is illiterate and religious don’t believe thing like that and knows the benefit of vaccine.
Back in the 90s a British doctor called Andrew Wakefield was bribed by a pharmaceutical company that made separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella to come up with a study to discredit the combined mmr vaccine. He found a bunch of parents in an antivax society and twisted the results of a very weighted questionnaire to demonstrate a link between MMR and the 'tism. It was quickly discredited, but the damage was done. He was stripped of his medical licence after that.
There’s a number of points this comment misses. First, it wasn’t pharmaceutical companies, but moms group of autistic children that approached him.
[I]n 1995, while conducting research into Crohn’s disease, he was approached by Rosemary Kessick, the parent of a child with autism, who was seeking help with her son’s bowel problems and autism; Kessick ran a group called Allergy Induced Autism. In 1996, Wakefield turned his attention to researching possible connections between the MMR vaccine and autism.
And the time, he was still a well regarded scientist and doctor:
At the time of his MMR research study, Wakefield was senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine
This was also published in 1998 in The Lancet an important medical journal, but the controversy didn’t start with this publication, but his press conference after the publication where he did advocate for single vaccines and not a combined MMR. Pretty poor form and highly criticized at the time.
The media took this and ran with it. It caused wide spread misinformation about autism and the MMR vaccine. But it was also a media outlet that began to tear apart the claims in 2004.
It wasn’t retracted until 2010 and a full write up about what went wrong in the BMJ in 2011. There was a lot of criticism before then, but I was also highly cited as well.
There’s a lot of lessons to be learned here and that is best done with the full story.
Don’t forget Oprah Winfrey giving
MelissaJenny McCarthy a mouthpiece in front of every suburban mom in the US. We have her to thank for both that and “Dr” Phil.If I recall correctly that was Jenny McCarthy, but correct otherwise (not looking to see Melissa McCarthy take the flak for that!). The amount of ugly pseudoscience and bullshit that has emerged through Oprah’s platform is horrifying.
oh FFS I mixed up names, will fix it
It’s crazy to think about the thousands of lost lives stemming from a single fraudulent study.
It makes me sad that the piece of shit Andrew Wakefield is still alive while so many better people than him have died for his bullshit.
Hbomb’s video is a good overview if you have about two hours to spare.
For the paper he published - he got his subjects at a birthday party. Not all of them even had autism. He was positing that autism had something to do with the digestive track, and they did shit like lumbar punctures on some of the kids (one iirc had serious complications - they basically tortured autistic children with a bunch of painful and complicated medical tests).
The fact that The Lancet published a paper with such horrific failures in methodology, ethics, and even fucking sample size is an embarrassment.
It’s both. They actually believe it and it’s a joke that they do.
Spot on. Waiting for their favourite influencer, pastor, etc to tell them to believe something else.
In theatre it’s called “suspension of disbelief.” You know what’s happening on stage isn’t really happening, but you agree to just go with it and exist in the show’s reality for an hour or so. Not meant to be a permanent state of consciousness.
It’s a very real belief, lot of folks here weren’t around to know the “before times” and nothing is ever real until it happens to them.
The real problem isn’t the FO, it’s the lack of empathy until it affects them personally.
They’ve reached the finding out part in Texas.
The irony is it was all started with a guy trying to spread FUD over existing measles vaccines to try getting his own vaccines picked up.
So this happened…
Saw that too. We are a joke.
Oh didn’t saw it I have blocked all news and politics community.
Our “leader” is an anti-democratic felon rapist who incited an insurrection and illegally attempted to overturn an election.
It’s not a joke.
Americans are stupid as fuck.
As an American that lives 20ish miles from the boarder of Idaho state (on average poor, uneducated, and conservative population), let me tell you its fucking real. Those people are ignorant and proud. It is depressing.
Mostly the right-wing leaning Americans, who don’t like anything that costs them money even if it contributes towards a better society. They say they hate Socialism in all its forms, but had absolutely no problem accepting stimulus handouts. They are the pure leeches of our country.
Left-wing leaning Americans tend to believe science even if it comes as a slight inconvenience to themselves, that includes things that sometimes cost them money.
This is an oversimplification. I have met plenty of people who are progressive or Democrat that believe some pretty wild things about vaccines and western medicine in general. Don’t underestimate hippies.
Yeah, the whole thing first took hold in left-leaning crunchy all-natural circles.
Nah, the roots of anti-vax was conservative conspiracy nuts from the moment they were a thing.
It did spread to the granola types but it’s older than their existence.
anti vaxxing is a thing that real people really engage in, they are in fact, stupid. But it is unfortunately real, just look into the resurgence in measles outbreaks and TB and shit, that’s why.
ur friend very well may be joking, but i can assure it’s not a complete meme.
If this is the case, try to convince your friend to talk to their doctor about vaccinations. They may decide, for themselves, that they’re comfortable with it.
If people were smart enough to listen to informed opinions, and listen to facts, they wouldnt have become antivax in the first place.
We’re talking about the child of anti-vaccine parents, OP’s friend didn’t say they were anti-vaccine, they said that their parents were so they were not vaccinated as a child.
So, as a friend, OP should try to convince his friend to talk to a doctor about it. People like that are often sheltered from conflicting opinions and may still be reachable.
We are actually that stupid.
He may not be joking. My family and people I interact with don’t think vaccinations cause autism. I’m happy to have never experienced or known of anyone getting measles, polio or other ailments most everyone my age have been protected from thanks to vaccines.
Sadly some here believe the lies spread by those who for some bizarre reason are against vaccines. There’s a measles outbreak right now in Texas and New Mexico that’s affecting around 99 people so far. Last year across the US there were 285 cases. Before the fairly recent anti-vaccination crowd formed measles were officially eradicated in 2000.
Now our country’s health leader, RFK (aka worm brain), is one of the assholes against vaccinations. Sad time for sure but we’re not all like this.
MIL100% believes this. Her son was normal until about 3 and then developed seizures and is now brain damage. She blames vaccines and it doesn’t help a few other kids in area had similar experiences. She thinks there was a bad batch distribution.
Here’s the funny thing, if that had actually happened (bad batch of a vaccine hurt kids) there is an entire Vaccine Injury Fund that will pay out to her. Medical providers have been reporting vaccine injuries for as long as we’ve had vaccines and there’s lots of very real side effects. However, it’s extremely difficult to get the payout because you have to prove the vaccine caused the injury and provide evidence that batches were the same. It’s probably gone with DOGE but the vaccine manufacturers did pay in to the fund so the money is there and always has been if people can provide their allegations.
Depends on which vaccine. There are two agencies, there is the VICP and the CICP. The VICP only covers a short list of vaccines that doesn’t include COVID. (https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/covered-vaccines). COVID vax is covered by the CICP and doesn’t pay anything out for pain and suffering, only your medical bills for what your insurance didn’t cover from treatment.
I was thinking about the VICP as it’s usually the one involved in child cases. I didn’t know the COVID has an independent one but with the rapid change in vaccine tech, that makes sense.
But you also need to be careful how you talk about this because there is always some who seize on the real risk of issues without the perspective of the likelihood being minuscule compared tot he disease it prevents.
While there is some risk of the measles vaccination, it pales before the much bigger risk, the much higher harm of a measles epidemic. And we need a high percentage of people vaccinated to prevent that epidemic to protect all of us, including vulnerable segments of the population who can’t be immunized
Go to know. I dk if she had the fight in her to go after it. Wonder if a lawyer would investigate for her.
We very, very much wish it were just a joke. Diseases that were basically eliminated in the US are making a comeback. And we just appointed an antivaxxer as our health secretary, who also has proposed sending people on antidepressants and ADHD drugs to work camps for years to “re-parent” them.
It’s fucking terrifying here right now, at least for anyone paying attention.
antidepressants and ADHD drugs to work camps for years to “re-parent” them.
… WTF. I hope that mfr get squashed to death.
They actually believe it. Despite no actual link being found. Despite the author of the OG article admitting that he falsified data.
People here also believe that mRNA vaccines will rewrite your genes, that the COVID vaccine sequesters in your testicles and makes you sterile and magnetic, that vaccines are less effective than “natural immunity”, that vaccines will feminize you and make you compliant to authority, and that vaccines are ineffective.
I have legitimately heard all of those arguments against vaccines in the wild. For the record, vaccines are one of the oldest and most effective preventative measures we have. There is a reason why the mortality rate for children isn’t +30% anymore, it’s vaccines, and vaccination programs.
Magnetic?
Yes, there was a trend where influencers thought it made you magnetic. They proved this by sticking like a coin to their skin for a bit and then being amazed that it stayed there when they took their hand off.
It was ragebait, but also there’s dumbasses out there who actually believe that shit.
Some anti-vax people I know personally are my boss, 2 of the office trolls, the guy in the garage, the stinky guy who sits next to me, my friend’s mom, etc etc. People are fucking stupid yo.
