[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
Health See other Health Articles Title: How Anti-Vax Activists Use Conspiracy Theories To Spread Fear Of Vaccines How Anti-Vax Activists Use Conspiracy Theories To Spread Fear Of Vaccines Feb 3, 2020, 07:30am EST Steven Salzberg, Contributor Healthcare Anti-vaxers Rally In Kiev Anti-vaxers rally in front of Presidential Office in Kyiv, Ukraine, August 22, 2019. Parents who ... [+] NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES The World Health Organization recently declared that "vaccine hesitancy," as they called it, was one of the top 10 threats to global health. That's right: it was up there with air pollution, climate change, influenza, Ebola, and other threats. For the WHO, "vaccine hesitancy" is a polite phrase designed to engage the public and highlight how serious the problem is, without angering those who are guilty of it. I'm not going to be quite so polite here: "vaccine hesitant" means anti-vax. The anti-vax movement, which aggressively spreads fear and misinformation about vaccines, has become a major, worldwide threat. It also resembles a cult, as I'll explain. The most recent anti-vax nonsense centers on the new coronavirus that originated in China, and that has led the Chinese government to impose a massive quarantine affecting millions of people. This is a genuine public health crisis, and it has nothing to do with vaccines. Nonetheless, some anti- vaxxers have claimed that the new virus originated from a failed effort to create a coronavirus vaccine. I won’t get into that here, but Orac has a lengthy, detailed takedown of that bogus claim. "Vaccine hesitancy" sometimes refers to parents who are just learning about vaccines for the first time, and who rely on the Internet to search for information. Unfortunately, these new parents are likely to be flooded with anti-vax messages, especially on Facebook. (In recent years, Google has taken steps to lower the priority of anti-vax sites, which has improved things considerably. Sites such as healthychildren.org now appear near the top of searches for "vaccine safety.") It's entirely reasonable to ask your doctor about the benefits and risks of vaccines. But the answers that parents hear should be clear: vaccines work. As physician ZDoggMD (a pseudonym, obviously) explains in this video: "Anti-vaccine sentiment is a poisonous scourge.... There's no debate about vaccines. Let's get over that nonsense that the media and celebrities have created, okay? There is nobody in the medical community of any actual reputation who believes that there are two sides to this." The problem is that anti-vaxxers are continuously creating new websites, Facebook groups, and even movies to spread misinformation about vaccines, particularly the long-debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. Why do I suggest that anti-vaxxers resemble a cult? Because they have several of the key features of cults, such as: 1. Members of the cult have special insights that outsiders cannot comprehend. With anti-vaxxers, this means they are completely convinced that they know that vaccines cause harm, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. I've no doubt that anti-vaxxers like Wakefield, Kennedy, and others would deny that they are conspiracy theorists, because that's how conspiracy theorists operate. If you question them (they argue), you must be part of the conspiracy. By their own reasoning, they can never be wrong. So if you encounter someone, either on the sidelines at your kid's soccer game, on Facebook, or elsewhere, who is spreading claims that vaccines are harmful, pause for a minute and ask: what is the source of this information? Is it coming from someone who is profiting from this fear-mongering? There's a good chance the answer is yes. It's ironic that when the world is faced with a true health emergency, such as the Ebola virus or the Wuhan coronavirus, the first thing that public health experts start to work on is a new vaccine. That's because vaccines provide our best protection against infections. We now have effective vaccines for 16 diseases that used to harm and even kill children in large numbers around the world. We've eliminated smallpox worldwide, and we've nearly eliminated polio, thanks to vaccines. Their very effectiveness is what has allowed the anti-vax message to take hold: many people are no longer frightened of dying from infectious diseases. We're still a long way from conquering infections, but there's no reason for the world to slip back in time to an era when large numbers of people died from preventable infections. Vaccines work, if we'll let them. Poster Comment: Don't vax me, bro. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
#5. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
Horseshit.
I agree. Anti-vaxxers are not at all like the Jim Jones cult in Guyana or the Manson family. ;)
Many moons ago, when yall were but pups, while "employed" by the government, they decreed we take flu shots or be terminated. At that time flu shots could be administered in but one body part... Any guesses where????
Enough with the guessing games ! No more tests - spit it out !
In the butt. Dont tell BTP, he is is checking his PDR..
#12. To: Cynicom (#11)
hahahahaha !!! That's where I got mine as a kid !
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||