This Is What Happens When We Listen To Idiots
I have said this before but it bears repeating again now that the above image is easier to understand. Andrew Wakefield, who was one man who started the anti-vaccine movement, is a criminal and should be prosecuted as such. His research was debunked but for the people who followed this pied piper, it is didn’t matter. Even worse, Jenny McCarthy still has the stage and a public forum. God forgive if polio ever gets out again.
It was Andrew Wakefield – not Peter
TY
As Research Integrity Officer of my University, I often cite this case as what can happen when someone fabricates or falsifies results. It is not a trivial issue, people’s lives are at stake. What a shame
Bravo Doug. Ditto Lance.
Prosecuted? He should be inoculated with polio.
And don’t forget that he also lost his medical license due to his intentional fraud.
But, to put it into perspective, there have neen anti-vaccine nutjobs since the days of Jenner (including the days after Jenner, when vaccines had been well proven).
The pediatricians in our system have decided to fire all unvaccinated children, and it looks like FP, not wanting to have an avalanche of sick, unvaccinated kids in their waiting rooms, will follow. The ethics make for an interesting debate, but as far as I’m concerned, if you want to reject medicine that had been well-proved by the 19th century, then it’s okay for Medicine to reject you. Go take colloidal silver when you’ve got an infection and have Mom sew your cuts up with thread. Oh, and either stay on your own property, including no school (which a lot of these wackos do anyway), or wear some sort of a conspicuous mark when travelling in public, so people can avoid you.
Back at work, all of this always leads to the “Depo at puberty, and you should need a license to get the antidote” discussion, which leads to the “Mandatory Depo at the welfare office” discussion, which then heads right downhill unless there are patients waiting to be seen. You want a rousing pro-eugenics conversation? — Put a bunch of doctors in a room alone and let ‘er rip.