Tag: measles vaccine
Gaslighting RFK Jr.’s role in the deadly Samoan measles outbreak
One of many shameful incidents in the life of antivax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his promotion of anti-MMR fear mongering during a measles epidemic in Samoa. Now that he could become HHS Secretary, his apologists are frantically trying to gaslight you. Here's how.
Another Year, Another Measles Outbreak
Another year is here, and that means more measles outbreaks here and around the world as far too many children (and some parents) lack protection from the safe and effective vaccine.
Andrew Wakefield after 25 years: Paving the way for COVID-19 quacks and antivaxxers
It was 25 years ago yesterday that Andrew Wakefield launched the modern iteration of the antivaccine movement.In doing so, he laid down a template that antivax quacks today still follow.
More COVID More Measles?
There are a number of potential problems children are facing that are related to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, not the least of which is a rise in vaccine hesitancy and even anti-vaccine belief.
Old antivax tropes never die: “COVID theater,” “Urgency of Normal,” and the Great Barrington Declaration
Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a roundtable calling to "end COVID-19 theater" that brought together the Great Barrington Declaration and "Urgency of Normal," a movement to end mask mandates and other COVID-19 mitigations in schools. The arguments used long predate the pandemic and echo a dark side of the history of American medicine.
Bad Documentary Review: Family Shots
Amazon removed a number of anti-vax documentaries in March but a few still remain unfortunately. Family Shots is a anti-vax propaganda film pretending to be a documentary about a father trying to find out if vaccines are safe. It also got government funding to be made. Yeah...
The Myth of Vaccine Shedding
No - the measles vaccine cannot cause an outbreak through virus shedding, but this myth persists in antivaccine circles.
Measles More Deadly than Previously Thought
One of the common tropes of the anti-vaccine movement is that vaccine-preventable diseases are not all that bad. Perhaps the most direct manifestation of this is the self-published children’s book, Melanie’s Marvelous Measles, by Australian author and anti-vaccine activist Stephanie Messenger. Throughout the book Messenger claims that measles is nothing to be frightened of and in fact makes the body stronger. This...
The measles vaccine protects against more than just the measles
One of the disadvantages of writing for this blog is that sometimes I feel as though I spend so much time deconstructing bad science and pseudoscience in medicine that I’m rarely left with the time or the opportunity to discuss some interesting science. Of course, even when I do that, usually it’s in the context of that very same bad science or...
Vaccine Wars: the NCCAM Drops the Ball
If you go to the website of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), you’ll find that one of its self-identified roles is to “provide information about CAM.” NCCAM Director Josephine Briggs is proud to assert that the website fulfills this expectation. As many readers will recall, three of your bloggers visited the NCCAM last April, after having received an...