Penn & Teller kill the anti-vaccination argument in just over a minute.
This is why Penn & Teller are personal heroes
Probably the educational comic I’ve had to link to most is The Facts in The Case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, by Darryl Cunningham, which is a total deconstruction of the bullshit that STARTED this whole idea. It’s a fascinating read!
The “vaccines causes autism” lie was research sponsored by a company wanting to discredit their competitors (you know, the Big Pharma anti-vaxxers are so het up over), issued horribly painful, invasive procedures on children against guidelines, and was generally Very Bad Science that did NOT actually care about the well-being of children.
However, it plays into people’s fears about autism, science, and vaccines, and so people risk the health of CHILDREN AROUND THEM to satisfy their completely irrational fears. (This is why the “they’re just trying to protect their children!” argument holds no water with me. You want to protect children? You ain’t doing it by purposely denying vaccinations to your healthy child, thereby exposing immune-weakened kids, the ones who really CAN’T get vaccinated, to possibly fatal, crippling diseases. You’re sacrificing other people’s children FOR YOUR SELFISH DESIRES. You fucking prick.)
Despite being taken down and proven wrong again and again, people continue to BELIEVE this bullshit because it FEELS real, because it’s been around so long it MUST be true. They knew this autistic kid once who became autistic after their vaccinations, so correlation MUST be causation, and also autism is totally worse than fucking measles. (Cluebat, people: it ain’t. Not even CLOSE.)
Tags:
#vaccines #lying bastards #as it happens I got my annual flu shot and my decadal tetanus shot yesterday #both of my upper arms are sore but it’s *completely* worth it
Brinens and Things 