"After years of controversy and making parents mistrust vaccines, along with collecting $674,000 from lawyers who would benefit from suing vaccine makers, it was discovered he had made the whole thing up. The Lancet publicly apologized and reported that further investigation led to the discovery that he had fabricated everything.
In the intervening years, millions have been spent on studying this further to see if there was anything that could connect autism and vaccines. This is what they found."
"After years of controversy and making parents mistrust vaccines, along with collecting $674,000 from lawyers who would benefit from suing vaccine makers, it was discovered he had made the whole thing up. The Lancet publicly apologized and reported that further investigation led to the discovery that he had fabricated everything.
What that man has done is in my opinion disgraceful and his fraudulent research has done long-lasting damage to public health and sadly continues to do so.
I get very frustrated when I read "anti-vax" posts here on AN. I don't really think that anything I or anyone else say to them will change their minds. They seem to be too emotionally invested in their theories to be swayed by facts and rational arguments.
I only respond in the hope of preventing that their anti-science crusade attracts new followers.
I guess I can understand that individuals who lack any kind of medical education might be fooled by sites like Mercola and NaturalNews but I simply can't understand how someone with a nursing degree can reject evidence-based medicine. I just can't.
Vaccination is hands-down THE best primary care intervention in terms of return on investment.
This should be glaringly obvious when speaking of childhood illnesses that used to be commonplace being not so common anymore - measles, mumps, etc. But do people realize how many fewer cases of bacterial otitis media are seen in primary care now vs. 20+ years ago? Bacterial OM is primarily caused by S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae. Hib and pneumococcal vaxes in children cut those by some ridiculous number. Hib meningitis cases went down by something like 99%. I think I remember reading that in the CDC's pink book a few years ago. That's a lot of healthcare dollars, a lot of caregiver hours (possibly lost work time), and a lot of quality of life recouped....just from those two vaccines that have been out for less than 30 years.
Meh. I think that's too simple of an answer and there have been recent studies showing that simply providing facts and education is very likely to trigger a confirmation bias in the anti-vax parent. The root of the problem is a lack of critical thinking skills. (Carl Sagan wrote an excellent book on this called The Demon-Haunted world back in '95.) The majority of people who choose not to vaccinate in the Western world are middle to upper middle class white people. It's not like they don't have access to the thousands of articles, news casts, podcasts, etc. that have been written on this subject. They have access to the information but lack the basic skills to process the information in the first place.
Frustratingly, the way to get more people to vaccinate their kids is to not give them the option to decline.
wtbcrna, MSN, DNP, CRNA
5,128 Posts
Boston when you get get done with your article would you send me a link to it?.