How your aunt’s Facebook friend Susan disproved every expert
Even with every reputable source and scientific expert assuring that vaccines do not cause autism, those brave anti-vaccine warriors persisted and have shown through sheer force of will it is possible to prove otherwise.
Anti-vaccine practitioners have scoured Facebook and Twitter, utilizing these social media platforms by sharing and retweeting — until their measles-laden fingers run red — stories from a friend’s sister’s step-daughter saying how her daughter was diagnosed with autism the day after being vaccinated. The evidence is compelling.
The anti-vax movement gained worldwide attention when Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a study suggesting there was a link between bowel disease, autism and the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.
While it’s true Dr. Wakefield was technically paid to find a connection by a group of lawyers looking to litigate against vaccine distributors, what some have called a “fatal conflict of interest,” the anti-vax movement has taken this study and run with it.
Individuals most readily associated with the movement are Charlie Sheen and Jenny McCarthy, two actors known for their scientific expertise and knowledge. Sheen and McCarthy, along with all other anti-vaxxers, have insisted it is their choice along with the choice of any parent to choose whether or not to vaccinate their children.
Who cares about the babies too young to receive their vaccines or the children receiving chemotherapy treatments unable to be vaccinated? It’s every baby for
The resurgence of nearly eradicated diseases, such as the measles, are of little concern to anti-vax parents. After all, isn’t it better to have your child die of polio than for them to be diagnosed with autism? Autism really is at the heart of this issue.
Anti-vaxxers are absolutely right that the rate of autism diagnosis has been steadily increasing since 2000. This couldn’t possibly be because increased awareness of the condition and modern developments in specifying how to diagnose autism. The only possible explanation is that science is wrong, and vaccines cause autism.
So, the next time someone on Facebook or Twitter reminds you that vaccines do cause autism or that you need to, “Do some research,” just agree. Even with no scientific evidence, no experts finding a correlation between autism and vaccines and the possibility of new outbreaks of almost eradicated dangerous diseases, anti-vaxxers have a pretty good feeling that they’re right.