1. pharyngula
  2. A successful protest in Chicago

A successful protest in Chicago

By pharyngula on May 27, 2010.

There was an anti-vaccination rally yesterday in Chicago — boring and silly! What's more interesting is that Women Thinking Free (a fabulous new organization) had a counter-demonstration. You can read an account or two or three of the event from the rational perspective; it sounds like the anti-vaxers are also anti-science. The rally and anti-rally also made the news, and that's actually a good account, which plainly states that there is no evidence of a link between autism and vaccination, that Wakefield's study was flawed, and that Wakefield has had his license to practice medicine revoked.

I'm troubled by one thing. The theme of the literature the smart people were handing out was "Hug me — I'm vaccinated", and they've got a photo of Wakefield hugging one of the skeptics, which is safe, because they've had their shots. But has Wakefield? Has anybody asked him if he's up to date on his vaccinations?

They might have infected him with skepticism, you know. Or he might have been swarming with kook cooties.

Tags
Skepticism

More like this

Is the anti-vaccine movement fizzling?
After a week of some of the most amazing anti-vaccine craziness that I've seen in quite a while, a week that started with anti-vaccine hero Andrew Wakefield's name being struck off the list of licensed medical practitioners in the U.K. During the entire week, there was (and is ongoing) an anti-…
Bill Maher: Antivaccination wingnut
Vacation time! While Orac is off to London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he's rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on December 19, 2005. I don't know if…
Mothering: A bastion of woo targeted at young mothers
Over the last three weeks, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has been publishing a multipart expose by investigative journalist Brian Deer that enumerated in detail the specifics of how a British gastroenterologist turned hero of the anti-vaccine movement had committed scientific fraud by…
Anti-vax study a case of scientific fraud?
If you want to know where the current ridiculous anti-vaccination scare came from, there's one well known source: Andrew Wakefield. He published a paper in 1998 that claimed there was a link between vaccination and autism that was a popular sensation, and had a dramatic effect. Despite involving…