Marco Arturo

Last week, I noted with great approval how a 12-year-old boy named Marco Arturo made a pro-vaccine video that was short, simple, and effective. Even better, it was as Insolent as anything Orac could expect to manage, making it that much more delicious. Indeed, I can’t resist including it again for those of you who haven’t seen it yet: This video went viral, and, not surprisingly, antivaccine activists, particularly one antivaccine blogger, were not pleased. Oh, no. Not pleased at all. In response to Arturo’s video, he received a fair amount of abuse online. One blogger in particular, the…
A couple of days ago, I told the tale of a really bright and justifiably snarky 12-year-old boy named Marco Arturo, who posted a video of himself on Facebook with the caption “Vaccines DO cause autism”: I know I posted that video just two days ago, but it’s so epic that I can’t resist posting it again, particularly given how it went viral and how its going viral drove antivaccinationists out of their minds. They posted online attacks that included comments like: “I want to punt Marco in the jugular though honestly. ?“ (As if the laughing emoticon makes up for expressing the desire to kick a…
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the antivaccine movement, it’s that its members dislike being criticized. Oh, hell, let’s be honest. The really, really hate criticism and react very, very badly to it. Whereas you or I or other skeptics might react to criticism by trying to address it using facts, science, and reason, the first reaction of many antivaccine loons is to attack, attack, attack. They use a variety of methods to attack. One of their very favorite methods of attack when faced with a pseudonymous blogger is to do everything they can to “out” him or her, revealing name and…