As more folks are calling out vocal vaccine deniers, many are also learning the role of the media in helping fuel the anti-vaccine movement.
“Whatever you think about Andrew Wakefield, the real villains of the MMR scandal are the media.”
Ben Goldacre on The MMR story that wasn’t
Believe it or not, there likely would not have been a big scare over the DPT vaccine in the 1970s and 80s or concerns about the MMR vaccine if the media hadn’t given so much attention to the anti-vaccine players involved.
False Balance About Vaccines at the Chicago Tribune
Folks in the media have learned their lesson though, right?
“Balance? There is no balance. There is mainstream, superstrong consensus about the value of vaccination, and on the other side … nothing else, since there is no other side. The media have made parents worry about vaccines in a lame effort to provide balance and all points of view.”
Arthur Caplan on There is no other side to the vaccine debate
Well, apparently not all of them…
Why would the Chicago Tribune devote nearly 20% of an article to a parent who is against vaccines, especially without correcting her misinformation?
- no one is pushing for federal mandates for vaccines
- almost all outbreaks of measles are among children and adults who are intentionally unvaccinated
- while natural immunity is great, you have to endure having the disease and hoping you don’t have complications, which can include death
- if your vaccine protection has worn off, you are indeed still part of herd immunity – you are the part that is being protected by the rest of us!
- frivolous lawsuits led to a system where people have to go through Vaccine Court before they can sue vaccine manufacturers.
Why haven’t they learned that spreading this kind of misinformation is what scares parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids in the first place?
Are vaccinations about parent choice or public safety? That’s the title of the Chicago Tribune article. And maybe that’s why Illinois is among top 5 states for measles as debate heats up, the rest of the title…
How about we give parents a chance to make informed choices without being influenced by propaganda and misinformation?
More on False Balance About Vaccines at the Chicago Tribune
- There is no other side to the vaccine debate
- VAXOPEDIA – False Balance about Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – The Sharyl Attkisson Journalism Award
- VAXOPEDIA – Preparing for a Public Debate About Vaccines
- The media’s MMR hoax
- Science deniers use false equivalence to create fake debates
- Avoiding False Balance: Vaccines in the Media
- The So-Called Vaccine Debate: False Balance in The San Diego Union-Tribune
- False Balance in the Media
- False balance about vaccines rises from the grave…again
- The effect of falsely balanced reporting of the autism-vaccine controversy on vaccine safety perceptions and behavioral intentions.
- Another Outbreak of ‘False Balance’?
- Jenny McCarthy’s Vaccination Fear-Mongering and the Cult of False Equivalence
- No need to offer ‘false balance’ to anti-vaxxers
- There is no other side to the vaccine debate
- For Our Family, There Is No Debate
- Vaccines cause autism debate – it only exists in the minds of vaccine deniers
- Facts vs. opinions: Beware of false balance in your reporting