Getting something posted in a medical journal is a big deal?
Getting something posted in The BMJ? Not so much…
Why Does the BMJ Post Anti-Vaccine Propaganda?
Oh, I’m sure it used to be, as they are one of the world’s oldest general medical journals, going back to 1840.
“Reader feedback online is actively encouraged in the form of Rapid Responses were introduced in 1998, and 20 years later, had generated 115,000 fully-moderated responses.”
History of The BMJ
The thing is, they allow just about anyone to post these Rapid Responses, without making it very clear that they aren’t in a peer reviewed section of the journal.
What’s wrong with this Rapid Response?
- The Federal government isn’t issuing any kind of quarantine in this matter, the county is, so why would it be an issue as to whether or not measles is subject to Federal isolation and quarantine law? Anyway, while there are few diseases on the list that are subject to Federal isolation and quarantine law (they do include cholera, diphtheria, plague, smallpox, Ebola, and pandemic flu, etc.) measles could be added by a Presidential Executive Order. Still, the authority to issue Federal Quarantines has rarely been used. Quarantines for measles is usually handled by states and local governments.
- Supposed to be protected anyway??? There are plenty of infants, children, and adults who simply can’t be directly protected by a vaccine. They are too young to be vaccinated, can’t be vaccinated because they have true medical contraindications, or could be among the very small minority for whom their vaccine wasn’t effective. They are at risk when your intentionally unvaccinated child gets measles.
- The vaccination rates for everyone in the Rockland outbreak is posted and is updated weekly. Only 3.8% of the folks in the outbreak are fully vaccinated.
- Since almost all of the folks in the outbreak are unvaccinated, that kind of busts John Stone’s last point – the Rockland measles outbreak has been caused by waning immunity and a failed vaccine. It is simply a failure of folks to vaccinate and protect their kids.
I get that The BMJ wants their “users to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com,” but they are simply contributing to the false balance we see in many other places if they want to allow folks to think there is a debate going on about the safety or necessity of vaccines.
More on Anti-Vaccine Propaganda in The BMJ
- VAXOPEDIA – The BMJ Asks If Injections Are Part of the “Mystery” of Acute Flaccid Myelitis/AFM…
- VAXOPEDIA – False Balance About Vaccines at the Chicago Tribune
- VAXOPEDIA – False Balance about Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – Preparing for a Public Debate About Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – The Sharyl Attkisson Journalism Award
- HHS – What diseases are subject to Federal isolation and quarantine law?
- CDC – Legal Authorities for Isolation and Quarantine
- Trial By Error: Yet Another Go-Round with BMJ Open
- Trial By Error: A Letter to Health Officials About BMJ’s Lax Editorial Standards
- A Bit of Homeopathy Nonsense in the BMJ
- The HPV Vaccine: A Critique of a Critique of a Meta-Analysis
- No time for stodgy: Crusading editor aims to shake things up in science
- Peter Doshi, vaccine denier, sees a conspiracy about VAERS