We know that historically, the media has done a very good job of scaring parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.
From pushing vaccine misinformation and vaccine scare stories to providing false balance about vaccine stories, many in the media have promoted myths and fake controversies when reporting about vaccines.
Things have been getting better though.
Is the TODAY Show Stoking Vaccine Fears?
Or have they…
The TODAY Show later deleted this tweet about vaccines.
Do you see what’s wrong with the TODAY Show story about Jessica Biel?
Are they really asking whether or not vaccines are safe?!?
Even HuffPo called out the Today Show for posting an irresponsible message about vaccines.
Did they really get called out by HuffPo for irresponsibly covering vaccines?
You might realize how ironic that is if you remember just how bad HuffPo used to be, regularly posting some of the worst anti-vaccine stories. Have they gotten better?
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that the TODAY show has scared parents away from vaccines. After all, they are the ones who aired excerpts of Vaccine Roulette, the show which many people credit with starting the modern anti-vaccine movement.
Autism is not associated with vaccines. It isn’t a debate!
Last year, we found several connections between Father’s Day and vaccines, especially that Maurice Hilleman has often been called the father of modern vaccines.
Is there a mother of modern vaccines?
Vaccines and Mother’s Day
Does it have to be modern vaccines?
Of course, the first person that comes to mind is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who learned about smallpox inoculation in Turkey and used it to protect her own children, also advocating for more general use in England.
But that involved variolation, not vaccination.
So who could be the mother of vaccines?
How about the person who “has done more for immunizations that any one person in this whole country?”
Betty Bumpers was a champion in our efforts to reduce the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases among children in the United States. She played a major leadership role as 1st Lady of Arkansas in improving immunization in that state and was inspirational in launching the first major Presidential Initiative on Immunization during the late 1970s. She continued to be a major immunization advocate through much of her life launching “Every Child By Two (ECBT)” which she chaired along with Mrs. Rosalyn Carter, now “Vaccinate Your Family”.
Six degrees of separation? The idea that most people are connected by six or fewer degrees of separation.
Six Degrees of Anti-Vaccine Separation
Not surprisingly, you don’t have to beyond a few degrees to see the connection between many anti-vaccine folks.
“Parents from around Southern California choose Gordon for his outspoken and controversial stance on vaccinations, driving from as far away as Santa Barbara and Long Beach.
They know he will lend a sympathetic ear to their concerns about the possible adverse side effects of childhood vaccinations — even though several large scientific studies have failed to find a connection.
His openness to alternative approaches has earned him an avid following. With thousands of patients, his practice is so busy that he no longer accepts new patients.”
Los Angeles Times on Doctor Contrarian
Especially the vocal anti-vaccine folks.
Few folks likely remember, but in 2000, just after Andrew Wakefield released his now retracted study, Dr. Jay Gordon and Cindy Crawford appeared on Good Morning America to discuss vaccines and how she had decided to delay vaccinating her baby.
After the segment, Dr. Gordon stated:
They edited the segment to make me sound like a vaccination proponent. We also have to understand the impact of a person as well-known as Cindy Crawford delaying vaccines for over six months.
March 1997 article in the LA Times describing how media savvy “skeptics” were attacking vaccines.
So while a lot of folks like to give credit to Bob Sears and Jenny McCarthy for starting the modern anti-vaccine movement, Dr. Jay and Cindy Crawford were on the scene far earlier.
Dr. Jay had even been featured in the LA Times before Wakefield published his paper!
Speaking of Jenny McCarthy, it is interesting to note that Jay Gordon was her pediatrician!
“Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn’t it? And he said, “No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother’s desperate attempt to blame something on autism.” And he swore at me. . . . And not soon thereafter, I noticed that change in the pictures: Boom! Soul, gone from his eyes.”
Jenny McCarthy
Well, Dr. Jay is almost certainly not the pediatrician that swore at her after giving her child an MMR vaccine.
“Yes, there have been cases of Disney spread from Measlesland. I will give MMRs to kids 3 yrs+ if parents are worried.”
“Would any scientist give SIX vaccines at once to a baby? Asking for trouble. One at a time makes so much more sense.”
Jay Gordon
It probably makes even more sense if it is your pediatrician saying it…
“My name is Brittney Kara and my husband and I are parents who have chosen not to continue vaccinating our children. After thoroughly investigating and carefully weighing the risks and benefits of each vaccine, we have concluded that the current vaccines are not safe for our children and that they are not required for the optimum health of our children.”
Brittney Kara
Especially when you have a pediatrician who has said “I think that the public health benefits to vaccinating are grossly overstated” and who recommends that parents “Wait until a child is clearly developmentally “solid” before vaccinating because we just don’t know which children will react badly to immunizations.”
“I began researching vaccines in 2007 when I was pregnant with our first child. Dr. Jay Gordon was my pediatrician growing up and since I have always held him in a high regard he was the first person I turned to. He was very cautious about the current CDC schedule and his research inspired me to start my own. I began following the work of Dr. Russell Blaylock, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, and Dr. Suzanne Humphries, among others.”
Brittney Kara
What about Alicia Silverstone and Mayim Bialik?
How many celebrities got their ideas about vaccines from Jay Gordon?
Suspicions about the DPT were not confirmed. In fact, it was found that the DPT vaccine did not cause any of the neurological problems that folks claimed, something that seemed to trigger the anti-vaccine feelings in some pediatricians.
How many other people have been influenced by the anti-vaccine celebrities that Jay Gordon has inspired?
Anti-vaccine folks don’t seem to like that they are getting more attention these days.
Why are they getting more attention?
More unvaccinated folks are getting sick.
But Did Anyone Die?
Is that really such a big deal though?
Hillary Simpson doesn’t think measles outbreaks are a big deal because she doesn’t think that anyone has died….
It’s not like anyone has died in all of these outbreaks, is it?
Actually, they have…
Most anti-vaccine folks conveniently seem to not be aware of her, but an immunocompromised woman died after she was exposed to measles during a 2015 outbreak in Clallam County, Washington.
“New details about the first confirmed measles death in the U.S. since 2003 show that the victim, a 28-year-old woman with underlying health problems, was likely exposed to the virus at a Port Angeles tribal health clinic.
Nearly three dozen other people also were potentially exposed to the highly contagious germ on Jan. 29, 2015, at the Lower Elwha Health Clinic by a 52-year-old man who became the first case of measles confirmed in Clallam County in two decades.”
Fatal measles case linked to exposure at tribal clinic, records show
So yes, someone did die during the recent measles outbreaks.
A 28-year-old woman died in Clallam County, Washington.
Not everyone is all better.
And during the 2013 measles outbreak in Brooklyn, a pregnant woman with measles was hospitalized and had a miscarriage.
Yes, tragically people have died because of the anti-vaccine movement.
And tragically, unless folks stop believing this kind of anti-vaccine propaganda and start vaccinating and protecting their kids, even more people will die unnecessarily.
