So, my an online american friend said"My mom didn’t want to vaccine vax cuzs autism". Is he joking? I know many people say thing like that but i thought they all were joking?
In my country which is a third world country no one believe shit like that even my Grand mother who is illiterate and religious don’t believe thing like that and knows the benefit of vaccine.
Just wait until OP learns about us taking horse paste during covid
anti vaxxing is a thing that real people really engage in, they are in fact, stupid. But it is unfortunately real, just look into the resurgence in measles outbreaks and TB and shit, that’s why.
ur friend very well may be joking, but i can assure it’s not a complete meme.
Yes. America is a joke.
This is not limited to Americans. This site is dumb. Idiots everywhere are susceptible to misinformation.
He is not joking and while it is most relevant in the United States it is not exclusive to us.
Mostly the right-wing leaning Americans, who don’t like anything that costs them money even if it contributes towards a better society. They say they hate Socialism in all its forms, but had absolutely no problem accepting stimulus handouts. They are the pure leeches of our country.
Left-wing leaning Americans tend to believe science even if it comes as a slight inconvenience to themselves, that includes things that sometimes cost them money.
This is an oversimplification. I have met plenty of people who are progressive or Democrat that believe some pretty wild things about vaccines and western medicine in general. Don’t underestimate hippies.
Yeah, the whole thing first took hold in left-leaning crunchy all-natural circles.
We are actually that stupid.
Having lived next to them for my whole life; For Americans if it sounds too stupid to be true it’s probably true
They sure do. It’s so dumb.
Even if it does(it doesn’t), I would rather have autism than measles or pertussis, etc.
Back in the 90s a British doctor called Andrew Wakefield was bribed by a pharmaceutical company that made separate vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella to come up with a study to discredit the combined mmr vaccine. He found a bunch of parents in an antivax society and twisted the results of a very weighted questionnaire to demonstrate a link between MMR and the 'tism. It was quickly discredited, but the damage was done. He was stripped of his medical licence after that.
There’s a number of points this comment misses. First, it wasn’t pharmaceutical companies, but moms group of autistic children that approached him.
[I]n 1995, while conducting research into Crohn’s disease, he was approached by Rosemary Kessick, the parent of a child with autism, who was seeking help with her son’s bowel problems and autism; Kessick ran a group called Allergy Induced Autism. In 1996, Wakefield turned his attention to researching possible connections between the MMR vaccine and autism.
And the time, he was still a well regarded scientist and doctor:
At the time of his MMR research study, Wakefield was senior lecturer and honorary consultant in experimental gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine
This was also published in 1998 in The Lancet an important medical journal, but the controversy didn’t start with this publication, but his press conference after the publication where he did advocate for single vaccines and not a combined MMR. Pretty poor form and highly criticized at the time.
The media took this and ran with it. It caused wide spread misinformation about autism and the MMR vaccine. But it was also a media outlet that began to tear apart the claims in 2004.
It wasn’t retracted until 2010 and a full write up about what went wrong in the BMJ in 2011. There was a lot of criticism before then, but I was also highly cited as well.
There’s a lot of lessons to be learned here and that is best done with the full story.
Don’t forget Oprah Winfrey giving
MelissaJenny McCarthy a mouthpiece in front of every suburban mom in the US. We have her to thank for both that and “Dr” Phil.If I recall correctly that was Jenny McCarthy, but correct otherwise (not looking to see Melissa McCarthy take the flak for that!). The amount of ugly pseudoscience and bullshit that has emerged through Oprah’s platform is horrifying.
oh FFS I mixed up names, will fix it
It’s crazy to think about the thousands of lost lives stemming from a single fraudulent study.
It makes me sad that the piece of shit Andrew Wakefield is still alive while so many better people than him have died for his bullshit.
Our “leader” is an anti-democratic felon rapist who incited an insurrection and illegally attempted to overturn an election.
It’s not a joke.
Americans are stupid as fuck.
You have to explain to them how vaccines work. I’m waiting for them to turn on antibiotics next. Soon we’ll be shaking rattles and swallowing toads to cure diseases.
Actually, this tincture of viscous fluid from a legless reptile can cure many diseases!
I oiled it directly from the snake!
It’s Poe’s law- sometimes it’s a joke, sometimes they’re serious, and it’s nearly impossible to determine which at any given time.
