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Yet another antivaccine rally, yet another yawn
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/10/20/yet-another-antivaccine-rally-yet-another-yawn/Particularly pathetic in general have been antivaccine “protests,” starting with the infamous “Green Our Vaccines” march on Washington, lead by none other than Jenny McCarthy herself. The only reason that march got the attention it did was because Jenny McCarthy and her then-boyfriend Jim Carrey led the march. Other “protests” in which there isn’t celebrity leadership (or at least a celebrity face) have been much less “impressive,” consisting often of small bands of loons standing outside the CDC or the American Academy of Pediatrics and waving placards. Alternatively, it consists of a bit of antivaccine activism at places like Freedomfest. I’ll admit that there are sometimes exceptions to this rule, such as when antivaccine views combine with a natural American tendency not to be want to be told what to do by the government, as happened last summer in the opposition to California SB 277, the bill passed into law that will eliminate nonmedical exemptions beginning with the 2016 school year.
The most recent pathetic display by antivaccinationists of just what fringe cranks they are is scheduled for this Saturday, October 24, and is being promoted by—of course!—the merry band of antivaccinationists at the crank blog Age of Autism in a post filled with typical hyperbole entitled The Week American Parents Demanded Truth from CDC. It’s something I’ve known about for quite some time now, but now that it’s almost here I feel an obligation to mention it:...
Oh, goody. It’s the “CDC Whistleblower” manufactured scandal again, the one that produced a book by Kevin Barry that fizzled. Yes, the fruits of William Thompson’s betrayal of his CDC colleagues is still in play, complete with the false claim that the CDC covered up “smoking gun” evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism in African-American boys. Notice the specificity. As I joked the very first time this whole “CDC whistleblower” nonsense popped up, it’s amazing how the very study being touted by antivaccinationists as having been altered to cover up this, even if taken as represented by antivaccine activist Brian Hooker’s “reanalysis,” proves Andrew Wakefield wrong, as it showed not a whiff of a hint of a whisper of a correlation between MMR and autism in any subgroup other than African-American males....
So what’s going on in Atlanta this weekend? Take a peak at the CDC Truth website. On Friday night, there’s a rally at the CDC headquarters from 7 AM to 2 PM. (What they’ll be doing all that time, who knows? Probably being annoying but not effective.) Then they’re having a dinner, and you—yes, you!—”could WIN a once in a lifetime opportunity to have an intimate dinner with the Stars of #cdcTRUTH Rally!” Amusingly, as of this writing, only $818 of the target of $4,000 had been raised, which, if I were organizing this event, would would worry the crap out of me a mere four days before the event. Be that as it may, you, too, could hang with the luminaries and stars of this event, were you to win the raffle. These are the same people who will be speaking on Saturday at the rally at Grant Park:
The most recent pathetic display by antivaccinationists of just what fringe cranks they are is scheduled for this Saturday, October 24, and is being promoted by—of course!—the merry band of antivaccinationists at the crank blog Age of Autism in a post filled with typical hyperbole entitled The Week American Parents Demanded Truth from CDC. It’s something I’ve known about for quite some time now, but now that it’s almost here I feel an obligation to mention it:...
Oh, goody. It’s the “CDC Whistleblower” manufactured scandal again, the one that produced a book by Kevin Barry that fizzled. Yes, the fruits of William Thompson’s betrayal of his CDC colleagues is still in play, complete with the false claim that the CDC covered up “smoking gun” evidence that the MMR vaccine causes autism in African-American boys. Notice the specificity. As I joked the very first time this whole “CDC whistleblower” nonsense popped up, it’s amazing how the very study being touted by antivaccinationists as having been altered to cover up this, even if taken as represented by antivaccine activist Brian Hooker’s “reanalysis,” proves Andrew Wakefield wrong, as it showed not a whiff of a hint of a whisper of a correlation between MMR and autism in any subgroup other than African-American males....
So what’s going on in Atlanta this weekend? Take a peak at the CDC Truth website. On Friday night, there’s a rally at the CDC headquarters from 7 AM to 2 PM. (What they’ll be doing all that time, who knows? Probably being annoying but not effective.) Then they’re having a dinner, and you—yes, you!—”could WIN a once in a lifetime opportunity to have an intimate dinner with the Stars of #cdcTRUTH Rally!” Amusingly, as of this writing, only $818 of the target of $4,000 had been raised, which, if I were organizing this event, would would worry the crap out of me a mere four days before the event. Be that as it may, you, too, could hang with the luminaries and stars of this event, were you to win the raffle. These are the same people who will be speaking on Saturday at the rally at Grant Park:
