Anti-vaxxers trolled a doctor's office. Here's what scientists learned from the attack.

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Anti-vaxxers trolled a doctor’s office. Here’s what scientists learned from the attack.

By Lena H. Sun March 21 at 8:26 AM

Just before school started in the summer of 2017, Kids Plus Pediatrics of Pittsburgh posted a video on its Facebook page urging parents to vaccinate their children against human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause a variety of cancers. Three weeks later, communications director Chad Hermann noticed “something new happening” online.

First, someone posted the claim that “the vaccine kills.” Within minutes, more anti-vaccine comments came pouring in. The next day, someone inside a closed Facebook group started sending private messages with “screen shots so we could see them coordinating the attacks,” Hermann recalled.

Hermann would later discover that a woman in Australia was particularly active, directing people to give the practice negative reviews on various social media platforms. “She would say, 'Let’s move on to Yelp reviews,’ then change tactics and say, ‘Let’s go after the Facebook reviews,’ ” Hermann recalled.

Across the nation and around the world, pediatricians and other practitioners are increasingly coming under digital attack from a global movement that spreads misinformation about vaccines. Instead of enduring the abuse, Kids Plus fought back, tracking comments and turning its Facebook page data to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.

What they found, in a study released Thursday in the journal Vaccine, is that most commenters weren’t from Pittsburgh at all but were from across the United States and around the world. ...

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/03/21/anti-vaxxers-trolled-doctors-office-heres-what-scientists-learned-attack/

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Related: It’s not all about autism: The emerging landscape of anti-vaccination sentiment on Facebook (Vaccine)

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Guess they'd rather have an HPV throat cancer. I'm 100% positive

they will not enjoy the fear, loss of taste, having all their teeth pulled, having a feeding tube and chemo port, blisters in their mouths and throat, 2nd. degree burns on their neck and face, and loss of saliva. Perhaps they'd rather lose a part of their jaw bone or half their tongue or their ability to speak. I know several folks who will never eat food again.

I could provide all the statistics on HPV caused cancers provided by SPOHNC (support for people with oral, head, and neck cancer), but the lady in Australia would just call them 'fake'. She is most welcome to join me at one of my SPOHNC meetings and meet with us survivors.

[Midnight Writer]

2. Recall that Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas, ordered HPV vaccines to 12 yo girls.

The conservatives freaked. Their reason? By vaccinating girls against a fatal disease, it encouraged them to have licentious sex.

Perry backed down, even though it would have saved thousands of lives a year.

I guess, to the GOP, it is better to have dead girls than to have "bad" girls.