I’ve increasingly got less and less tolerant of pseudoscience over the years. Maybe this is because I had an ex who was wedded to such guff as macrobiotics and the Atkins diet as well as believing in ‘recovered memories’ and lectured me on these matters constantly. However I’ve also become aware of the real damage that pseudoscience does to people and to families and have felt growing anger at the cynical charlatans that promote various types of pseudoscience.
I feel a particular anger at those who promote the false link between vaccines and autism. I have seen this issue up close and personal so to speak. Many years ago I had an infant member of my family caught up in a vaccine panic which led to him contracting Whooping Cough because his parents worried about ‘vaccine damage’ failed to have him vaccinated against this terrible disease. Sadly they listened to the scare stories about vaccines and did not take note of the real science regarding them. He only just survived Whooping Cough and because of that horrible memory of what happened to him, I had no problem at all having my own son vaccinated against diseases that used to kill many but are now but a memory due to vaccination.
There are many good and sound people out there who are attacking the anti vaxxers ideas using real and not pseudoscience but one of the very best I’ve found out there who are doing this is the You Tuber Jeff Holiday. He has gone out and examined in great detail the false claims of vaccine dangers made by the movie ‘Vaxxed’ and thoroughly discredited the claims made by this film and the participants in it.
For those who do not know the back story to Vaxxed, it draws heavily on the work of a disgraced British doctor called Andrew Wakefield who falsely claimed, using unethical and poorly constructed research, that vaccines caused autism. Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register and went to the United States where he got a warm welcome from similarly misguided people involved in the anti-vaccine movement.
Jeff Holiday, a biology student, has produced a brilliant series of videos debunking the anti-vaccine movement and in particular the anti-vaccine movie ‘Vaxxed’ and it is these videos that I wish to draw people’s attention to today. Mr Holiday’s videos, entitled ‘Inoculating Against Vaxxed’ are an expose of the groups, the linked individuals, the finances and of course the pseudoscience that Vaxxed promotes. This is a long form refutation of the false claims made by Vaxxed and the wider anti-vaccination movement and these videos are well worth taking the time to watch.
We live in a world where every individual with access to an internet connection can become a publisher and although I tend to think that this is a good thing, I also can’t deny that it has given a platform to some egregious charlatans and mountebanks. If we all have the ability to publish then we also all have the ability to call out and refute those who push false information about things like vaccines, something Mr Holiday has done very well in the series of videos linked below.
Inoculating Against Vaxxed – Part One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbPRxZwiH6c&t=225s
Inoculating Against Vaxxed – Part Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsZiUw-oyGk
Inoculating Against Vaxxed – Part Three
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ggbYIW_sA
Inoculating Against Vaxxed – Part Four
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaElk_Yb5ic
Most conspiracy theories are harmless diversions for those who are looking for things that they believe are there but which in reality are not. Vaccine conspiracy theories are different. They have real world consequences, sometimes incredibly tragic ones which is why the anti vaccine promoters need to be challenged and their pseudoscience thoroughly debunked.
