A Glimpse of the World Before Vaccines
A common historical theme has emerged in many recent articles about this year’s measles outbreak in the United States. It is perhaps best exemplified by the headline in an opinion piece in National Geographic magazine: “The world before vaccines is a world we can’t afford to forget.” The theme is meant to emphasize the importance […]
Facebook: Arbiter of Truth?
It is hard to believe that a company that has worked so hard this year to censor free speech on the pretext of trying to stop the spread of “vaccine misinformation” to the public has been fined $5 billion by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for violating the privacy rights of consumers. But that […]
Forced Vaccination and Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
There they were, quietly standing with arms locked on a street next to the California state Capitol building on Monday, Sept. 9, 2019 and refusing to move: a grandmother and two young mothers. Carol, Lisa and Lauren were there with other parents to beg the California legislature to show mercy and allow enlightened doctors with […]
‘Too Sick to Get Vaccinated’?
One of the more common reasons some people in the United States give for why they believe everyone has an obligation to vaccinate their children and themselves with all of the vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and mandated by state governments is that it protects those who are too […]
Here’s How We Should Talk About Vaccines. Hint: No Name-Calling.
The more we force people to take sides, the harder it is to discuss vaccination, let alone build common cause and work together for the public good. I’m a medical anthropologist, and I have studied1 vaccine selectivity—that is, when parents choose to give their children only a select subset of required vaccinations, most often skipping chicken […]
Viral Link to AFM Sought in University of Alabama Study
The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) a five-year $10 million contract to study the polio-like condition known as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), also sometimes referred to as acute flaccid paralysis (AFP).1 2 According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “As part […]