by suneko
The AVN is reaping what they sowed:
[Via Bad Astronomy]
I’m not shedding too many tears over the tsunami of bad press the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) is receiving right now.
I’ve written about them before, oh yes. They are the ones headed by Meryl Dorey, the woman who says vaccinations are dangerous, who says no one dies of pertussis, who says that it’s better not to vaccinate, who insinuates (at the 11:50 mark of that video) that doctors only vaccinate children because it’s profitable for them. She says that, even though on that live TV program she sat a few feet away from Toni and David McCaffery, parents who had just lost their four week old daughter to pertussis because she was too young to be vaccinated yet and the herd immunity in Sydney was too low to suppress the pertussis bacterium. This year alone, three babies in Australia, including young Dana McCaffery, have died from pertussis.
Not enough parents are vaccinating their children. And groups like the AVN spread misinformation about vaccines, spread it like a foul odor on the wind.
[More]
I hope the full force of the law is brought to bear against this people. Their lies result in people dying. Misrepresent facts and children will die.
By spreading misinformation about vaccinations the AVN is scaring parents. The herd immunity is low in part because parents are scared to vaccinate their children. The low herd immunity is killing babies. It really is just that simple.
The works of vaccine denialists are responsible for low vaccination rates which remove the herd immunity that provides so many people protection.
I wonder when we left the Age of Enightenment and entered the Age of Ignorance? We have little hope of surviving the challenges ahead of us if willful ignorance is the primary choice made by so many.
But I guess ignorance is more comforting then actually engaging with the complexities of the real world.
