Twenty years ago a charlatan doctor called Andrew Wakefield published a report which claimed there was a link between the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) and autism. This single report and the hullabaloo of Press coverage it received resulted in the biggest boycott of immunisation ever seen. Not just the MMR that the original report criticised but parents then refused to have their children vaccinated for measles, mumps or rubella separately which resulted in a rise in cases of all three diseases, and children died unnecessarily. Since then Wakefield has been exposed as having a financial interest in a separate vaccine for measles, his original research was exposed as unreliable and false and to quote the New York Times: “Andrew Wakefield has become one of the most reviled doctors of his generation, blamed directly and indirectly, depending on the accuser, for irresponsibly starting a panic with tragic repercussions: Vaccination rates so low that childhood diseases once all but eradicated here – whooping cough and measles, among them – have re-emerged, endangering young lives.” I will say it again, this man killed thousands of children.
But despite the mountain of evidence that proves and none that disproves the MMR is safe, we still had the bimbo celebrities going on national TV and declaring that they were not going to have their children vaccinated. All of this plays into the hands of science deniers who take any opportunity to jump on a bandwagon if it raises questions about our modern world. There are many people out there who would have us all go back and live in caves. Look at the Amish, stuck in the 19th century and nobody knows why! I bet they all have mobile phones under their wimples.
Then there is the flat earth society. They still believe that the earth is a disc like Terry Pratchett’s discworld with its centre at the North Pole. Here is how stupid they are, they recently declared that “The flat earth society has members all over the globe” Sometimes I think they cannot really be that stupid and are only doing it for effect. Then I meet conspiracy theorists. You know, the numpties who think that the world is run by a secret society of rich businessmen and that Neil didn’t actually walk on the moon or that the CIA can read your thoughts from secret satellites, unless you’re wearing a hat made of tin foil or worse still that immunising your children from polio will make them sterile.
The one thing that Trump has got right so far is that there is fake news and it is everywhere. So please everybody, before you share or pass on that juicy news story that was sent to you please take a moment. Go to Google or Snopes and check it out, if we all did that then these fake stories and hoaxes would be killed at birth. However have you heard this one?
The reason that Hillary did not win the US presidency was that she had made a campaign promise to open the files and the doors to area 51 and to go in there with news cameras to search for aliens. Terrified at the prospect of being found out the CIA fixed the election so that she lost. Do Do Do Do, Do Do Do Do