False balance is the bane of a science communicator’s existence. KATU’s Genevieve Reaume provided false balance in abundance in a story about the measles outbreak and the antivaccine movement.
Tag: measles
Measles has arrived in the form of an outbreak on Oakland County, MI. That’s too close for comfort to Orac. Way, way too close for comfort.
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It’s indisputable that vaccines protect against specific infectious diseases. What’s less well known is how a vaccine like the measles vaccine protects against more than just measles.
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In Houston, a toddler was admitted to the pediatric ICU at Texas Children’s Hospital with a serious case of the measles. Unfortunately, one of the nurses there is antivaccine and blabbed about him on social media. The hospital quite appropriately fired her, but I would go further and say that antivaccine nurses should not be caring for children. Ditto antivaccine doctors.
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It seems as though I have to write a post like this every year or two, as measles outbreaks keep raging and children keep getting sick and even dying. I feel obligated to “thank” the primary author of this misery, the man whose scientific fraud and other efforts have fueled antivaxers’ fear of the MMR vaccine. So thanks Andrew Wakefield. Thanks for the measles. Again. In 2018.
