As a reporter with a decade-long history of credulously reporting antivaccine conspiracy theories and pseudoscience as news, Sharyl Attkisson is an old “friend” of the blog. This time, she’s reporting a new-old conspiracy theory about the Autism Omnibus proceedings. I say “new-old” because she tries to mightily to produce a new version of the central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement.
Here we go again. Meet Rep-Elect Mark Green. He’s following in the footsteps of Reps. Dan Burton and Bill Posey in bringing the antivaccine crazy to Congress, only this time for the people of Tennessee.
Antivaxers have become politically active and, unfortunately, quite influential in several states. As you go out to the polls today, remember that, and vote as if our children’s health depends on it, particularly if you live in Texas and Oklahoma.
in 2015, SB 277 was passed in California, eliminating personal belief exemptions (PBEs) to its school vaccine mandate beginning in 2016. Two years on, health officials express frustration with shortcomings of the law, the two most glaring of which involve their lack of authority to deny scientifically bogus medical exemptions sold by antivaccine doctors and their lack of authority and resources to track medical exemptions.
Contrary to the stereotype of antivaccinationists as hippy-dippy left wing granola crunchers, in actuality antivaccine pseudoscience is the pseudoscience is the pseudoscience that knows no political boundaries. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that both parties are equivalent. Unfortunately, thanks to the co-opting of conservative activism by antivaxers, the Republican Party in 2018 has become the antivaccine party.
