The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is the committee that decides on the CDC-recommended vaccine schedule. Naturally, antivaxers don’t like it—or any scientist on it. Or any vaccine advocate, for that matter. Paul Offit is a particular target of their ire, and they can be quite scary.
A group of Spanish veterinary researchers claim that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines make sheep sick. To prove it, they injected a small number of sheep with massive amounts of adjuvants and vaccines and did a whole lot of comparisons, including behavioral observations with a large subjective component. Surprise! They think they’ve found something. Less surprising, the antivaxers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are pointing to the study as evidence of how dangerous vaccines are.
In this installment of Conspiracy Theory Bingo, Kevin Barry blames the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 on an experimental vaccine. Yes, Mr. Barry lets the conspiracy mongering and antivaccine tropes flow as he “investigates” the influenza pandemic of 1918. Being the antivaccine crank that he is, he concludes that the influenza virus didn’t cause the disease that killed over 50 million people a hundred years ago. No! It was—of course—an experimental meningitis vaccine that caused bacterial pneumonia in Army recruits. Let’s just say that there are numerous holes in Barry’s claims.
Last week, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center issued a press releast touting its integrative oncology program. It’s a perfect example to demonstrate the formulaic nature of such press releases and the distortions behind them used to sell the “integration” of quackery into medicine.
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.
