The Rationable Podcast

Antivax: Poking holes in the claims

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It all started with Andrew Wakefield publishing a sham study on how vaccines give children autism. Now, the movement has taken on a life of its own with celebrity endorsers, social media influencers, alternative medicine “gurus” all propagating this idea. Today, we dig into what antivaxxers believe, why it's wrong and how we can help stop the movement.

References and Further Reading:

  1. Vaccines, Autism, And The Promotion Of Irrelevant Research: A Science-Pseudoscience Analysis
  2. UNICEF: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/record-number-infants-vaccinated-2017
  3. WHO: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/autism-spectrum-disorders; https://www.who.int/publications/10-year-review/vaccines/en/ ; https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/detection/immunization_misconceptions/en/index1.html
  4. Ice Cream & Homicide: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/07/warm-weather-homicide-rates-when-ice-cream-sales-rise-homicides-rise-coincidence.html
  5. Vaccines & Autism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24814559
  6. Influenza Epidemics: https://7news.com.au/news/health/flu-deaths-hit-300-as-season-passes-peak-c-209939; https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/flu-season-in-india-how-prepared-are-you/story-scuyWrIdWgkUZ0Rs2av0aO.html
  7. Diseases that Vaccines prevent: https://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/en/
  8. Kulkarni SV, Narain JP, Gupta S, Dhariwal AC, Singh SK, Macintyre C R. Influenza A (H1N1) in India: Changing epidemiology and its implications. Natl Med J India [Epub ahead of print] [cited 2019 Jul 20]. Available from: http://www.nmji.in/preprintarticle.asp?id=253355
  9. Science Based Medicine: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/how-to-respond-to-anti-vaxxers/ and https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-hero-andrew-wakefield-scientific-fraud/
  10. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center

    11. Questions, suggestions or just want to get in touch? Find me on Instagram and Twitter @berationable and on Facebook @Rationable. Join the conversation on the Rationable Conversations Facebook group and email me at [email protected]. For more content like this, visit www.berationable.com.

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    The Rationable PodcastBy Abhijit Chanda