Research shows link between rise of European populism and vaccine refusal


Lead author Dr Jonathan Kennedy from Queen Mary University of London said: “It seems likely that scientific populism is driven by similar feelings to political populism, for example, a profound distrust of elites and experts by disenfranchised and marginalised parts of the population.

“Even where programmes objectively improve the health of targeted populations, they can be viewed with suspicion by communities that do not trust elites and experts. In the case of vaccine hesitancy, distrust is focused on public health experts and pharmaceutical companies that advocate vaccines.”…

The analysis found a highly significant positive association between the percentage of people in a country who voted for populist parties and the percentage who believe that vaccines are not important and not effective….

In the research article, Dr Kennedy writes that modern vaccine hesitancy is usually traced to Andrew Wakefield’s now discredited 1998 Lancet article, which claimed a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism….

Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register and the Lancet study retracted. Nevertheless, his ideas remain influential and are cited as a reason why measles cases have increased in Europe over the past few years….

Many people have problems with car accident hesitancy or falling off a cliff hesitancy.     Personally I’m afflicted by a “blind trust in profit-driven liability-immune industrial effluent injected into my veins” hesitancy.

They’re milking the wakefield lie for every last drop.   First off, his study was simply an empirical observation of a connection between an abnormal gut microbiome and gut issues in some kids with autism pointing to a possible connection with the autism.   This connection has never been refuted.   His crime was that he postulated that the gut microbiome could be affected by vaccination (a known phenomenon) and noted that most of the kids in his study had recently received MMR.   Heresy.  And his is only one datapoint in a constellation of research and whistleblowing all pointing to the endemic corruption/revolving door problem at the CDC and WHO.

And still, even scientific publications carry superficial “summaries” perpetuating the myth, such as the above.  This is analogous to the NYT admitting in passing that the CIA taught nazi torture techniques to the iranian secret police, under a misleading headline on page A2.   It seems the scientific media is becoming as propagandistic as the rest of the media.

Is it any wonder that growing numbers of people are distrustful of establishment medicine?

Wakefield Vindicated Again

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