The Anti-Vax Conspiracy

Sorry, went slightly off at a tangent with my previous post, it just interests me why otherwise intelligent people believe such stuff.

Thanks Varian, I shall watch that. I have a couple of close friends who believe this is all a conspiracy; intelligent, kind people too so it is hard to just ignore them and dismiss what they say as nonsense. Before the USA election, I managed to join a FB page where they believed in the full 'Q' conspiracy, honestly thought that JFK Junior did not die in the plane crash but was silently waiting on the sidelines, ready to join Trump as VP. Mike Pence had been executed for treason and the one seen in public was a clone........... The same group of people seem to be involved in the covid19 conspiracy theory.

Appalling to see the influence Andrew Wakefield still has over people. The stories of the treatment of autistic children with quack remedies to "Wash the autism out of them" were horrific for anyone with autism in the family - and that is where Trump got his ideas about using bleach the wash out Covid.

I had heard before that the anti vax theories were being promoted by a dozen people who are making a fortune out of books, videos and quack cures and this just confirmed it.

There's now a Nepal variant sweeping Europe. What next, Timbuktu ?

Thanks varian

The Anti-Vax Conspiracy, Channel 4, review: The real fight, between science and ignorance, has only just begun

This gripping, if sobering, documentary showed how anti-vaxxers pose an existential threat to the work done by science in turning the tide against Covid-19

If the past 12 months have sometimes resembled one long, claustrophobic horror movie, then The Anti-Vax Conspiracy felt like the sickening twist at the end in which it was revealed the villain hadn’t been defeated after all.

This was a gripping, though sobering, documentary. And its unsettling message was that anti-vaxxers pose an existential threat to the work done by science in turning the tide against Covid-19. They are the monster hiding under all our beds.

“Vaccines are our only way out of this pandemic,” said US infectious diseases expert Dr Paul Offit. “And if people are scared about vaccines, then we’re not going to be out of this pandemic.”

Covid presented a perfect opportunity for anti-vaxxers, it was explained in a film that set out the facts calmly and without sensation. Scaremongers had preyed on parents’ fears by claiming a false link between autism and MMR vaccines. Now with coronavirus, they had an opportunity to inflict their snake-oil on their followers. A surprisingly astute and frank discussion of mental illness

Claims that the pandemic was a wheeze by “Big Pharma” or a government attempt to usher in a dystopian surveillance state represented the spewings of paranoid imaginations. Yet the poison has proved effective. Vaccine scepticism is on the rise globally (although not in the UK).

Behind these lies lurked often charismatic figures including Piers Corbyn, older brother of Jeremy, and Robert Kennedy Jnr, son of Bobby Kennedy. Most influential of all was Andrew Wakefield, the tireless self-promoter who left Britain in disgrace after claiming a connection between MMR vaccines and autism.

More than a year into the pandemic, the vaccine roll-out has raised hopes of normality returning. Channel 4’s unnerving documentary warned that the real fight – between science and ignorance – may have only just begun.

Review by Ed Power in the "i"

thanks, i'll have a look. tend not to notice what's on tv.
don't need a licence for this one !
do have some idea about anti-vaxxers, as there is one near here. many qualifications, seemingly respectable.
paid lecture tours, world-wide, and now via zoom, influencing people; it is just like a cult, draws in what i call organic-produce types.
she is an admirer of andrew wakefield... need we say more.

We have just finished watching this, 'scary' is the right word