Anti-Vaccine Believers and Scientific Studies

When The Economist, Hollywood, Jon Stewart, Scientists, Children and Scientific Fraud Collide

In 1989, Meryl Streep warned us away from apple juice because it contained a “pesticide” called alar.  It has since been shown first, that it is not a “pesticide” and second, that the upshot to omitting alar from apple growing – which causes the apple to stay on the tree longer, thus less need for pesticides – was that more pesticides will have to be used. (All of this happened as I was graduating with a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences with a focus on risk communication, so it was indeed a memorable event that told me I had a lot of work ahead of me.) This is the way not to do science, and did we learn a lesson from taking scientific advice from Hollywood stars? No.  Apparently, the California hipsters in Napa, Sonoma, etc. have heeded the warning of another Hollywood “star” with no expertise.

On June 28, 2014, The Economist wrote a scathing commentary on the connection between Hollywood stars and the affluent areas of California which have seen a rise in childhood diseases correlated with resistance and refusal to get vaccinations. .

Jon Stewart, in June, did his usual comedic-style treatment of the subject. Samantha Bee did a nice job of hitting some key points, despite her abrasive biases against conservatives.

But none of these high profile, attention-grabbing presentations pointed the finger where it really deserved pointing – to the researcher who was cloaked with scientific credibility when he misrepresented his studies and claimed there was correlation between autism and the MMR vaccine for children. Scientists who falsify data are more to blame than Hollywood. A credible scientist, Wakefield, published in a prestigious medical journal the findings that correlated autism with vaccines, but on closer examination the funding for the study was in anticipation of litigation against vaccine manufacturers and came from lawyers involved in the case according to a report in CNN in 2011.  Reporter, Brian Deer, said Wakefield "chiseled" the data before him, "falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare." According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism.

Did the retracted article make it clear that the science was falsified and there is no correlation between autism and the MMR vaccine? Unfortunately, Dr. Andrew Wakefield (a British scientist) has played on the sensitivities of parents with children with autism who would like to find a reason. Undeterred, he has found safe haven for his anti-vaccine message in Austin, Texas where he is founder of an autism research center, Strategic Autism Initiative (SAI), and Director of the Autism Media Channel. With that in mind, it may be very relevant here to mention that one of the most frequently seen bumper stickers for Austin is “Keep Austin Weird.”

If a poll could be taken of parents asking them whether it was true that autism is caused by childhood vaccines, would they still remember the hype around the now discredited study or would they remember the retraction of that article? My hypothesis is that the parents who heard the scientifically reported article would number at least 3 to 1 the parents who knew  about (and understood) the retraction.  

Both FDA and CDC should join forces to develop an information campaign to tell parents the truth and help guide them through the collision of information bombarding them from every corner of the social media milieu to protect children and to protect public health in America.  The effect of this leadership could have a global impact as well, and the world's leader in science, education and discovery could save millions of lives by that one, simple campaign.