Anti-vaxxers – Herd impunity

44 snips

Jun 26, 2024

The podcast delves into the history of vaccines and anti-vaxx movements, highlighting key events from the fight against smallpox to the MMR panic. It explores the influence of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the spread of misinformation, and the impact on public health. The hosts discuss the weaponization of doubt in science, contrasting narratives in journalism, and the dangerous consequences of anti-vaccine beliefs.

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INSIGHT

Success Breeds Complacency

The UK's chief medical officer, John Simon, noted that vaccination's success can blind people to its importance.
He observed that it's easy to dismiss a preventative measure when the threat feels distant.

ANECDOTE

Leicester: Anti-Vax Hotspot

In the 1880s, Leicester became a hotbed of anti-vaccine sentiment.
Vaccination rates plummeted, leading to a large demonstration and the 1898 Vaccination Act, which allowed exemptions.

ANECDOTE

Anti-Vax Movement Spreads to America

A British anti-vaxxer, William Tebb, spread the movement to America.
This led to the formation of the Anti-Vaccination Society of America and the repeal of vaccine mandates in several states.

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This episode tells the tale of the anti-vaxxers. The word has only been around since 2001 but inoculation has inspired opposition for as long as it has existed in the West. Dorian and Ian chart the life of vaccines and their opponents from the fight against smallpox in the eighteenth century to the vaccine scandals of the post-war decades. Find out why someone threw a bomb through Cotton Mather’s window, why Gandhi changed his mind, and why Leicester became the anti-vaccine capital of the world.

The drama accelerates with Dr Andrew Wakefield and the MMR panic of the 2000s, which swept up everyone for Oprah Winfrey to Private Eye, caused a public health disaster and set the stage for the full-blown mania of the backlash against Covid-19 vaccines. How did a rogue British gastroenterologist launch a global movement? How did vaccine scepticism mutate into a giant conspiracy theory? Is Bill Gates really implanting 5G trackers in our blood? (No.) And what’s the best way to get an anti-vaxxer to think again?

It’s a gripping story of science, journalism, paranoia, superstition and people who should know better.

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Reading list

• David Aaronovitch – Voodoo Histories: How Conspiracy Theory Has Shaped Modern History (2010)

• Jonathan M. Berman – Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement (2020)

• Steve Brotherton – Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories (2016)

• Brian Deer – The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Andrew Wakefield’s War on Vaccines (2020)

• Peter Furtado - Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic: Voices from History (2021)

• Naomi Klein – Doppelganger (2023)

• Anna Merlan – Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power (2020)

• Seth Mnookin – The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy (2011)

• Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge - Conspiracy: A History of Bxllocks Theories and How Not to Fall for Them (2022)

• Frank M. Snowden - Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (2019)

Podcasts and articles

• You’re Wrong About: The Anti-Vaccine Movement (2021)

• Maintenance Phase: RFK Jr. and the Rise of the Anti-Vaxx Movement (2023)

• Isaac Chotiner, ‘The Influence of the Anti-Vaccine Movement’, The New Yorker (2020)

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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