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You Can Thank This Botched Paper for All These Anti-Vaxxers
The history of the anti-vaccine movement has come full circle.
One thing is for certain: The internet didn’t create the level of intellectual enlightenment we’d hoped for.
In 2010, I was at McDitton’s Irish Pub here in Tampa. A random woman was giving me a lecture on why she refused to vaccinate her children. It was the first time I’d heard anyone talk like that about vaccines.
Looking back, I should have reported her. Nothing she said checked out.
Her stupidity isn’t new
The first anti-vaxxers emerged just after the first mass-use vaccine was developed in the 1800s. A physician noticed cow maids never caught smallpox. He then proved you could prevent smallpox by infecting someone with cowpox beforehand.
It was a brilliant catch. And despite smallpox actively wiping out entire populations and leaving many survivors unrecognizable, often blind, people still pushed back on the treatment.
Some claimed vaccinations were anti-christian. Many had bogus scientific theories that I could waste your time describing. Others said it was a violation of our personal liberty…
