this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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That's the problem though isn't it? By giving the same platform to cranks as he would people with expertise in their field while offering very little pushback, he signals to his audience that these fringe, nonsensical ideas are just different opinions being debated.
It's coverage like that across the media, that has allowed unscientific views like antivax to fester.
Thanks for your response. Are you suggesting that indecisive movement on the part of the media is what causes antivax sentiments to rise? I mean one of the biggest slurs they throw is that you're antivax. I can't remember a time when antivaxing was talked about on the media as a reasonable standpoint. Yet the prevalence of antivax sentiments is increasing. Couldn't it also be attributable to institutional decline?
Did the CDC behave in a consistent and transparent way during covid? Or did they issue contradictory recommendations, and disinformation regarding lab leak. My point only is, if our institutions weren't failing us on the reg, maybe we'd find it easier to take their word for things.
I'm going to talk about a specific event to try to highlight my point if you don't mind.
In 1998, (ex-)Dr Andrew J Wakefield published an article in the lancet that used sketchy methodology to push the idea that the MMR vaccine was the primary cause of autism.
Peer review would eventually lead to the lancet retracting the study and evidence of his tampering with collected data and other unscientific processes lead to him resigning from the hospital he worked at in 2001 and losing his medical license in 2010.
Despite all this, British media platformed him as an alternative voice that had been silenced by big pharma.
During this coverage, MMR vaccination rates in the UK dropped from ~92% to ~73% between 1998 and 2008 and only returned to pre-coverage rates (in England, Scotland and Wales recovered a lot quicker but notably had less coverage of Wakefield's study prior to its retraction) in 2021. In some London boroughs it dropped as low as ~50% and is recovering at a much slower rate.
For reference WHO targets for MMR inoculation is a vaccination rate of ~95%.
British media essentially took an entire decade off progress to eliminate Measles, Mumps, and Rubella.