Not surprising. The whole idea was to create the impression that doubts about vaccine safety were well-founded and widespread, not the result of a concerted media campaign by a pair of rich nuts.
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The inflection point for the modern movement was anything but grass roots
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This is the key to the Wakefield angle. His was not the first, but for a multitude of reasons, a lot due to money, his article got a lot of press and was seized on by nefarious actors to push the antivaccine trope from a fringe nutcase job to the mainstream. Also what allowed him to claim martyrdom when his malfeasance became apparent.
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I don’t really care if it was a rich couple or grassroots moms and dads from the suburbs of shittowns, but I will personally challenge everyone who is buying into this bullshit in my vicinity.
Anyone interested in funding me decently so I can start a campaign?
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the article specifically mentions him. and it says he gets a fair bit of his money currently from them. perhaps in this they are the victim - conned by him into supporting this and him. since no one in their circle wanted to go on the record with why they support anti vax groups it’s impossible to say.
you’re right they did focus more on where their money goes than the history of the movement. still - i dunno. when the biggest single source of money is this one family, that does seem pretty notable.
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Is this like that lawyer joke ?
But … why? What’s the value proposition here?
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I wasn’t aware of this. Do you have a citation? I live very near the epicenter of the NY measles outbreak (not in the Hasidic community, but nearby and packed with panicky, reactive parents) and find myself often gently but unapologetically laying out the facts of this fraud quite often. I’d love to add this to the laundry list.
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Well i mean he was a nefarious actor, actively involved in the seizing.
And I wouldn’t down play the Lancets role in legitimizing his research. It was easily exposed as bullshit and they published it as credible throwing massive weight behind the idea.
From a quick google:
He also held patents for tests for the new condition he claimed to have identified in the Lancet paper and the British Medical Journal found documents indicating he expected to make millions selling said test of the back of the vaccine scare and the vaccine lawsuit industry. That nugget is largely what lead to him losing his license.
Wiki carries a nice summary of his history. Which is pretty mich entirely about connecting MMR to illness or injury and pretty quickly became connected to the Autism panic.
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Someone noted above that they also funded the study of homeopathy. One or both of them is susceptible to woo and pseudo-science.
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Bigtree is the fuckknuckle who likes to adorn himself with a yellow Star-of-David, in order to equate himself with a death-camp inmate. He sounds nice.
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Nah, as we see in so many cases where the wealthy are “punished” with fines, they’re usually just water off a duck’s back.
People like this need to do hard time.
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is that where the tiny prick comes from and not the flat earth
While criminal charges seem appropriate in Wakefield’s case, in this case, follow the money. And take it. And apply it to the costs that this bullshit has imposed on the healthcare sector.
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Jim Simons ?
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