In my first article on vaccination, I tried to convince you that a population-wide adoption of vaccinations is the best shield we have against a number of dangerous diseases. In the second, I showed that while there are a number of somewhat rational excuses for not getting vaccinated, (or more importantly getting your child vaccinated), none of those excuses really holds up under critical examination. So now, in this third article, we’re going to delve into the grab bag of disinformation and conspiracy theories that lie at the bottom of the anti-vax community. They run the whole gamut from fact-deprived to goofy to racist and evil (it’s the jews!). 

One anti-vax theory is that vaccinations cause autism. I found a terrific peer-reviewed article by Dr. Michael Davidson published in “Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience” in December, 2017 about the vaccine/autism linkages. He starts with what I think is a terrific observation, which is that parents of an autistic child are desperate for answers. They don’t want their autistic child to be “our fault”. It’s not our genes – we didn’t screw him up as a child – something else must have brought this on. So then these anxious parent get hit with an unfortunate piece of synchronicity, which is that the early signs of autism start to become apparent about the same time as baby’s first MMR vaccination. That allows parents who want an external agency to blame for their child’s condition to find a readily available villain – it must have been the vaccine. 

That theory found a voice in Dr. Andrew Wakefield who was the principal author of a paper published in the British journal The Lancet in 1998. Shortly after publication, 10 of the 12 co-authors published a retraction suggesting that their data had not established a causal link. It turned out that “Wakefield had been funded by lawyers who had been engaged by parents in lawsuits against vaccine-producing companies.” In 2010, the Lancet completely retracted the article and after investigation, the British Medical Association formally disciplined Wakefield (who had previously published a flawed theory that the MMR vaccine was linked to Crohn’s disease). 

Dr Davidson advises us that “Since the Wakefield report, any direct connection between autism and the MMR vaccine has been discredited by dozens of studies investigating the epidemiology of autism and the biological effects of MMR and the mumps virus. Decreases in the rate of exposure to MMR were not shown to correlate with similar decreases in the incidence of autism. On the contrary, although more and more parents were opting out of MMR vaccination, the rates of autism had been rising.” So, the science says that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism. But you can’t get that toothpaste back in the tube. A quick search of Facebook will show you plenty of parents who are scared of vaccines because their child will get autism, or they’re convinced they already have a vaccine-induced autistic child.

There is a companion piece to the Wakefield story about the MMR vaccine causing autism. Thimersol, a mercury containing compound, has been used as an antiseptic to preserve vaccines. Mercury has been linked to serious brain/nervous system disorders (Minimata disease) and so a fuss was raised about thimersol in vaccines causing autism and other brain damage. Scientifically, the claim was absurd – the level of mercury in vaccines was insignificant in comparison to seafood mercury contamination levels, for example. It mattered not. In 1999, according to the CDC,  “the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure.” The CDC goes on to report that “Even after thimerosal was removed from almost all childhood vaccines, autism rates continued to increase, which is the opposite of what would be expected if thimerosal caused autism.”

A similar claim, that aluminum in vaccines is harmful has been scientifically dismissed for similar reasons. “We know from studies examining the aluminum exposure of infants that the cumulative amount of aluminum from vaccines in the first 6 months of life is actually far less than that received from dietary sources, including both breast milk and formula. Both sources represent far less exposure than that represented by a regulatory minimal risk level (MRL), which is established by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry”

The autism scare received a great deal of publicity in the late 1990’s and is probably the most important driver of the modern anti-vax movement. There are, however, many other bits of misinformation in the anti-vax grab-bag. An article by Sarah Goeghan and others published in Frontiers in Microbiology journal addresses several of these.

Anti-vaxers will tell you that we’re giving kids too many vaccines and they will overwhelm the immune system. The theory is tempting. We’re doing the body’s defence work for it, and so it’s natural that the body will let down it’s defences, right? But no, the science says it doesn’t work that way. If it were true, children vaccinated against measles, for example, would be more vulnerable to other diseases against which they hadn’t been vaccinated. A study of over 800,000 Danish children hospitalized for non-vaccinated infections showed no such correlation. Vaccination against disease A did not lead to any greater probability of getting disease B. Two other studies looked at what’s happening in the bloodstream. One demonstrated that there was no linkage between the number of vaccine antigens in the blood and the risk of non-vaccine infections. Another study showed no difference in immune system response to stimuli between vaccinated and non-vaccinated children.

There is a claim that vaccines cause autoimmune diseases.  Geoghan et al reviewed a number of studies for diseases like Diabetes Mellitus type 1 (DM1), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Guillan Barre’ Syndrome (GBS), and found “no associations between the number of different vaccines and an increased risk of autoimmune disorders.” An example of this rumour, this theory, this story, is that the HPV vaccine, specifically, has caused serious autoimmune system disorders. Geoghan reports “Since entering the market in 2006 more than 270 million doses of the HPV vaccine have been administered worldwide, including 100 million in the United States. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that this is a safe vaccine and there are strong epidemiologic data refuting claims of an association with AI diseases.” The HPV vaccine disinformation is particularly disturbing because “misinformation surrounding HPV vaccines has tragically resulted in lower uptake in many countries, denying millions of adolescents the opportunity to be protected from fatal HPV-related cancers in later life.” Misinformation kills.

Vaccines are harmful to fetuses. Modern public health advice is that pregnant women should receive certain vaccines. “Administration of vaccines to expectant mothers has the potential to protect the most vulnerable infants from serious illness and death as well as protecting women themselves… Influenza and pertussis vaccines (Tdap) are recommended to be given during pregnancy in most high-income countries.” Naturally those recommendations are rejected by the anti-vax community because of fears of harm to the unborn child and the fear that vaccines cause miscarriages. Once again, scientific examination reveals these fears to be baseless. “Because millions of pregnant women have received the influenza vaccine during pregnancy there is a large body of data confirming that it is safe. Numerous well-designed cohort studies have found no association between influenza vaccine and adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes including birth malformations, still birth, spontaneous abortion, low birth weight and low Apgar scores.”

The case against vaccination must go from coincidence (my baby was vaccinated and then developed autism) to correlation (there is a definite pattern of autism showing up more often in vaccinated children) to causation (we understand and have proven a mechanism by which autism is caused by vaccines.) In virtually every instance, the case against vaccines breaks down at the correlation level – there is simply no pattern that shows that negative outcomes are more prevalent in vaccinated children than in non-vaccinated ones. To the contrary,  there is a strong pattern that shows that unvaccinated children get childhood diseases and vaccinated kids do not.

On top of the misinformation, there are the ties of misinformation to conspiracy theories: 

The vaccines contain a microchip that exposes us to surveillance by big business or government (Pick your own bogey-man, but I warn you that Bill Gates is already heavily subscribed). Remember I said that some of these theories were just plain goofy? This is the prime example. An excellent article by Erin Black and Katie Tarasov on the CNBC web-site punctures that balloon nicely. They point out that vaccines are administered through a needle with a diameter of about 0.4 mm. A 5G compatible chip is just slightly smaller than a penny, and I’m guessing here that it won’t go through a needle. Further, “that microchip would have to have an associated power source, and then in addition, that power source would have to transmit a signal through at least an inch of muscle and fat and skin to a remote device.” Small RFID chips used for “getting rid of your wallet and key chain and allowing that microchip to represent whatever cards and keys you have cluttering your pockets” do, in fact, exist and have been inserted under the skin in some 6000 people worldwide. However, they are reported to be about the size of a grain of rice, and about 13 times the diameter of a vaccine needle. Finally, the value of such chips in Pinky and the Brain’s attempt to achieve world domination would be that each chip is individually programmed so that it creates a unique information track. But vaccines come in multi-dose vials. Even if it were possible to create hundreds of millions of individually programmed RFID chips (mammoth task), and it were possible to inject them (it isn’t) the information tracking would be impossible because The Brain wouldn’t know who got what chip. The whole idea is goofy, and easily blown apart. Nevertheless, in July of 2021 a survey of 1500 adult Americans revealed that 5% thought it was definitely true and 15% thought it was probably true. (OK, I know they’re Americans, but still…) 

Big Pharma has manufactured and/or exploited the Covid pandemic to profit from vaccines. One of the major proponents of this theory is Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopath who published a book entitled “The truth about Covid 19…” Actually the title goes on and on and becomes a short paragraph. Mercola, according to the Washington Post, funded the anti-vax movement to the tune of #4 million, gave $3.3 million to the Organic Consumers Association, and gave $1.1 million to an anti-GMO organization in California. How would “a humble osteopath who stopped seeing patients in 2009” get that kind of money, and why would he be giving it away to those organizations? Well, Mercola is worth about $100 million, because, according to an article from Mcgill University, “it turns out that being one of the top sellers of supplements and wellness products is quite the booty. His online store is a seemingly endless emporium of probiotics, antioxidants, vitamins, raw dog food, herbal repellent collars for cats, protein bars, grass-fed meats, hair care products, bath salts, toothpaste, sports bras, air purifiers, whole-body vibration exercise equipment, and organic cotton bed linens.” Funding the anti-vax community is just good business for him – he’s priming the pump.

Mercola is the first person listed by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a UK organization fighting online misinformation, in an article they titled “The Disinformation Dozen. In the article they assert that a dozen people are responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content available on social media. “Analysis of anti-vaccine content posted to Facebook over 689,000 times in the last two months shows that up to 73 percent of that content originates with members of the Disinformation Dozen of leading online anti-vaxxers.” (Note that the 65% number covers other platforms, not just Facebook). 

And here is the kicker – ten of the Disinformation Dozen sell products online to their followers. The Disinformation Dozen includes Robert F Kennedy junior who is estimated to have earned up to $4Million from his anti-vax activities. Ty and Charlene Bollinger are part of the Dozen, and are estimated by the New York Post to have earned tens of millions of dollars from their anti-vax video sales. Ty Bollinger is a chartered accountant and former body builder who has absolutely no medical training. In short, the anti-vax movement is being exploited for serious profit by snake oil salesmen.

In an article on The Nation entitled The Anti-Vax Movement and the Medical Freedom Hustle, Matt Hongolitz-Hetling tells us that the upsurge in anti-vax sentiment is a result of alternative medicine retailers aligning themselves with the right wing libertarian movement.  Libertarians will defend to the death your right to sell anything. Libertarians oppose government regulation of any kind for any purpose, and alternative medicine purveyors are happy to have them espouse their cause of promoting quack remedies in the name of freedom. It is evident that the alternative medicine message is having a telling effect. A Canadian government survey of immunization practices and beliefs showed that faith in alternative practices is increasing. “In 2021, 14.9% of parents and guardians believe that alternative practices such as homeopathy or naturopathy can replace vaccines (up from 11.3% in 2019) and 16.1% of parents/guardians believe that a healthy lifestyle can replace vaccination (up from 11.1% in 2019.”

Alternative medicine purveyors and anti-vax preachers are assisted in their efforts, as the Economist notes in an article on “Of Vaccines and Vacuous Starlets” by “a gaggle of B-List celebrities such as Jenny McCarthy, a former Playboy model and anti-vaccine megaphone.” To that list I would add Aaron Rodgers and Novak Djokovich. It’s amazing how fame in one public sphere gives a person credibility in an arena where they have absolutely no qualification. 

All of that misinformation is circulated on social media by adherents of the anti-vax philosophy assiduously keeping each other informed by re-posting doom and gloom postings from the disinformation dozen.  They are assisted in this spreading of the anti-vax gospel by malicious bots. A 2019 article on Snopes says “Calculations suggest that between 40% and 52% of all internet traffic is automated. A study analyzing online bot activity in 2018 estimated that 20.4% of bots were malicious.” Quite a number of the bots and trolls originate in Russia, and analysis of those messages suggests that Russian sources disseminate both pro and anti-vax messages in an effort to sow discord in western countries.

In November of 2022 I wrote an article about why people get drawn into conspiracy theories. You can go back and read it, (as I just did). People who get drawn into conspiracy theories are unlikely to be persuaded by logic. They are likely to have an emotional, not logical, basis for their belief and they may feel comforted by being in a group – anti-vaxxers, for example. And somewhere in all the things I read for this essay, there was a study, which I can’t find at the moment, that included the observation that it is almost useless quoting science to these people because the presentation of scientific argument has the opposite of the desired effect – it strengthens and reaffirms their anti-vax beliefs.

Nowhere is group alignment so important and so divisive as in the United States. Anti-vax sentiment has become aligned with right wing Libertarian (MAGA republican) movement, and is thus also linked with QAnon conspiracy theory and Replacement Theory and Anti-semitic conspiracies. And in the extremely partisan environment that is the American political scene, party affiliation is really all that matters. The Nation article tells us that “Political identity dictates vaccine opinions, not the other way around. This meant that liberals didn’t support vaccines because they loved science; it was because political influencers told them that vaccine support made them good liberals. And rank-and-file conservatives didn’t begin to rail against vaccines because they had an inherent distrust of doctors. They opposed them because a dense network of influential alternative healers, political leaders, and entertainment personalities told them that doing so made them good conservatives.”

So, if logical argument is likely to fail, what are we to do? I would suggest the following. First, I would give it the good old college try with solid pro-vax data-based argument anyway. Most times you will have little effect, but perhaps occasionally you succeed in changing a mind, and that would be worthwhile. 

Second, I would suggest that social media platforms need to be held more responsible for platform content. If we can legislate against hate speech, why can we not regulate against the proliferation of anti-vax misinformation? Yes, I know, we’re pushing the edges of censorship but in the past, there were editorial standards that prevented newspapers from publishing garbage. Can we not establish a sensible level of regulation that permits debate but prevents spreading falsehoods? I think it’s a question for the CRTC perhaps on just how much we could clamp down on this stuff.

Third, I think we enforce legislation about the need for vaccination. Legislation already exists in most parts of the country that requires children to be vaccinated if they’re attending public schools. But there are exemptions provided in the regulations. The first is for medical reasons – children with compromised immune systems, cancer patients for example, may not be able to receive vaccinations. And that’s reasonable and right. But the other basis for exemption is for reasons of religion or a “statement of conscience”. As far back as 2019, the Toronto Public Health department called for an end to non-medical exemptions. An article in HealthCare Policy journal examines the question of whether that exemption can be eliminated without infringing on charter rights, and concludes that it probably can. So, if it can be done, I say it should be done. If you want to choose to leave your child unvaccinated, welcome to home schooling.

Finally, I think we should sit every parent down at the start of the first kindergarten year and provide a course on immunization programs. The course should demonstrate vaccine benefits, and should tackle some of the misinformation myths head on. We need to have the tough conversations, and the Public Health department should get busy and educate people.

I welcome your comments.Dennis