Antivaxers have long weaponized grieving mothers, just as cancer quacks weaponize the families of cancer patients with terminal disease. The reason? If you dare question their stories, you can be portrayed as heartless, "attacking" a massively sympathetic figure. 1/ https://twitter.com/BrandyZadrozny/status/1176480855893729280 …
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Jasmine is a particularly egregious case, where antivax pseudoscientist Christopher Shaw tortured science to try to "prove" that it was Gardasil that killed her. 10/https://respectfulinsolence.com/2012/10/31/and-now-death-by-gardasil-again-not-so-fast/ …
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In 2018, antivaxers seized on the case of Jasmin Soriat, a teen whose death was unconvincingly blamed on Gardasil. 11/https://respectfulinsolence.com/2018/02/12/death-by-gardasil-not-so-fast-2018-edition/ …
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Antivaxers even made a movie about supposed "injuries" and "deaths by Gardasil" called "Sacrificial Virgins. 12/https://youtu.be/KAzcMHaBvLs
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Of course, the imagery in the title is not about a loss of innocence, but a *sacrifice* of innocence, an image that resonates deeply in human myth, history, religion, and literature. 13/
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The next question becomes: Sacrifice to what? In general, the implication of human sacrifice, particularly virgin sacrifice, is of ancient, pagan religion, and that’s clearly the imagery the video makers went for. 14/
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The implication is that vaccination for HPV is based not on science, but rather on some form of irrational, religious belief system that demands a virgin sacrifice. (No one ever accused antivaxers of being subtle.) 16/
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The point is, blaming SIDS and the deaths of children and teens on vaccines is longstanding tactic of antivaxers. They've even tried to portray shaken baby syndrome as a "misdiagnosis for vaccine injury" to acquit baby killers. 17/https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-antivaccine-lie-that-just-wont-die-shaken-baby-syndrome-is-really-due-to-vaccine-injury/ …
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I couldn't believe it myself when I first encountered this vile antivax lie examining the case of Alan Yurko. 18/ http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/yurko1.htm …
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The bottom line is that antivaxers are masters of preying on a grieving parent's need to have an explanation, to know why her child died. 19/
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Antivaxers bait their hook with a seemingly reasonable explanation for the child's death, and the parents' hunger for any explanation leads her to take the bait and be reeled into the movement. 20/
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Once there, the grieving parents receive empathy aplenty and a new, powerful social support network to help them. To antivaxers they're martyrs who unknowingly "sacrificed" their children after all. 21/
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That same grief is then weaponized, making the parents a human shield against critics as described above, and a powerful "in" to gain access to lawmakers and powerful people. Who would turn down a meeting with a grieving mother? Who wouldn't give her a respectful hearing? 22/
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What reporter would risk appearing callous reporting on such parents? What parents wouldn't feel their pain? 23/
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That's what makes
@BrandyZadrozny's report so valuable. Until now, pretty much only bloggers and pro-science social media personalities have dared touch this sort of story. Kudos to her and@NBCNews for taking this one on. 24/Show this thread -
Sadly, I predict that the antivax backlash will be epic.
@BrandyZadrozny is the first mainstream media reporter that I can recall to have so directly taken on the #1 sacred cite of the antivaccine movement. 25/25Show this thread -
The #1 sacred cow. Damn, Twitter. I need an edit function, even if it's only good for a few minutes.
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End of conversation
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