Fewer still can stand their ground and still be viewed as empathetic when confronted by the grieving parent herself. None can do it without feeling acute distress at potentially increasing the pain of a parent who's lousy a child. 5/
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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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