Goodbye, virus… (by C0nc0rdance)
“One of the best things we could leave our descendants is a world with fewer pathogens. We’ve managed it twice now. It’s realistic and achievable to completely eliminate a few more. It will require a global public commitment, funding, and our most powerful weapon in the arsenal: vaccines!”
Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it’s an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn’t have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts — you know, they, they kill children. It’s a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.
—Bill Gates in response to being asked about the controversy surrounding Andrew Wakefield (via Bill Gates steps in it in a good way, declares vaccine-autism link an “absolute lie” : Respectful Insolence)
He didn’t just take data and do funky magic anti-vax math with it. He changed the data. He changed the stories of his subjects. He flat out lied. His subjects were fictional characters based on real children he interacted with during his study. (The study you are about to read is based on a true story. All names and clinical data have been changed to protect the innocent… and by “innocent” we mean “money”… and by “money” we mean the nearly £500,000 (~US$760,000) he was paid by attorney Richard Barr to come up with evidence to support a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers.)
—Elyse, “Wakefield: from disgraced MD to GDMFL,” (Skepchick)
(Source: google.com)
Skepchick » Vaccine Clinic: The Art Department
Skepchick.org and the Women Thinking Free Foundation are encouraging individuals to protect the ones they love by vaccinating themselves against pertussis, also known as whooping cough. Pertussis is an infectious disease that can be passed from adults to infants, who can experience serious and sometimes fatal symptoms.
Their first event is taking place at Dragon*Con, hence the sci-fi art :-)
