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The Accusations Against Vaccinations on the Internet: Autism, Mercury and Immunological Overload

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Vaccines: Are they Worth a Shot?

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Abstract

Data, harsh data, are the only thing that count, we could say, paraphrasing a famous quotation from Stendhal’s The Red and the Black about the truth. At a time like the present, when we are submerged by information by media, it is not at all easy to find our way around to distinguish between what is true and what is false, in the sense of reported untruthfully or partially, or even fictive, in the sense of fake or fabricated. For my generation, which saw it come into being, the Internet has been and is a marvellous opportunity of cultural growth. Its strength lies in the freedom of the web, but so does its weakness. Alongside books and articles written by the most authoritative experts on every possible subject of human knowledge, there are texts that are cobbled together, manipulated or invented. The historian Carlo Ginzburg said this admirably in his lectio magistralis when he received the prestigious Balzan Prize (several of its winners have also received a Nobel Prize) in September 2011:

Some have said that the Internet is an instrument of democracy. Taken literally, this statement is false. We have to add: it is an instrument of potential democracy. The motto of the Internet can be summarized in the words, paradoxical and politically incorrect, pronounced by Jesus: “Whoever has will be given more” (Matthew, XIII, 12). To navigate in the Internet, to distinguish the pearl from the sow’s ear, you already have to have had access to culture—an access which normally (and I speak from personal experience) is associated with social privilege. The Internet, which potentially could be an instrument that could attenuate cultural inequalities, in the immediate, exasperates them. Schools need the Internet, of course, but the Internet, to be used according to its potential (let’s say realistically one-millionth of its capacity), needs state schools that really teach.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Carlo Ginzburg, Speech of thanks at the awards ceremony of the Balzan Prizes 2010, Milan, Fondazione Internazionale Balzan, 2011.

  2. 2.

    Special Eurobarometer 419, Public Perceptions of Science, Research and Innovation, Report, October 2014, http://tinyurl.com/jnrhnbt

  3. 3.

    Eurispes. 25° Rapporto Italia 2013. Documento di Sintesi, http://tinyurl.com/k4wwe4q

  4. 4.

    Annuario Scienza e Tecnologia e Società 2014: edizione speciale decennale. Dieci anni di scienza nella società, a cura di Massimiano Bucchi e Barbara Saracino, Il Mulino, Bologna 2014, http://tinyurl.com/ojwwvek

  5. 5.

    GAVI, launched in 2000, is a partnership of public and private subjects—WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, etc.—with the aim of improving access to immunization for the populations of poor countries. See in particular the Vaccine Donation Policy, http://tinyurl.com/h4sze3y

  6. 6.

    United States General Accounting Office, Infectious Diseases. Analysis of Eradication or Elimination Estimates, 1998, p. 9: https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=487464

  7. 7.

    Medscape Physicians Compensation Report 2014, http://tinyurl.com/zw5dtso; “Washington Post”, 18 April 2014; Pam Tobey, Doctors Still Make Good Money, http://tinyurl.com/hbktlg3

  8. 8.

    This and much other information is not the opinions of the writer but documented facts. The documents that prove unequivocally the fraudulent attitude of Wakefield—which after in-depth confirmations led to the British health institutions deciding to strike the doctor off the Medical Register—are public and can be consulted by anyone on the site of the “Sunday Times” journalist, Brian Deer, http://tinyurl.com/yao23ye

  9. 9.

    Oxford Vaccine group, Vaccine Knowledge Project, Measles, http://tinyurl.com/jlktxgc; Public Health England. The National Archives, Mumps Notifications in England and Wales by Age Group, 1989–2012, http://tinyurl.com/2ug45bb; Public Health England, Infection report/Immunisation, Vol. 9, N. 42, 27 November 2015, http://tinyurl.com/jb2gqte; Public Health England, Measles Deaths by Age Group: 1980–2013, http://tinyurl.com/l4soqef

  10. 10.

    Public Health England, The National Archives, Confirmed Cases of Measles by Region and Age: 1996–2013, http://tinyurl.com/2ug45bb

  11. 11.

    The approximate average of 200 units emerges from an analysis of the following four lists: the first one, the only one which calculates the number of only doctors (with some exceptions) lists 52 anti-vaccinationist doctors, the second and third lists which add in the list doctors and scientists with a Ph.D. list, respectively, 81 and 279 scientists contrary to or critical of vaccinations. The last list brings together some 300 doctors who have a friendly approach to vaccinations—many of the same names appear in the different lists. (1) Sceptical Raptor—Stalking pseudoscience in the internet jungle. Anti-vaccine doctors—naming names and listing lists, 2017/06/18: https://goo.gl/gGmjh3; (2) The Vienna Report: https://goo.gl/iXyzG1; (3) Malaysian Vaccines Exposed: https://goo.gl/eHJVwk (4) Best Vaccine Friendly Doctor List: https://goo.gl/zkd9sr

  12. 12.

    FDA, Vaccines, Blood & Biologics, Safety & Availability, Vaccine Safety & Availability, Common Ingredients in U.S. Licensed Vaccines, http://tinyurl.com/q8djboh

  13. 13.

    EMA, Guideline on Adjuvants in Vaccines for Human Use, http://tinyurl.com/z3fuyvj

  14. 14.

    Danish Study Does Not Support Hypothesis of Association Between Thiomersal and Autism, “Eurosurveillance”, Vol. 7, N. 41, 9 October 2003.

  15. 15.

    International Agency for Research on Cancer, Agents Classified by the IARC Monographs, Volumes 1–112: http://tinyurl.com/nedj8qf

  16. 16.

    European Food Safety Authority, Endogenous Formaldehyde Turnover in Humans Compared with Exogenous Contribution from Food Sources, “EFSA Journal”, 2014, 12(2), p. 3550.

  17. 17.

    Safety of Aluminium from Dietary Intake, Dietary Exposure to Aluminium-Containing Food Additives 2013 (Question Number: Efsa-Q-2013-00312), “EFSA Journal”, 2008, 754, pp. 1–34.

  18. 18.

    The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Aluminum (CAS ID #: 7429-90-5), http://tinyurl.com/zdjvfto

  19. 19.

    Vitek, C.R. and M. Wharton, Diphtheria in the Former Soviet Union: Reemergence of a Pandemic Disease, “CDC”, Vol. 4, No. 4, December 1998, http://tinyurl.com/z65ftdv (the site of the North American CDC lists 63 papers which analyse all the data in detail).

  20. 20.

    The best known are: comilva.org, condav.it, autismovaccini.com, infovaccini.it, mednat.org, vaccinareinformati.org, disinformazione.it, scienzaverde.it.

  21. 21.

    Archives of Briefing Notes, “Pandemic” (H1N1), 2009, http://tinyurl.com/h3rtp88

  22. 22.

    Censis. Cultura della vaccinazione in Italia: un’indagine sui genitori, October 2014, p. 101.

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  1. Unit and Museum of History of Medicine, Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Andrea Grignolio

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Grignolio, A. (2018). The Accusations Against Vaccinations on the Internet: Autism, Mercury and Immunological Overload. In: Vaccines: Are they Worth a Shot?. Copernicus, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68106-1_3

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