Anti-Vaxxers: How the Media Created a Monster

this video is brought to you by hover [Music] hey wisecrack michael here and today we're back to one of our favorite topics anti-vaxxers now we've already talked about some of the surprising roots of the modern anti-vaxx movement but today we wanted to go in depth on one particular part of that story the media especially over the last few years the media has postured themselves as dispellers of misinformation and that can be very true but historically it's also been pretty false like when the media helped propel vaccines information into the public consciousness not just once but multiple times how does that happen let's find out in this wisecrack edition on anti-vaxxers and the media and before we get into it i want to give a shout out to this week's sponsor hover hover is an easy to use service that allows you to create a custom domain name or email address if you're on the hunt for a new job you want to put your best foot forward and one of the first things people will see is your 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studies have pretty conclusively proven that vaccines a do not cause autism and b are safe aside from incredibly rare adverse events which is all to say we'll be talking about controversies today that are not scientific controversies at all we're also going to be talking a lot about television news because well it's visual but rest assured the same problems that we will discuss exist in print all right enough disclaimers let's start with a vaccine scare that many credit for launching the modern anti-vaccine movement in america a 1982 documentary called dpt vaccine roulette the special put forth the concern that the pertussis or whooping cough vaccine was causing permanent brain damage in kids while the vaccine was known to have more severe side effects than other childhood inoculations there was no evidence that it caused any of the long-term brain damage detailed in the documentary it pit one supposed expert against another all the while presenting viewers with heartbreaking images of parents caring for their children despite serious phrasing problems my grandsons receive the d it would catalyze vaccine fears and parents across the country and spark the formation of anti-dpt vaccine parent groups while the presenter won an emmy for her reporting the journal of the american medical association found that the program was rife with errors everything from inflating the titles of the people they interviewed to falsely reporting the numbers of children who experienced side effects from the vaccine now we're not gonna cover why asking the question why should i get vaccinated for diseases like diphtheria or pertussis when no one gets it anymore is mind-numbingly dumb why are we giving children so many vaccines there's no more polio in the united states and there's no more diphtheria in the united states instead we're going to divert our attention to something else going on both side-ism specifically how it enabled bad science to infiltrate the hearts and minds of millions of americans no vaccine's ever been proven safe and no vaccine has ever been proven effective both side-ism or false balance is a phenomenon wherein a media outlet portrays differing facets of a debate as having equal merit when in reality the factual evidence is strongly stacked on one side of course there are a lot of issues that legitimately have multiple sides to consider like when different scientists try to predict how many people will be infected by or die from covet 19. that's something good science journalists cover it's a scientific controversy where scientists disagree which should be differentiated from social controversies or political controversies that is just because something is up for debate in the youtube comments doesn't mean it's up for debate among scientists whether that's the idea that the earth is round or that vaccines prevent deadly diseases and dpt vaccine roulette seems like it's presenting a scientific controversy with experts in all except well they had to fudge a few numbers and titles to make that controversy seem compelling in the first place in the years after the documentary's release programming on the dpt vaccine often used the language of empowering the viewer to make their own choices it's frightening so is it true you decide and this framing lent itself to a peculiar imbalance in order to present the viewer with two purportedly equal sides as opposed to an open and shut case of scientific consensus the vaccine critical claims were given a disproportionate amount of airtime in other words the media had to make the anti-vaxx case seem more compelling than it was in order to justify airing these kinds of programs to begin with exposing people to scientific ideas that scientists don't take seriously isn't necessarily an intentionally nefarious deed sometimes it simply comes from a journalist's desire for fairness they want to make sure both sides get equal exposure i don't want to get into which of these stories are just cynical sensationalism and which are earnest reporters trying to do their jobs but regardless sensationalism is a systemwide problem in the media a story about a zesty climate change tweet is more likely to get clicks than a headline declaring that the vast majority of scientists agree the anthropogenic climate change is a real thing no really or it's follow-up seriously stop asking us nothing has changed but both sides in an argument dishonestly also happens to make great conflict and conflict makes great tv after all there's a reason reality show producers love casting people with poor emotion regulation and when it comes to good tv vaccines have great conflict baked into them it pits sympathetic mothers vs cold doctors real americans versus the medical establishment emotions are bound to run high and most importantly it's got kids nothing draws attention like suffering children it makes for such reliably good tv that doctor vs mom is basically a genre of its own within talk show segments we dug up a bunch of these segments starting with a 1986 episode of regis philbin's the morning show on one side were two mothers who claimed the dpt shot harmed their children then there's the director of a hospital pediatric ward after one mother whose child died tells her story the doctor says what's important is not to minimize the tragedy that you just heard about but it has to be put in perspective the mother inhales and blinks rapidly she looks like she's desperately trying to keep it together of course factually the doctor is right danger from vaccine reactions are far overshadowed by the number of lives saved but it sounds cold and callous to spew public health statistics in the face of a grieving mother the viewer is just as likely to come away feeling rage on the parents behalf as they are to be reassured about the efficacy of childhood vaccine schedules here's another mother on cnn's sonja live in 1990 debating the dpt vaccine she appears to have the most cutting-edge information on new scientific studies has memorized all the relevant numbers and seemingly holds her own against the doctor who she is debating without relying on an emotional appeal so who are we supposed to believe we also pulled a 1995 segment with brian gumbel about the chickenpox vaccine where the host after talking to an actual pediatrician says there is quote-unquote debate about the safety of the vaccine despite the fda's approval there is still some debate over whether or not the vaccine is really necessary or completely safe that's before cutting straight to the other side as represented by a mother who heads an official sounding vaccine information organization gumball also without any amount of journalistic skepticism uncritically presents her as you are one of many parents whose children have suffered crippling reactions to vaccines also if she looks familiar it's because she was in all three videos her name is barbara lo fisher and she was propelled to national attention thanks in part to being an easy source for the other side for new segment producers even if the other side in her case amounted to pseudoscience as manukin writes barbara lowe fisher who was oftentimes identified in the press as a seemingly impartial vaccine expert and as the head of a parent advocacy group that fought for children's health was relied on by many reporters in need of a quick reaction the los angeles times even once listed her organization as a source to learn more about the subject but let's get back to the 1980s and dpt vaccine roulette the controversy angered doctors across the country for irresponsible reporting that stoked unfounded vaccine fears so when a new so-called controversy appeared over a decade later surely journalist and tv producers were a little better equipped right in 1998 andrew wakefield a british medical researcher authored a paper that warned of a link between the measles mumps and rubella vaccine or mmr and inflammatory bowel disease and autism the argument was that measles including the weakened strain of measles in the vaccine caused a leaky gut which in turn caused autism there were a boatload of problems with the study and many seasoned science reporters ignored the finding but the anti-vaxx crowd repackaged the story as a human interest piece to non-science journalists who didn't have the background to spot the study's red flags thanks to the investigative work of brian dear years later we now know that lawyers involved in a vaccine lawsuit paid wakefield eight hundred thousand dollars for his research and funneled him subjects for the study he did many other shady things which we don't have time to get into but by the end of it all dude lost his medical license anyway how did the media handle this whole fiasco here's a clip from a 2001 episode of 60 minutes australia first we hear from several parents with autistic children who believe that the mmr dose caused their autism we also hear from andrew wakefield who carefully explains his theory we then hear from both a specialist in infectious diseases and a senior official in the british health department who both dismiss wakefield's conclusions as bad medicine the studies simply do not convey the conclusions that dr wakefield attaches to them despite multiple experts weighing in to explain that there is absolutely no evidence of the mmr vaccine causing autism i can tell you tara that all the studies that have been done show no link we pan back to wakefield who hits us with this doozy now the fundamental rule of clinical medicine is that you listen to the patient or the patient's parents and so when they say to me i think this is mmr do we take that seriously or not damn right we do wakefield does a masterful job of twisting the dialogue from bad science versus good science to patience versus pencil pushers and with plenty of b-roll footage of children damaged by vaccines 60 minutes seems to help him make his case philosopher alfred archer argues that by giving significant attention to outsider positions within the scientific community journalists run the risk of sending the message that expert opinion on the issue is more evenly divided than in fact is the case in 2002 a bbc channel aired a special called mmr every parent's choice focusing on a yet to be released paper by none other than andrew wakefield again it presented the controversy as though it were a political battle between beleaguered mothers and lofty bureaucrats the format is again designed to pull at heartstrings if we're talking about a can of beans and sainsburys that might possibly be contaminated the whole lot would have been withdrawn by now and we're talking about kids lives here the problem of course is that there was no good quality evidence that the mmr vaccine had anything to do with autism there's no evidence that mmr vaccine increases the likelihood of autism at any time but instead of pressing wakefield and the parents to defend their claims the bbc put the burden of proof on the scientists who are working with decades of international research just because there is no evidence now doesn't necessarily mean there won't be evidence in the future what happens if you've got it wrong this isn't a situation where we're in the dark with no evidence whatsoever but you're choosing to focus on one or a small group of people's claims everything from the title every parent's choice to the time slip between interviewees is designed to make the special look like it's presenting a fair and balanced review of two equal sides but the sides aren't equal one has decades of scientific research behind it and the other has two studies both published by a rogue doctor who has since been accused of changing data from his lab notebooks to fit the conclusion that he wanted the bbc special triggered an avalanche of parent verse doctor news stories on the new mmr autism controversy with the aid of wakefield study a few years later the mmr autism debacle got a new celebrity boost jenny mccarthy the former playboy playmate mtv comedian and nbc sitcom star blamed her son's autism on vaccines in 2007 she released a book louder than words a mother's journey in healing autism and went on oprah to promote it and like the bbc special half a decade earlier oprah's platform provided crucial legitimation to mccarthy's fringe views once the seal had been broken so to speak mccarthy started to be presented as an expert up for debate against pediatricians and scientists we do not need that many vaccines and ready to show up on larry king these doctors are not learning about prevention or vitamins media both side ism doesn't operate in a vacuum it only works within an ecosystem of other fallacies and distortions that help convey to the viewer that the program is trying to impart an unbiased message and most importantly let the viewer choose what to believe but their options for belief have already been tampered with and the result is real world epidemics like the 2019 measles outbreak in samoa that infected more than 3 percent of the population and killed 83 people the same year there were nearly 700 cases of measles in the u.s the highest since 2000 when the disease was considered eliminated in america earlier in the decade measles surged in the uk when at least a million children went unvaccinated dr david elleman spokesman of the royal college of pediatrics and child health said this is the legacy of the wakefield scare what's more there's research showing that false balance really does shift people's perception of the vaccine debate researchers found that during the wakefield autism controversy in 2002 the majority of people in britain wrongly believed that doctors and scientists were equally divided over the safety of the mmr vaccine that may be because 70 percent of news stories related to mmr mentioned a link with autism while only 11 percent covered the vaccine safety record the researchers wrote that 53 of those surveyed at the height of the media coverage of the issues assumed that because both sides of the debate received equal media coverage there must be equal evidence for each and those perceptions aren't limited to a blip in the early odds i do really want to specify here this is not a blanket attack on the media science journalism is hard it involves a ton of background knowledge on the issues you're reporting on and talking to experts in the fields to disentangle incredibly complex topics journalists also have everything working against them they are chronically underpaid and overworked leading some sites to more or less just copy and paste press releases without the good critical commentary science journalism should provide and on the other end you have pressure to reach more viewers or readers especially for outlets supported by advertising revenue but unfortunately all these factors led us to a place where people take pseudoscientific fears way more seriously than they should and those memories of vaccine scares whether from mmr dpt or others resurface for many as they consider whether or not to vaccinate their children or to get vaccinated against covet 19. many outlets have since grappled with the flaws of both sides journalism uncovering conspiracy theories pseudoscience or just flat-out misinformation coming from government officials but many have not but what do you think let us know in the comments big thanks to our patrons for all your support obliterate that subscribe button like you're a vaccine-induced anti-body hunting for sars-ko v2 and don't forget to ring that bell and as always thanks for watching later [Music] you

Channel: Wisecrack

Views: 266,133

Rating: 4.8754568 out of 5

Keywords: are vaccines safe, vaccine controversies, andrew wakefield, vaccine (drug class), the truth about vaccines, flu shot, jenny mccarthy, small pox, are vaccines safe weston, oprah, regis philbin, anti vaxxers, mainstream media, how safe are rna vaccines for covid-19, wisecrack, show me the meaning, philosophy, current events, news, deep or dumb, what went wrong, video essay, documentary, bbc, anti vaxxers vs, anti vaxxers compilation, medicine, science, anti vaxxer vs doctor

Id: egXV7H1CKng

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021