Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the doctor’s… http://rly.cc/UbRmM

I just can’t quite articulate fully why this annoys – enrages me – so.  For a start – we’ve been through this.  There is nothing, nothing, to link the MMR jab with autism.  Just fuck-all.  As a nation, we’re settling back down in our chairs and surveying the mess we’re in thanks to the wilful scaremongering of, specifically in this case, the Daily Mail[1].  Herd immunity is on the line, thanks to hysteria, uncertainty and misinformation.  Sure, it must have been hard for parents at the time, blah blah but fuck it.  A little bit of reading on the actual *facts* might have given you pause for thought – Wakefield’s findings were based on a minute sample and drew conclusions which were, frankly, mental.  These autistic children were given the MMR vaccine, and then they were diagnosed with autism?  What?  People with cancer, AIDS and male pattern baldness were also given the MMR vaccine… was it responsible the for those, too?  Do you see how easy it is to jump one way or the other on this?  Ugh.  Anyway, disregarding my unscientific analysis of the situation, the evidence is overwhelmingly against MMR being responsible for autism.  It just isn’t.

And so when someone like Oprah can allow someone like Jenny McCarthy airtime to spread the same hysteria, uncertainty and misinformation which is actually – and here I’m going to go all Daily Mail on your asses, like it or not – KILLING BABIES, well, shit.  It gives me the rage.  Freedom of speech is all very well, but as a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

I hope America does its research, and doesn’t let this one in.  But you know it won’t, just like we didn’t..

[1]Not just the Mail, of course, but hooboy, they’re the biggest, worstest culprit in this one.