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Anti-Vax Rally in Chicago Wednesday -- Need Help!!!

MattusMaximus

Intellectual Gladiator
MattusMaximus
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Messages
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I have it on good authority that there's going to be a big anti-vaccine rally in Chicago on Wednesday...

http://americanpersonalrights.org

In addition, it looks as if Andrew Wakefield himself is going to be there, spreading his woo & nonsense. I do know that there's some of my fellow skeptics in the Chicago area interested in going, but they might need help.

If you are in the area and have time on Wednesday afternoon, PM me in case you're interested in helping out. Hopefully if there are some pro-science types there to talk to the media it will help fight the idiocy.

In addition, we're looking for any websites which can provide a concise set of talking points on the topic. Links to quick-guide type brochures would be great as well.

Thanks in advance! :)
 
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MattusMaximus said:
I have it on good authority that there's going to be a big anti-vaccine rally in Chicago on Wednesday...

http://americanpersonalrights.org

In addition, it looks as if Andrew Wakefield himself is going to be there, spreading his woo & nonsense. I do know that there's some of my fellow skeptics in the Chicago area interested in going, but they might need help.

If you are in the area and have time on Wednesday afternoon, PM me in case you're interested in helping out. Hopefully if there are some pro-science types there to talk to the media it will help fight the idiocy.

In addition, we're looking for any websites which can provide a concise set of talking points on the topic. Links to quick-guide type brochures would be great as well.

Thanks in advance! :)
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I think you should just go there and take all of the vaccines currently offered, about 200, at one time just to show them whats up.....
 
MM, I was about to provide numerous links for talking points, and still will after you consider the following. These are desperate people that are very prone to violence and yours will be very outnumbered. I don't mean to sound dramatic but I am fairly immersed in that world and they have been dealt numerous, albeit deserved blows from negative publicity to the erasure of Wakefield from the GMC register to snubbing at conferences. They have threatened and perpetrated violence against those that they perceive as enemies and you would be giving them a live target.

Este
 
Estellea said:
MM, I was about to provide numerous links for talking points, and still will after you consider the following. These are desperate people that are very prone to violence and yours will be very outnumbered. I don't mean to sound dramatic but I am fairly immersed in that world and they have been dealt numerous, albeit deserved blows from negative publicity to the erasure of Wakefield from the GMC register to snubbing at conferences. They have threatened and perpetrated violence against those that they perceive as enemies and you would be giving them a live target.

Este
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All of this has been considered. We are proceeding with caution. Thanks for the concern!
 
How are you going to go about countering their message? Bullhorns, flyers, picketing?

Good luck...
 
Estellea said:
MM, I was about to provide numerous links for talking points, and still will after you consider the following. These are desperate people that are very prone to violence and yours will be very outnumbered. I don't mean to sound dramatic but I am fairly immersed in that world and they have been dealt numerous, albeit deserved blows from negative publicity to the erasure of Wakefield from the GMC register to snubbing at conferences. They have threatened and perpetrated violence against those that they perceive as enemies and you would be giving them a live target.

Este
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This is the first I've heard of them being violent (not that it's surprising). Any links or stories?
 
Why don't you take some face-paint, fake the symptoms of measles, mumps or rubella then go an cough on everyone. :D
 
It went really well. Apparently, a whopping 50-100 anti-vaxxers showed up; ironically, with just a couple of more days of prep & organization, we might have been able to have almost as many pro-science people there. I will be putting together a detailed blog post on the whole thing tomorrow, but I'll leave you with one tasty tidbit... :D



That's Wakefield in the middle, unwittingly posing with two of our skeptical ninjas (from our Women Thinking Free Foundation group) who infiltrated his rally. In fact, the girl is wearing a Surlyramics necklace that says "Hug Me, I'm Vaccinated!" and moments before this snapshot was taken she handed him a note. It said how much of a horrible person he is for spreading anti-vax nonsense and scaring people out of vaccinating their children. She told me that he didn't look at it & just put it in his pocket, thinking that he got the phone number from some hot young lady.

Message to Wakefield:


Btw, we also got some press :)

I'm reasonably sure there will be more photos & video to follow. Watch this space.
 
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MattusMaximus said:
I couldn't wait... here's my blog post on the event:

Skeptics PWN Anti-Vax Scumbag Wakefield at His Own Rally
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I do take issue with one phrase in the handouts though.

Receiving vaccines is completely safe.
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I know this sort of campaign likes black-and-white certainties, but it's not that simple. Adverse reactions to vaccines can and do occur. This is a bit like the CVO, at the beginning of the BSE crisis, going on the BBC and announcing that there was "no risk at all" of BSE being transmitted to man.

At the time, there were many good reasons for believing that BSE wasn't transmissible to man. I'd have put money on it myself. However, such absolute certainty wasn't warranted, and to date 168 people (out of a population of about 60 million) have died of vCJD. That and similar statements have come back to haunt the people who made them, all because they preferred black-and-white certainty to a more honest appraisal of the situation.

It's relevant, because one of the reasons commonly cited for Wakefield's woo having achieved such wide credence in Britain is that it came very soon after the BSE scandal, when public confidence in government statements about things being "absolutely safe" had taken a serious knock.

As far as vaccines go, as a vet I'm aware of a tiny number of deaths from anaphylactic reactions to vaccines. Similar problems have been reported in man. There is a specific cancer in cats which is linked to vaccine injection sites, and at present we are investigating a serious disease of young calves which appears to have an association with a vaccine given to their mothers.

Feline vaccine-site-associated sarcoma and bovine neonatal pancytopenia are not recorded in man, obviously. Human vaccines are indeed some of the safest things around. But they're only safe to a certain definition of "safe". They can't be honestly described as "completely safe".

I don't know exactly the best way to play it, but I think in all honesty you should modify that wording a little.

Rolfe.
 
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Just musing on "cetain definitions of safe". Someone commented that the rate of reported significant symptoms after vaccination was 0.07% in the past decade. (Of course some of these will be merely coincidental events, the real figure will be lower than that.)

Never mind, 0.07% is pretty low. Safe? Probably. (It's higher in cats and I vaccinate my cat without a second thought.)

Less than 0.0003% of the British population suffered any significant symptoms as a result of BSE contamination of the human food chain.

Just for comparison.

Rolfe.
 
UncaYimmy said:
This is the first I've heard of them being violent (not that it's surprising). Any links or stories?
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Paul Offit has been spit on and hit, he's received at least one threat against his children, he needs to have his mail examined and needs a security detail for engagements. One IOM committee member had to be scuttled through the back door by security people during the height of the thimerosal nonsense. Sceptical bloggers are routinely outed and their employers are harassed.

I'm so pleased that the turnout was so poor at the rally and there were no incidents (that I know of). I admire what the Chicago-area sceptics managed to pull off in such short time and their subsequent reporting of events.

Este
 
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