It is like the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow are fretting about the dangers of “lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” when the actual dangers they will face include, instead, a witch, flowers, and monkeys. Media have been promoting fear of a series of infections in America over the last couple years — measles, hantavirus, Ebola, and, most recently, cyclospora — though these diseases are far from the most significant threats to Americans’ health.
Tag: measles
The media are overflowing with discussion using an ongoing measles infection outbreak in Texas to whip up disdain for and fear of people who have not taken vaccines. Much media coverage was similar in 2015 when there was what was referred to as the Disneyland measles outbreak. That depiction of unvaccinated people back then, Del Bigtee of Informed Consent Action network (ICAN) explains in a segment of the Thursday “The Truth About Measles” episode of his The HighWire show, turned out to be off the mark.