Internet conspiracy, is it replacing scientific facts?

A COMMUNITY nurse working at my GP local practice told me a horrific story. 

When giving infants their normal set of vaccinations she was surprised how many mums were refusing to have the injections because they had read on social media “that’s how children get the coronavirus.”

Last weekend anti-vax, anti-mask and anti-lockdown demonstrators met in Basildon to demand freedom from what they called “pandemic fascism.” 

There were a dozen arrests and some minor injuries on both sides. Whether any viruses were passed on won’t be known for a couple of weeks. 

These are just few examples of why we should all salute the Labour Party for demanding that nonsensical and dangerous anti-vaccination content should be banned from social media.

Today we live in a world where anyone with their own peculiar axe to grind can take to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even TikTok with the daftest of ideas, and the dafter the idea the more they get read and passed on to thousands and thousands of people many of whom accept these internet postings as proven fact. 

If it contains a juicy conspiracy theory so much the better.

That’s why we should all welcome and support Labour’s call on the government to implement sweeping emergency measures to stamp out what Labour rightly calls the poison garbage of those anti-vax conspiracy theories.

Some of these conspiracy posts and the rumours they generate are merely amusing and harmless, but when it comes to the battle against coronavirus and other longer-established diseases such as mumps, measles and rubella (MMR), or even this year’s strain of normal influenza, they can be deadly. 

Even the World Health Organisation (WHO), which I tend to trust in these matters, is concerned that anti-vax theories pose a real threat to tackling the pandemic.  

With the recent news of at least three anti-coronavirus vaccines about to become available by the end of the year, Labour has pressed the government to introduce legislation, the Online Harms Bill that would include financial and criminal penalties for social media platforms that allow anti-vaccination misinformation to spread. 

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News: “Asking questions about the vaccine is entirely legitimate” but raised concerns that online anti-vax campaigns will “erode public trust.”

He went on to say: “We are asking the government that we will work with you on a cross-party basis to put in place measures to deal with that anti-vax nonsense that sadly is still available on social media platforms.”

His comments were timely. On the weekend of his interview anti-lockdown and anti-vax protesters were on the streets of Bristol and Liverpool, with dozens arrested. 

There was even an anti-lockdown church service held.

The online rumour mill is certainly working, with recent polls showing large sections of the population already opting not to have the various anti-coronavirus vaccines likely to be available by Christmas.

Nobody would want to force people to take the vaccine. It must always be a personal decision, but Ashworth is right to demand that “the government need to do three things. First to have strong public health messaging — people will have legitimate questions about the vaccine and strong public health messaging should answer their queries. 

“Secondly, mobilise our NHS and our public health infrastructure and resource them properly so we can get the vaccines out quickly. 

“Thirdly, deal with some of the dangerous nonsensical anti-vax stuff that we’ve seen spreading on social media which erodes trust in the vaccines.”

Ashworth and shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens have written to Tory Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to introduce the legislation, insisting: “This is literally a matter of life and death and anyone who is dissuaded from being vaccinated because of this is one person too many.”

Stevens said the government “has a pitiful track record” on taking action against online platforms that are “facilitating the spread of disinformation.” 

Meanwhile Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues his “don’t do as do, do as I tell you” motto.  

At 10 Downing Street Johnson met Tory MP Lee Anderson and half a dozen others for over half an hour. 

Photographs taken at the time clearly shows the two men both without masks and far less than two metres apart. 

After the meeting the Prime Minister announced he had been contacted by Test and Trace who told him Anderson had tested positive for coronavirus and that the Prime Minister would need to self-isolate.

Johnson told us he had been pinged by his darling Dido’s Test and Trace app. Jokers say he loves his pinging apps — he even has one that pings when he gets too near to any of his many children. 

Anti-vax campaigning is far older than the internet, almost as old, in fact, as the very first vaccines. 

Edward Jenner, whose early vaccinations saved the world from the scourge of smallpox, faced the same unscientific opposition as we see today.

When Prince Albert unveiled a posthumous statue to Jenner in Trafalgar Square in 1858 anti-vaxxers of the days demonstrated against it. 

The Times newspaper called for the statue to be removed and in 1861 it was moved to an obscure spot in Kensington Gardens. 

The British Medical Journal protested against the moving of the statue, saying: “Military statues remain while Jenner was banished, because they killed their fellow creatures whereas he only saved them.” 

A very good reason Jenner’s statue should be back in Trafalgar Square, says I.

Best known anti-vaxxer is disgraced scientist Andrew Wakefield, whose nonsense claims about the MMR vaccine causing autism were given total backing in the Daily Mail and its editor Paul Dacre. 

In 1998, Wakefield published a paper that implied a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. 

The scare caused a drop of numbers taking the vaccine and outbreaks of measles and mumps followed. 

Mail writer Melanie Phillips became Wakefield’s most enthusiastic supporter.   

Through numerous articles in the Daily Mail, Phillips championed Wakefield’s idiotic claims while casting doubt on their rebuttal by scientists, doctors and politicians.

Phillips continued to support Wakefield after his research methods and motives began to attract serious scrutiny and criticism. 

She declared scientific attacks on his bad science to be a witch-hunt. 

In May 2010, Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register for “serious professional misconduct.” He is currently barred from practising medicine in Britain.

Phillips’s and the Daily Mail’s support of Wakefield and their campaign against the MMR vaccine significantly undermined public trust in vaccines.

She and the paper continued stridently plugging the anti-MMR bogus science even when Wakefield’s paper was comprehensively dismissed by the authoritative Cochrane review. 

Shortly after the review found there was “no credible evidence” for a link between MMR and autism in 2005, the Mail published a article by Phillips saying: “MMR safe? Baloney. This is one scandal that’s getting worse.”

It is no surprise that Phillips has also described proven science on climate change as a scam. 

Articles like Phillips’s and internet anti-vax messages reduced the number of children given the MMR vaccination with the result that deaths from measles simply rocketed.

In 2005, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, a GP and author of books on the subject, condemned the damage the Daily Mail was doing in an article in the authoritive British Medical Journal. 

When finally Wakefield was disgraced and struck off, the Mail went silent on anti-vaxxing claims. Today it has changed its tune on vaccinations.

Disgraced Wakefield has the unmitigated gall to turn up (via video link) at the latest Trafalgar Square anti-vaxxers protest.

Another already much-disgraced group jumping on the anti-vax bandwagon are homeopaths.  

One leading British homeopath appeared on social media calling vaccines poison. 

Meanwhile, let’s have Jenner back on his rightful plinth in Trafalgar Square, and all that anti-vaccination nonsense off of social media.

Our Prime Minister clearly thinks he knows more about the pandemic than any scientist. 

“I’m bursting with antibodies,” he tweets. Presumably that’s why he doesn’t need to keep two metres from infected Tory MPs nor to wear a mask.

You only have to look to the United States if you want to see a prime example of an ignorant political leader ignoring science and causing coronavirus cases and deaths in record numbers. 

Now it seems we have a lookalike leader trying to do just as well. 

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Morning Star Online can be found here ***