Wednesday, October 21, 2009

On anti-vaccine conspiracy

From Michael Shermer's open letter to Bill Maher on vaccinations

As well, Bill, your comments about not wanting to “trust the government” to inject us with a potentially deadly virus, along with many comments you have made about “big pharma” being in cahoots with the AMA and the CDC to keep us sick in the name of corporate profits is, in every way that matters, indistinguishable from 9/11 conspiracy mongering. Your brilliant line about how we know that the Bush administration did not orchestrate 9/11 (“because it worked”), applies here: the idea that dozens or hundreds pharmaceutical executives, AMA directors, CDC doctors, and corporate CEOs could pull off a conspiracy to keep us all sick in the name of money and power makes about as much sense as believing that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their bureaucratic apparatchiks planted explosive devices in the World Trade Center and flew remote controlled planes into the buildings.

1 comment:

Alan said...

I have found this an effective argument against the conspiracy angle of anti-vaccination proponents who are also Global Warming beleivers.

(Note: I have found that most anti-vaxers are usually left of center politically and so usually accept Global Warming - though its sad that these issues have such herd like following on both sides):

The argument that big pharma has the power/money to be in conspiracy with the CDC and the medical science community is at odds with the fact that big oil (who probably has more money and power) cannot influence the climate scientists. Despite all their attempts, the IPPC has not reversed any of its Global Warming predictions. So, I don't think the less powerful pharma industry can sway the entire medical science establishments.