Journalist's vaccine piece spurs hate mail

Oct. 28, 2009 | NPR

Journalist Amy Wallace's article in the November issue of Wired Magazine about the passionate, and sometimes angry, debate over whether vaccines cause autism drew some vitriolic response. Wallace says vaccines have done such a good job of removing the visible threat of childhood diseases that some people see vaccination as a greater risk than childhood disease.

Journalist Amy Wallace's article in the November issue of Wired Magazine about the passionate, and sometimes angry, debate over whether vaccines cause autism drew some vitriolic response.

"I've heard a lot of anger. I've heard that I'm stupid. I've heard that I'm greedy. I've heard that I did this to get famous," Wallace tells NPR's Melissa Block. "I've heard that I'm a whore; I'm a prostitute."

Wallace's article, 'An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All,' profiled pediatrician Paul Offit, who invented the vaccine for rotavirus, and is a lightning rod for criticism in the anti-vaccination community. Last year, Offit's book, Autism's False Prophets, which says any risks of vaccination are dwarfed by the risk of childhood disease.

"We, at Wired, wanted to use a profile of him as a way into a broader issue, which is vaccine panic, which is not just an American problem, it's a global issue," Wallace says. "And ... educated people are afraid. ... Even people who do vaccinate are worried about the impacts on their children."

Wallace says that vaccines have done such a good job of removing the visible threat of diseases such as whooping cough or measles that some people see vaccination as a greater risk than childhood disease. She says that because of this in pockets of the country many educated people have decided not to vaccinate their children.

This, she says, has "left whole pockets of the community very wide open to an outbreak of illness."

Wallace calls part of the discourse that has followed her article "a bullying tactic," and points to JB Handley, founder of Generation Rescue, which believes there are too many vaccines given too soon and blames autism on vaccines, for many attacks against her in the blogosphere. She says tactics such as these dissuade many scientists from taking a stand in the debate. She says it is important to speak out against such tactics, adding she has been tweeting regularly about the issue.

"There are some things in life that are true, and I think the debate needs to be civil," Wallace says. "That's part of what I've been trying to participate in, a civil discussion of these issues."

From NPR.org

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