Regno Unito combatte la disinformazione anti-vax dopo la morte del bambino
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250721-uk-battles-anti-vax-misinformation-after-child-s-death
di Wagamaga
Regno Unito combatte la disinformazione anti-vax dopo la morte del bambino
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250721-uk-battles-anti-vax-misinformation-after-child-s-death
di Wagamaga
5 commenti
Measles is a highly infectious disease that can cause serious complications. It is preventable through double MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jabs in early childhood.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting on July 14 confirmed to parliament that a child had died in the UK of measles.
No details have been released, but The Sunday Times and Liverpool Echo newspapers reported the child had been severely ill with measles and other serious health problems in Alder Hey hospital in the northwestern city.
Anti-vaxxers quickly posted unconfirmed claims about the death on social media.
One British influencer, Ellie Grey, who has more than 200,000 followers on Instagram, posted a video denying the child died from measles.
“Measles isn’t this deadly disease… it’s not dangerous,” she said.
Grey criticised Alder Hey for posting a video “really, really pushing and manipulating parents into getting the MMR vaccine”.
Her video was reposted by another British influencer, Kate Shemirani, a struck-off ex-nurse who posts health conspiracy theories.
“No vaccine has ever been proven safe and no vaccine has ever been proven effective,” Shemirani claimed falsely.
Liverpool’s public health chief Matthew Ashton attacked those “spreading misinformation and disinformation about childhood immunisations” in the Echo newspaper, saying “they need to take a very long, hard look at themselves.”
“For those of you that don’t know, measles is a really nasty virus,” he said in a video, adding that the jab is a way of “protecting yourself and your loved ones”.
Alder Hey said it has treated 17 children with measles since June.
It posted a video in which a paediatric infectious diseases consultant, Andrew McArdle, addresses measles “myths”, including that the MMR jab causes autism.
This false claim comes from a debunked 1998 study by a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who was later struck off.
But it sparked an international slump in vaccinations.
I’d think the “anti-vax” headline could have clarified that the death was from measles and not from a vaccine
It’s at times like these I feel like there should be more options to deal with people like this that abuse the freedom of speech for ill.
Put them all in a sack and beat them with sticks.
I would recommend characterising anti-vaxxers as a terrorist-adjacent predatory cult deliberately working to get children sick and killed by convincing their parents to leave them vulnerable.
Is it true? Irrelevant. All the time and effort they will have to waste defending what I laughingly call their human decency is time and effort not spent undermining public health.
This technique works for the bad guys very well. We should put it to use punishing them.
Proper defence requires proper offence. So let’s offend these fuckers.
Ok, this government seems super comfortable cracking down on apparently disruptive groups… please do us all a favour and crack down on anti-vax influencers