February 17
GUEST: Joshua Frank, author of Big Heat: Earth on the Brink, and managing editor of CounterPunch, discusses how anti-vaxxers and Big Pharma are partners in crime.
Vaccines, RFK Jr. and The Science of Misinformation
How reason is often overcome! One would think that there was a segment of the scientific community that opposed vaccines. But there really isn't. Sure, there are a few podiatrist who make YouTube videos, morons in white coats. How could a large segment of the people believe such crap?
They are happy to buy hundreds of dollars in fake pills from these vaccine doubters as well. Where is their common sense?
Big Pharma is different. These companies rake in billions by making false promises and charging too much. We are the only developed country in the world that allows its pharmaceutical companies to advertise. So the public is sold millions of pills that they don't need, for diseases they don't have. It's a scam, of course, and another inditement of unfettered capitalism.
So is Big Pharma pushing vaccines in the same way? Not really. These companies face the full scrutiny of our scientific and medical community when they offer these vaccines. It is not that these large companies are honest; they are just adequately regulated so that they can't lie about something this important. This is the subtile difference that anti-vaxxers don't get. There is a large scientific and medical establishment in this country that is mostly focused on improving patient outcomes and preserving people's lives.
To be an anti-vaxxer then requires a leap of faith. And we have always had people willing to make that jump (see the cartoon from the 1800s). Smallpox was eventually eradicated by tracking down cases and by inoculating the public. It has worked that way in the past, but anit-vaxxers are even less interested in medical history. The believe because their friends believe. And it must be somewhat satisfying to be "in the know" when the rest of the world is supposedly being fooled. Ignorance compliments the psychological need to be important. Welcome to the country with the most dead from COVID in the world.
