Paul, you don’t get it. There are serious objections, within the scientific community, about all sorts of stuff that goes on in science and the ways it is used, but the stuff you find on anti-vax sites isn’t it. It doesn’t contribute to the real arguments, in fact it distracts from them by discrediting good-hearted campaigners such as yourself. The anti-vaxxers claims sound scientific but they aren’t; it’s superficial stuff with words from science thrown in to make it sound like science to the inexperienced, and the corporate media do the groundwork of misrepresenting the scientific process itself, keeping the public ignorant and confused.
That’s why I wanted you to read Bad Science which more than anything is about how the corporate media confuse the public about the very nature of the scientific process, depriving the public of their ability to understand. You’ve read the first few chapters, but in those Goldacre goes after the quacks and nutritionists mainly, because their scams are easier to understand. He’s using them as a teaching tool, building up to the more complicated examples of media distortion of real science, and as a primer for his second book Bad Pharma.
The whole “MMR autism” scare was whipped up by the corporate media; it never had any substantial scientific basis. In 2002 the MSM published over 1200 stories about MMR and autism. Between 2001 and 2006 they published over 4000.
I have no idea why Mikovits did what she did, but she got away with it for several years, and she’s still getting work from the anti-vaxxers. Now she’s getting a load of attention by distributing disinformation about covid-19.
SARS-CoV-2 can’t be a bioweapon because it’s indiscriminate. The real issue is biolab security. Here’s an article about it, by real scientists:
Human error in high-biocontainment labs: a likely pandemic threat
Paul, you know what me and SA stand for, you know our values from the comments we each post at this site. SA seems to be a working scientist, and I have a lifelong interest in science. We’ve both been trying to tell you, you’re discrediting your political arguments by associating them with bunk. It’s not that we’re closed minded or too trusting of the authorities, it’s that the likes of Wakefield and Mikovits are charlatans; me and SA both have the background to be able to tell. Like if someone was blagging about how to repair a diesel engine you could tell if they knew what they were talking about or whether they were just using words like injector and glow-plugs to sound convincing, well that’s what me and SA can tell about Mikovits and Wakefield. And if you want to learn too, keep persevering with Bad Science.