Whooping cough and the Echo Chamber

From USA Today:

"Whooping cough epidemic declared in Wash. state:"  This could be a headline from the 1930s, but instead it's from May of 2012.  Whooping cough (or pertussis) is a highly contagious disease that used to cause thousands of deaths per year--mostly in infants.  With the development of the pertussis vaccine in the 1940s, whooping cough was largely eradicated in this country.  


Why is there an epidemic of the disease in Washington then?

Washington has the highest school exemption rate from vaccinations in the country (6.2%).  And, now, Washington is dealing with a pertussis epidemic.

Why does Washington have the highest vaccination exemption rate in the country and now a whooping cough epidemic?  Because of the sad fact that myth often has the power to defeat logic and fact, that's why . . . .

In 1998, one dishonest doctor published one fraudulent study (of only 12 subjects) that alleged a non-existent link between childhood vaccination and autism.

That doctor, Andrew Wakefield, has since lost his medical license and been accused of distorting his results for monetary gain.  The medical journal, The Lancet, the paper was originally published in has retracted the article and renounced its findings.  See the New York Times article below for more information:

The reality that, despite being completely discredited, Wakefield's ideas persist is a testament to the power of the "unjustified extremism" or "echo chamber" thinking bias.  Parents concerned about the health of their children fear that vaccines have contributed to the increased rates of autism in recent years.  That mistaken idea is perpetuated and repeated by the echo chamber of some of the more extreme health related websites and magazines, and because of repetition, the ideas gain the appearance of validity.  Add to that the celebrity endorsement of these ideas by people like Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey, and you have a powerful, anti-logical force keeping the myths alive.


The vaccine/autism issue is a perfect example of how something that can appear to be nothing but beneficial, like an interest in healthy living, can be distorted and can fall prey to illogic and fear and be perpetuated in the same way as negative and biased thinking like racism or sexism.  


The careful, critically thinking consumer of media always needs to keep in mind that misinformed people in all areas (even ones we agree with) can spread misinformation among themselves, creating an echo chamber that has the potential to keep falsehoods alive long after they have been disproven.