Let’s assume for a second that the claims about the MMR vaccine had merit. It was specifically claimed that the cause was the addition of thimerosal as a preservative agent. Despite there being no evidence supporting this assertion, thimerosal was removed from nearly all vaccines decades ago. Which means that, if he was genuine in his beliefs, he shouldn’t have a problem with any of them anymore.
EDIT It appears the thimerosal claim wasn’t actually linked to MMR, as that vaccine never had it to begin with. My bad.
The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal. There were two separate claims by antivaxxers. The first was Wakefield’s money making scheme to invent an alternative MMR vaccine by claiming the existing MMR vaccine caused autism.
The second, entirely separate, claim was that thimerosal in other vaccines was also causing autism.
The two claims then got conflated into a general ‘vaccines == bad’ by idiots like Kennedy, Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy and a whole quack industry of autism ‘cures’ such as chelation, HBOT etc.
Denialists are absolutely famous for moving the goalposts, though. That’s how they remain denialists.
Famous example is the evolution denialists always going on about a “missing link”. The minute some new transitional fossil is found then creates TWO MORE “missing links”.
Same applies to the thimerosal believers. When it was pointed out to them that there was no science that backed their claim that thimerosal (removed in 2001) caused autism, they switched the goalposts to saying vaccines also contained formaldehyde - which was true, it did - and OMG, thats also used on dead bodies!!! Then it was pointed out that formaldehyde occurs naturally in a vast range of things, including the human body and that if you were to ingest one thin slice of a banana you’d have more formaldehyde in you than any vaccine ever contained so then they said it was the aluminium, then switched again to ‘the amount of needles overwhelms a teeny-tiny babies poor body’ which is again, absolute bollocks and unsupported by any legitimate science but its what led to Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy’s ridiculous ‘green our vaccines’ shitshow.
Kennedy’s been involved since 2005 when he published an article called ‘deadly immunity’ in Salon and Rolling Stone, both of which had to publish non-stop corrections to it until they both retracted the article in 2011, Salon called it their ‘worst mistake’.
Let’s assume for a second that the claims about the MMR vaccine had merit. It was specifically claimed that the cause was the addition of thimerosal as a preservative agent. Despite there being no evidence supporting this assertion, thimerosal was removed from nearly all vaccines decades ago. Which means that, if he was genuine in his beliefs, he shouldn’t have a problem with any of them anymore.
EDIT It appears the thimerosal claim wasn’t actually linked to MMR, as that vaccine never had it to begin with. My bad.
I found the problem.
The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal. There were two separate claims by antivaxxers. The first was Wakefield’s money making scheme to invent an alternative MMR vaccine by claiming the existing MMR vaccine caused autism.
The second, entirely separate, claim was that thimerosal in other vaccines was also causing autism.
The two claims then got conflated into a general ‘vaccines == bad’ by idiots like Kennedy, Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy and a whole quack industry of autism ‘cures’ such as chelation, HBOT etc.
Ah, looks like you’re correct, I guess I got the claims conflated myself.
Denialists are absolutely famous for moving the goalposts, though. That’s how they remain denialists.
Famous example is the evolution denialists always going on about a “missing link”. The minute some new transitional fossil is found then creates TWO MORE “missing links”.
Same applies to the thimerosal believers. When it was pointed out to them that there was no science that backed their claim that thimerosal (removed in 2001) caused autism, they switched the goalposts to saying vaccines also contained formaldehyde - which was true, it did - and OMG, thats also used on dead bodies!!! Then it was pointed out that formaldehyde occurs naturally in a vast range of things, including the human body and that if you were to ingest one thin slice of a banana you’d have more formaldehyde in you than any vaccine ever contained so then they said it was the aluminium, then switched again to ‘the amount of needles overwhelms a teeny-tiny babies poor body’ which is again, absolute bollocks and unsupported by any legitimate science but its what led to Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy’s ridiculous ‘green our vaccines’ shitshow.
Kennedy’s been involved since 2005 when he published an article called ‘deadly immunity’ in Salon and Rolling Stone, both of which had to publish non-stop corrections to it until they both retracted the article in 2011, Salon called it their ‘worst mistake’.