New Zealand’s measles outbreak keeps on ticking along. So do the media stories about it. (The FB posts associated with each article aren’t moderated and I suspect this is partly because they generate so many clicks.) A couple of days ago, TVNZ’s Breakfast show carried an interview with a doctor, on the importance of Gardasil, […]
Continue readingA story about essential oils being used in classrooms hit the headlines this week. It described how an Auckland primary school had put diffusers into 20 classrooms, using oil blends that would supposedly “stop the spread of viruses and keep children focused at school.” A parent subsequently used the threat of a legal injunction to […]
Continue readingA few years back, University of Wollongong student Judy Wilyman received a PhD for a thesis that claimed to offer a “critical analysis of the Australian government’s rationale for its vaccination policy.” Both the thesis, and the processes at Wollongong in relation to PhD study and examination, attracted a considerable amount of scrutiny and criticism […]
Continue readingPhoto Credit: Content Providers(s): CDC/James Hicks – This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #3265. A couple of days ago newsroom published an article about smallpox, by Farah Hancock. It’s a very good story that covers the nature of smallpox and the history of efforts to develop a […]
Continue readingRecently Grant Jacobs discussed a paper which indicates that many people strongly opposed to genetic modification think they are well-informed, but in reality know little about the subject. On current evidence, the same applies to those opposed to vaccination. I originally sat down to write about this piece of nonsense, but it can wait. Instead – NZ […]
Continue readingYou read that right. Vaccine hesitancy – “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines” – is viewed by the World Health Organisation as one of the top 10 health threats we face in 2019. And worse, that hesitancy will have an effect on other threats in that top 10 list. Ebola […]
Continue readingWhat with WAVES, and anti-1080 groups, and Rethink Fluoride (which, like FFNZ, opposes water fluoridation), there’s quite a lot of ‘alternative’ activity on-line these days. It’s actually quite interesting to look at the similarities that you can see in attitudes & opinions expressed on those sites. I mean, Agenda 21, anyone? Back when Making Sense […]
Continue readingGlyphosate is another of those substances (like fluoride & 1080) that can be the focus of a lot of unease. So it wasn’t entirely surprising to see the claim on WAVES’ FB page that glyphosate is found in vaccines. Predictably, various little Gish gallops saw Yellow told that injection & ingestion aren’t the same, & […]
Continue readingThat image is a visual counter to a now-removed billboard put up on an Auckland motorway by the NZ group WAVES (Warnings Against Vaccine Expectations). If you haven’t seen the offending item, this was it: That’s not a warning, that’s a scare tactic, and will surely have led to complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. […]
Continue readingThe internet, while it can be a godsend if you need to find something out (gotta love google maps for directions), can also be a wretched hive of wrongness & misinformation. That misinformation can take many forms, but when it comes to 1080 it’s clear that those opposed to NZ’s use of this chemical firmly […]
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