Until they come up with a vaccine for stupidity, anti-vaxxers live on

It’s ironic that a group of people who spend all day up in arms about how scientists are trying to kill people have no problem when the people threatening to do the killing is them.

Sadly there’s no vaccine for stupidity

This week members of the pro-vaccination facebook group Anti Vax Wall of Shame (AVWS) received a liberal dose of hate from the anti-vax community. Or as I like to call them: the poster children for a measured response.

The anti-vaxxers were as keen on AVWS’s pro-vax views as they are on a delicious syringe full of life saving medicine. But instead of casually contacting the moderator and asking that their views be respected, these purveyors of polio sent intimidating messages, released member’s private information and threw in a few death threats for good measure.

Ironic that a group of people who spend all day up in arms about how scientists are trying to kill people have no problem when the people threatening to do the killing is them. At least if I get killed at the doctors they’ll give me a lollipop.

The anti-vaxxers photoshopped a Hitler moustache onto an AVWS member’s profile pic, released private addresses and phone numbers and sent threatening emails. One particularly frustrated syringe hater channelled her “won’t somebody think of the children” aggression into behaviour that completely disregarded the children by contacting the 11-year-old daughter of one of the group members. Her message wasn’t an impassioned plea to get her mother to reconsider her position, it read: “your mother is a fat, ugly, lazy piece of s*** who tried to kill you. She is a bully and suffers from mental problems.” There are more black pots and kettles in that last sentence than Mrs Patmore’s Downton Abbey kitchen.

And while Shakespeare is probably thanking the Lord he wasn’t alive to compete with that kind of eloquence it’s interesting her approach to protecting a child from her ‘horrible’ mother was to be horrible. Luckily the girl never saw the message because her mother deleted it but if she had I would have hoped she’d reply: “sticks and stones may break my bones but I’ve made it to 11 because I didn’t contract some god awful disease and die when I was a baby, you idiot.”

I understand trolling is the communication de jour for the less reasonable but if you have a passionate yet controversial view surely there’s a better way to be taken seriously than cyber punching an 11 year old. At the very least if that’s your chosen approach you’d better back it up with an argument that has a bibliography containing more references than a couple of blogs.

The internet has improved our ability to connect and communicate immeasurably but unfortunately it’s also put a megaphone to the mouth of people who would’ve usually shouted their opinion into a tin can in their doomsday bunker. These days’ words on a blog carry the same weight for some as an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia and the prefix ‘Dr’ is not as convincing as an attractive instagram filter. Knowledge is often attributed to the loudest voice rather than the biggest brain and it’s not long before ill-informed opinions have spread quicker than measles at an anti-vaxxers kids party.

There are even some parts of the world where diseases are reappearing due to low immunisation rates and it’s not in third world countries, it’s in affluent areas where parents have decided they can stave off rubella with a Nutribullet.

If you have a voice and people are listening the onus is on you to make damn sure what you’re saying is true. Fear is a powerful manipulator and if you’ve got a sound argument you usually don’t need it to get your point across.

Hopefully one day science will come up with a vaccine for stupidity but until then, do the world a favour and get your kids immunised.

Twitter @RachelCorbett