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The anti-immunization fiasco

Thursday, 20th November 2008

The health scare that never was? Theodore Dalrymple reviews an account of the campaign against MMR:

It is a tale about bad science, worse journalism, unscrupulous political populism, and profiteering litigation lawyers....Offit’s book raises questions much broader than his ostensibly limited subject matter would suggest. What is the place of scientific and scholarly authority in the modern world, and how is it to be institutionalized in a democracy? Is it inevitable that the best should now lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity? What is the relation between information, on the one hand, and knowledge and wisdom, on the other? Cranks are often oversupplied with the former and deficient in the latter...
As for whether journalists are getting better at handling science stories, the latest evidence looks none too encouraging. Seems the pressure of digital deadlines is making matters even worse.

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