Anti-vaccine

A new book defending vaccines, written by a doctor infuriated at the claim that they cause autism, is galvanizing a backlash against the antivaccine movement in the United States.

This tactic should not be surprising given that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. served as a producer on “Vaxxed II.” A recent study found Kennedy’s anti-vaccination organization, the World Mercury Project, was one of two groups responsible for 54 percent of anti-vaccine advertisements on Facebook.

The study, which mapped the vaccine conversation on Facebook during the 2019 measles outbreak, found that there were nearly three times as many active anti-vaccination communities as pro-vaccination communities. In addition, they found that while pro-vaccine pages tended to have more followers, anti-vaccine pages were faster-growing.

Donald Trump’s habit of projecting his own failings onto his adversaries reached a new level of absurdity on Labor Day, when he attacked the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for “reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric” and accused them of a position that “undermines science.”