| linaliem ( @ 2008-06-03 22:32:00 |
superLOL
Check out this post by Orac about the crazy antivaccinationists and vaccine-causes-autism crowd, led by Jenny McCarthy and David Kirby and a few others.
Despite being a non-expert on the topic I still found this picture really hilarious:

(There are a few other pictures from protests that are hilarious as well).
But back to the sign-some of those chemicals. Seriously, sucrose? OMG ALERT THE MEDIA! THEY ARE POISONING OUR CHILDREN WITH MINUTE DOSES OF SUGAR! SURELY THIS TOXIN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR AUTISM!
I'm also amused by the mention of hydrochloric acid, which I've spilled on myself quite a few times in chem lab, and is(at least in dilute concentrations) standard for high school chem labs across the U.S. And that's just what I'm familiar with.
And as Orac notes,
But this stuff probably works-all you have to do is convince enough of the credulous that anything with a vaguely incomprehensible name is a toxin that will kill you, you've done your job well.
I like what this commenter said:
I kinda want to photoshop a scare mongering image about oranges and bring it to one of these rallies and see if anyone got the joke.
Check out this post by Orac about the crazy antivaccinationists and vaccine-causes-autism crowd, led by Jenny McCarthy and David Kirby and a few others.
Despite being a non-expert on the topic I still found this picture really hilarious:

(There are a few other pictures from protests that are hilarious as well).
But back to the sign-some of those chemicals. Seriously, sucrose? OMG ALERT THE MEDIA! THEY ARE POISONING OUR CHILDREN WITH MINUTE DOSES OF SUGAR! SURELY THIS TOXIN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR AUTISM!
I'm also amused by the mention of hydrochloric acid, which I've spilled on myself quite a few times in chem lab, and is(at least in dilute concentrations) standard for high school chem labs across the U.S. And that's just what I'm familiar with.
And as Orac notes,
Antivaccinationists are also not too concerned with getting the actual niceties of the chemistry right, confusing ethylene glycol (antifreeze, which is not in vaccines) with polyethylene glycol (PEG, which is in some vaccines and is also in a number of skin creams, toothpaste, and medications, including laxatives) or ethyl ether (the flammable anaesthetic) with polyethylene glycol pisooctylphenyl ether (Triton X-100, a kind of soap/detergent). Nor are they concerned with getting the niceties of the biology right, either. They like to mention "aborted fetuses," as though vaccines were somehow made from aborted fetal tissue, when in reality some viruses are grown in cells derived from an aborted fetus nearly 45 years ago. Antivaccinationists know that, but they like to try to feed in to religious objections to abortion by playing this gambit, which is in reality no more than a variant of the "toxin" gambit, although at least they've gotten a bit smarter about it and don't say "tissues" anymore. The whole bit about "monkey cells" is pretty dumb as well. Some viruses are indeed grown in monkey kidney cells, but it's not as though these cells are retained in the vaccine. There's a little step called "purification" that antivaccinationists seem to think that manufacturers forget
But this stuff probably works-all you have to do is convince enough of the credulous that anything with a vaguely incomprehensible name is a toxin that will kill you, you've done your job well.
I like what this commenter said:
I remember reading an old issue (mid-80s) of National Geographic as a kid. A chemical company (Dupont or Dow, I'm not sure...) had an advertisement that showed an orange with an ingredient label. It contained a huge list of scary-sounding chemical names that you would find if you isolated every "natural" compound in the fruit.
The point was that "chemical" was not a bad word, and that big science words did not imply evil-scientist polts to poison children.
I still think of that ad everytime I run across people using fear-mongering to oppose genetic engineering, chemical research, or medical products.
I kinda want to photoshop a scare mongering image about oranges and bring it to one of these rallies and see if anyone got the joke.