Today is World Autism Day on April 2, originally called World Autism Awareness Day, and now the official has changed "autism" to "autism", so it should now be called "World Autism Awareness Day", referred to as World Autism Day.
For the sake of habit, I'll write about autism first, and today I'm going to share a new story.
Let's start with an old story
(Click on these words to see the article):
I remember that every year I would write about the farce of autism and measles, rubella, mumps combined vaccine (MMR vaccine), of course, not only me, today there will definitely be more than one self-media to re-describe the story of the person who smeared the MMR vaccine for his own interests in various ways.
In fact, this story does not have a particularly thrilling plot, which can be explained clearly in a few sentences:
1. In 1998, a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield (Figure 1) fabricated a paper published in the top medical journal The Lancet journal saying that there was a link between MMR vaccination and autism;
Anti-Vaccine Doctor: Andrew Wakefield
2. Due to vaccine hesitation, the decline in measles vaccination rates in the UK led to an increase in measles incidence and deaths, with only 56 confirmed cases of measles in the whole of the UK in 1998, and 449 deaths from measles in January-May alone in 2006 (Figure 2);
3. After verification, it was found that his paper had falsified data, and although the paper was retracted, the resulting vaccine hesitation and the anti-vaccination movement (Anti-Vaccination Movement) have been affected to this day, and even the controversial former Nobel laureate Luc Antoine Montagnier (Figure 3) is convinced of the association between autism and the MMR vaccine;
Luc Montagnier
4. Although the truth is revealed, adults and children who died of related diseases because they were not vaccinated with the MMR vaccine can never come back.
Maybe people who follow vaccines already know this story well, but I'm going to share the next story today:
The protagonist of this story is the CEO of another foreign social media (overseas version of Weibo) - Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (Figure 4, how to pronounce a few words without looking up).
Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg is a post-80s generation, and I really like this person's clothing taste and habit of buying clothes, but why should I mention him at this international festival is also because some people suspect that he also suffers from this disease - autism.
As a celebrity, it's perfectly normal to be discussed and analyzed by unrelated people, but there are also ones like the one in Figure 5 who replied in a post about whether Zuckerberg has autism: Who XX cares about him?
The original text was rude enough
Back to the point, back to Zuckerberg's story itself.
Some people think that he is autistic and he himself did not refute it, resulting in many people branding the stereotype of "Zuckerberg has autism" in their minds.
Although it is usually only discussed and evaluated, as a father and a social media user, it is because of a photo published on social media (Figure 6) that a public opinion war has been triggered.
Here's the thing:
When Zuckerberg's daughter was 12 months old, he posted a foreign weibo post on social media with photos of him taking his daughter to the hospital for vaccination.
However, the average person may not pay attention to whether he takes his children to be vaccinated, but for an influential billionaire, his act of vaccinating his children seems to be considered a pro-vaccine attitude – an attitude that directly provokes the sensitivities of anti-vaccine activists (ANTI-VAXXERS).
For ANTI-VAXXERS, their goal is to hope that people will not be vaccinated, of course, for a variety of purposes, including selling natural remedies, health products, books, getting votes, obtaining financial support, etc. I have shown the background of the "celebrities" who have taken the lead in opposing COVID-19 vaccination.
But whatever the purpose, what they're doing is putting more people in life-threatening territory.
When Zuckerberg sent out the foreign version of the microblog, his comment area was occupied by various comments from the 47 million followers at the time, and some people directly attacked Zuckerberg's behavior of vaccinating his children and said:
"Vaccines are poison for humans, it kills more people than it helps, and I hope people don't use his actions as an example." （Vaccine is poison for human kind. It kills more people than it helps. I wish people don't take it as an example here）”。
Not only that, but there are more extreme and more vicious remarks in the STYLE of VAXXERS:
"Poor child, who injected poison directly into the baby's blood..."
"I hope your child XXX is dead, so that you will wake up and no longer be a puppet in the middle X bureau, you XXX a piece of ugly XX, XXX ..." (the translation of the F and S words is not suitable for sending out)
"Oh, well, he's got autism-colored clothes for his kids, and maybe he'll be able to use them one day."
Of course, in contrast, there are still many people who give positive evaluations:
"Thank you for protecting your child, and other children who can't be vaccinated, and thank you for your support of science!" (This refers to helping build herd immunity – halogenation)
"What a cute little guy! Thank you for taking care of your baby (and other people's babies!). ）。 ”
"As a person with autism, as a person with an autistic son, as someone who often sees someone putting their child in serious danger because of fear of old, deceptive information about vaccines and autism... Thank you for your sanity. Thank you for doing the right thing, and thank you for showing other people that it's the right thing to do. ”
Although many people have expressed not only support for Zuckerberg's vaccination, but also affirmed that he is sending the right message, he will still be attacked by a small number of anti-vaccine activists.
Not only abroad, but also in China, even if most people have a positive view of the role of vaccines, there will be many people who adhere to traditional or unscientific ideas unswervingly spread the infusion of "vaccination can lead to autism", "vaccines contain harmful ingredients to the body" and other arguments.
In the new crown pneumonia epidemic that has swept the world, many people in some overseas countries and regions have died because of poor epidemic prevention and control and refusal to vaccinate, but in China, because of the almost impossible to replicate epidemic prevention results, it is difficult to have a similar situation - perhaps because of this, there are still many people who have no fear.
After all, vaccines and therapeutic drugs are different, the average person's expectations and acceptance are completely different, especially when the disease still appears after vaccination, more people will not consider that the vaccine has helped a lot to alleviate their symptoms, but think that they will get sick because the vaccine is ineffective (of course, you must realize that any vaccine will not be 100% effective).
However, I still hope that more people can have a more scientific understanding of vaccines, put themselves in a safer state, and protect themselves and others, rather than spreading false statements such as vaccines and autism associations, causing vaccine hesitation to make more people in an unprotected state.
Finally, a word to share:
Vaccination is an important and timely topic, and the scientific perspective is very clear: vaccination is effective, and vaccines are important for the health of everyone in our community – Jacques Zuckerberg
May there be no plague in the world.
=Pills=