Jon Stewart: No Denying It. Anti-Vaccine Movement is Anti-Science

Daily Show’s exposé: These people really should know better

I started getting emails with links to last night’s Jon Stewart episode on science idiocy this afternoon. I clicked on the segment, and it’s amazing. They’ve taken on the anti-vaccination movement and science denial with far more effectiveness than most of us could achieve. They did a great service by pointing out that vaccine-preventable diseases are surging in some parts of the U.S., like California and Oregon, because parents are not getting their children vaccinated. What we have is an outbreak of misinformation, disseminated by people who don’t believe in evidence and think that scientists lie to people, and that childhood communicable diseases occur because of toxins in the water. And there’s no vaccine for toxins in the water. Ironically, as Dr. Paul Offit said on the show, the only cure for the anti-vaccination movement is the emergence of disease outbreaks. That’s no way to stop a movement. Watch the segment. It’s ironically funny and quite true. Barbara