No, Vaccines Are Not 'Raping' Your Children, Says Science

Rejoice! A new study shows that even among children who are at a higher risk for autism, getting vaccinated against childhood illnesses isn't linked to autism. In the face of clear scientific evidence like that, you've pretty much got to expect that the anti-vaxxers will now just say, "Oh, man, were we ever wrong!" and quietly go away, possibly borne on a magic carpet carried by flying pigs.

Still, even though it will probably only be persuasive to people who already think Science Is Real -- i.e., sheeple and paid shills of Big Pharma -- it's a pretty ingenious research design. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association,  looked at whether the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella, resulted in any increased chance of autism for children who were already at higher risk of autism because they had an older sibling who'd been diagnosed on the spectrum:

"Even for children who are high-risk, the vaccine does not play a role," said lead author Dr. Anjali Jain of healthcare consulting firm The Lewin Group in Falls Church, Virginia. "We don't know what does unfortunately, but it's not the MMR vaccine."

Not incidentally, the study also noted that younger siblings of kids diagnosed with autism were roughly 10% less likely to receive recommended vaccines than other kids their age, which suggests that parents of autistic kids were buying in to anti-vax fears.

Not that anti-vaxxers are likely to be convinced by "studies" by "doctors," who they know are all on the payroll of Big Pharma, and part of the conspiracy to sell lots and lots of vaccines (never mind that vaccines, while no longer a loss leader in pharmaceutical sales, only account for about 2 to 3 percent of pharmaceutical company sales. The big money is in meds that keep people with chronic conditions alive -- not even in boner pills (though they're significantly funnier).

Just how paranoid are anti-vaxxers? They're branching out now, from comparisons of vaccinations to Nazi medical experiments, and of course claims that vaccines are actually Holocausting our children, but now an Australian anti-vax group has decided that vaccines are just like rape, because, as the charming Facebook ad up top explains, they both involve "forced penetration" and when vaccines are mandatory, you don't have any choice at all, so taking your kid to the doctor is exactly the same as handing them over to a rapist. Protect your kid from a potentially deadly disease? You might as well be in the Arkansas Legislature. 

Sure, the Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network (AVSN) pulled the post Wednesday after just a few hours of people saying that maybe it was a little over the top (or, if you prefer, "disgusting" and "insensitive to rape victims"). Not that AVSN sees anything wrong with the image, explaining that they thought it made a really good point:

This post isn’t tasteless -- it is honest. What truly IS tasteless is our elected government trying to tell us that we have to vaccinate our children even if we don’t believe it is best for their health.

We have a feeling maybe they don't trust the American Medical Association and its "studies" all that much, considering that it's full of perverts who get a sick thrill out of jabbing needles into defenseless children, all for the sake of "preventing deadly diseases." Buncha weirdos.

[ ThinkProgress / JAMA / CNN / Business Insider / RawStory ]