{"id":481335,"date":"2022-01-23T10:58:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-23T10:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=232097"},"modified":"2022-01-23T10:58:12","modified_gmt":"2022-01-23T10:58:12","slug":"vaccine-hucksterism-vaers-and-the-war-on-medical-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/23\/vaccine-hucksterism-vaers-and-the-war-on-medical-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaccine Hucksterism: VAERS and the War on Medical Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_232100\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-232100\" class=\"wp-image-232100 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ivan-diaz-_ts3NfjvaXo-unsplash-680x453.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"453\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-232100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@ivvndiaz\">Ivan Diaz<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>If 2020 was the year that broke America\u2019s brain with QAnon, \u201cBig Lie\u201d election propaganda, and Covid-19 misinformation, 2021 to 2022 have shown little signs of a return to sanity. On Covid-19, anti-vaxxer misinformation permeates political discourse. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2021\/us\/covid-cases.html\">Twenty-seven percent<\/a> of Americans had yet to be \u201cfully\u201d vaccinated by receiving at least two shots by January 2022, and the vast majority of these holdouts \u2013 more than 80 percent \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2021\/09\/10\/cnbc-poll-shows-very-little-will-persuade-unvaccinated-americans-to-get-covid-shots.html\">said<\/a> they didn\u2019t plan on getting vaccinated. The pandemic continues, despite many Americans talking about it as if it\u2019s in the past. Approximately three-in-ten Americans in mid-2021 falsely <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/351650\/three-americans-think-pandemic.aspx\">believed<\/a> the pandemic was over. Forty-five percent <em>acted <\/em>as if the pandemic was over, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/12\/17\/politics\/cnn-poll-covid-pandemic\/index.html\">saying<\/a> in late 2021 that they felt \u201csafe enough to carry out everyday life largely the way it was before the pandemic.\u201d This was up from 36 percent in late August to early September.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-vaxxer disinformation activists are intensifying their attacks on medical efforts to combat the pandemic, utilizing pseudoscience to manipulate public opinion. One example is the perversion of the VAERS database, which is used to drum up opposition to vaccination against Covid-19. VAERS \u2013 the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System \u2013 is a data tool run by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. It was created in 1990 to provide citizens with one central location to report their experiences with potential side effects of vaccines. This database has become a key piece of \u201cevidence\u201d used by anti-vaxxers to cultivate public distrust of vaccines.<\/p>\n<div class=\"woocommerce\">\n<div class=\"woocommerce-info wc-memberships-restriction-message wc-memberships-message wc-memberships-content-restricted-message\">\n\t\t\t\tTo read this article, log in <a class=\"always-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/my-account\/\">here<\/a> or subscribe <a class=\"always-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/subscribe\/\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<br \/>In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.\t\t    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2022\/01\/23\/vaccine-hucksterism-the-story-behind-the-war-on-medical-science\/\">More<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2022\/01\/23\/vaccine-hucksterism-the-story-behind-the-war-on-medical-science\/\">Vaccine Hucksterism: VAERS and the War on Medical Science<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/\">CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2022\/01\/23\/vaccine-hucksterism-the-story-behind-the-war-on-medical-science\/\">CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image by Ivan Diaz.<\/p>\n<p>If 2020 was the year that broke America\u2019s brain with QAnon, \u201cBig Lie\u201d election propaganda, and Covid-19 misinformation, 2021 to 2022 have shown little signs of a return to sanity. On Covid-19, anti-vaxxer misinformation permeates &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228,230],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481693,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481335\/revisions\/481693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}