Comic of the day

Among my many anti-science pet peeves is the seemingly increasing ignorant din over getting kids immunized. Or should I say, not getting kids immunized. So the story goes that in order to protect kids, they should not be vaccinated. Why? Because they'll get The Autism. So ironically in communities where this kind of thinking takes hold, vaccination rates drop, herd immunity is weakened, and kids start dying of easily preventable diseases.

The anti-vaccine nonsense stems almost entirely from a fraudulent study from a British doctor by the name of Andrew Wakefield. A man named Darryl Cunningham decided to tell the tale of Wakefield in comic form. Here is the first panel of the epic strip. Go check the rest out.

I'll note that the story has a happy ending. Last week Wakefield was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and of acting in a "dishonest", "misleading" and "irresponsible" manner by the General Medical Council of England. He was struck off the GMC register, which is essentially the British medical equivalent of being disbarred.

On the negative side, he's still allowed to spout his nonsense, having retreated to Texas (obviously) to set up his base of operations for what he calls "educating" but is more like "getting kids killed from easily preventable diseases." And he's still making appearances on TV as an "expert", hitting NBC Today on Monday. Yay America.