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Comment by nramanand | Hacker News Reader

Isn't this also related to how the vaccines-cause-autism conversation started? The study involved only had a handful of subjects (a few of which were very unqualified), and then a big important journal (The Lancet IIRC) picked it up for the novelty.

The article mentions attention economy as in media, TikTok, etc playing a role before "community assessment." But it's not like scientists don't also gravitate towards the new shiny thing in their own ways.

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Yeah. Andrew Wakefield was stripped of his medical license in 2010 for publishing fraudulent research and it was later discovered that he was paid to discredit the MMR vaccine.[0]

And yet, ~10% of Americas still believe the study. [1]

[0] https://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/276929/fewer-continue-vaccines-...

I’m frankly shocked it’s only 10%

In the linked study, 10% said they believed vaccines caused autism, and while they were not asked if they accepted Wakefield’s claims, presumably just about all who do were in that group. 45% said they were unsure whether vaccines caused autism, leaving open the important question of which way they would go when faced with a choice.

In the linked study, 10% said they believed vaccines caused autism, and while they were not asked whether they accepted Wakefield’s claims, presumably just about all who did were included within that group. 45% said they were unsure, leaving open the important question of which way they would go when faced with a choice.

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