Gregory’s Reviews > The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy > Status Update

Spoiler Alert: Chapter 9 continues explaining Wakefield's role in the anti-vaccine movement, particularly his role in fraudulently linking MMR vaccine with autism. Despite the inherent flaws in his study, the media gave Wakefield and his conclusions much attention while ignoring many problems pointed out by scientists & doctors.

Spoiler Alert: Chapter 8 introduces the reader to Andrew Wakefield, a surgeon and medical researcher known to publish attention-getting articles that often don't reflect facts. This chapter describes Wakefield's attempts to link vaccinations with bowel diseases despite massive flaws in his studies.

Spoiler Alert: Chapter 7 brought up an imaginary illness concocted by Mary Leitao in 2002 called Morgellon's syndrome. The chapter explores how shoddy journalism convinced over 3 dozen members of Congress into forcing the CDC to spend time & money researching a disease that scientists & doctors overwhelmingly agreed did not exist.

Spoiler Alert: Chapter 6 details the history of autism diagnosis and how attitudes about autism have changed over time. The chapter also touches upon some issues that exist between news organizations/ reporters/ journalists and healthcare profession. For example, some news organizations no longer hire science reporters and instead rely on "generalist" reporters to cover topics that often require specialist knowledge.

Spoiler Alert: Chapter 4 touches on a few more types of vaccines, continues with the history of vaccines, and briefly describes the history of water fluoridation. This chapter also begins detailing epidemics caused by low vaccination rates and details some societal resistance to vaccinations due to mistrust of government and pharmaceutical companies.

Spoiler Alert: Chapter 3 describes the history of the polio vaccine invented by Jonas Salk. The polio vaccine has a rocky history. It was proven effective and drastically reduced the number of cases of polio. However, one of the manufacturing labs distributed contaminated vaccines despite following all safety protocols. This lead to some confusion about the effectiveness of the vaccine before the causes were found.

Chapters 1 & 2 describe the history of small-pox, which was one of the earliest viruses from which people found a way to inoculate themselves. Originally, it was done by taking the pus from an infected person and rubbing it over the wounds of an unaffected person. This method wasn't perfect, but it did save lives. Eventually, it was discovered that taking the pus from cows infected with cowpox worked better.