On the Banks

Stunning Interview Reveals Establishment Weakness

 

This is stunning.

I realize that not many of my friends have had direct experience with actual totalitarian regimes that actually do control information from the top down. So maybe my comments won't ring true to many of you. But I have seen this stuff up close, the mindless propaganda that they get away with - just because they can. It doesn't have to make sense, and they don't have to be right - they have power, and so they can spew out whatever nonsense they want to. And when you listen to it, it is laughable - because they CAN get away with spewing nonsense, they do. THAT is what this reminds me of.

The interviewer here obviously has no idea what she is talking about, and can only refer to the "authority" of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, insist that social-media censorship isn't censorship, and attempt to shut Krakow up by telling him he's not a "medical authority", after asking him a medical question. She (along with most of the media) is acting as if she has a monopoly on information streams... but you know what? She doesn't. And they don't.

And as much as they try to, they are not going to shut down concerned, informed voices on this issue. In fact... and I've been waiting my whole life to say this... the more they tighten their grip, the more of us will slip through their fingers.

They are scared. They have been spouting indisputable nonsense for years now, and for years they have gotten away with it. But it's starting to not work anymore, and they don't know what to do. They are scared, and it shows - in interviews like this and elsewhere - and that is very good news.

 

 

 

The Most Awesome Smackdown You Will Ever Read: Children’s Health Defense Letter to Jeff Bezos

 

This is quite possibly the most awesome smackdown ever in the history of smackdowns. And you need to read every delicious word of it. I'm actually beginning to feel pity for Congressman Adam Schiff, who must be looking for a very big rock to hide under right about now.

Many many thanks to Children's Health Defense.

From the letter:

"In addition to Amazon, Mr. Schiff has requested Facebook and Google to start preventing the spread of vaccine misinformation. So, should they also block links to pages from the CDC’s website wherein such dangerously misleading claims are made? By Mr. Schiff’s standard, as evidenced by his own false statements, misinformation is perfectly acceptable as long as it results in parents strictly complying with the CDC’s recommendations. It is transparently only information that might lead to the opposite outcome, regardless of its accuracy, that Mr. Schiff has concerned himself with."

 

Children's Health Defense has also sent versions of the letter to Google's Sundar Pichai and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. 

 

An Honest Government Ad About Julian Assange

 

It's about time...

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on a Failed Revolution

 

 

I arrived in Hong Kong for the second time, after a year there as a student, in the spring of 1989. I got there about a week before the death of Hu Yaobang, the event that – thirty years ago next Monday – sparked what was later to become known as "Beijing Spring." 

It was an exciting time, a time when hope seemed to float in the air, and when the notoriously apolitical, "practical" Hong-Kongers marched in the streets in support of their mainland brethren. And even though everyone will say now that they "knew it was coming", it crushed our hearts when we saw the tanks rolling in to Tiananmen Square and we knew it was over. We knew that the dreams of those young Chinese people had been smashed.

It's how I feel today, watching the video of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. We all "knew it was coming", and the people for whom these things don't matter that much will smirk and tell us so. As if that's what matters.

And I feel now that I owe those young Chinese people some kind of apology. Because I was a little arrogant in how I saw them. I came from a culture where so many of the freedoms they hungered for – to be able to speak and read and write what you choose, to travel as you please, choose your own job, choose where you live, etc. - were freedoms that I took for granted. I felt that Chinese culture was only just entering its infancy in terms of human liberty, and I felt a certain (completely unearned) superiority because of that.

But sitting here today, watching a man be thrown into a police van for helping to reveal a government's crimes; watching many of my fellow Americans cheer as government agents in New York City hunt down the unvaccinated; wondering aloud with friends as to when various modes of our communication will be shut down because of what we say, or how best to store for ourselves  information before it is erased from the Internet, disappeared from history... it is getting much harder to feel arrogant. 

I think back to those Chinese kids in Tiananmen Square, and how young and naive – and yes, probably manipulated too – they were. But as much as I thought their demands didn't get to the point, as much as I despaired their belief that "democracy" would make things better, at least there was some clarity to what they were asking for, and at least they had an understanding that it was the government that was the problem. They were on the right track, and I do believe they were honestly trying to find a way to live freer lives.

Contrast that with young American demonstrators in 2019, who demand censorship, and who stage protests, not when the state violates their freedom, but when speakers say things that upset them. It is as if, in the space of a few decades, they have completely obliterated an entire tradition that sought to uphold human freedom and the value of the individual. So if I'm going to take credit for my own culture's accomplishments, I'm thinking I might just want to lie low for a while.

Here's something I learned traveling in China, both before and after those demonstrations: 

First, cultural differences are real. Chinese culture doesn't have a tradition of respect for individual rights (or even individuals, in many ways) that Western culture has. There are values and behaviors that are rooted in our culture, much of it rooted in the Judeo-Christian part of our culture, that just aren't rooted in Chinese culture. And those things really do make a difference. 

That said, there were many many times when I met people from this culture that was palpably different from my own, and we soon came to realize that we did share some values. These people seemed to be very much in the minority, and it seemed that some of them really struggled with the rest of Chinese society. They may not have had the cultural grounding in the traditions of upholding liberty that I had, but they knew, somehow they knew that how they were living wasn't right. They knew that people should't be treated the way they were under communism, and they believed that things could be better.

So tonight, this is the one thing that gives me hope: That despite thousands of years of culture telling them otherwise, despite years of sometimes violent indoctrination, there are people who know better. They just know that people should be free, that the rights of individuals should be respected, and that human beings themselves are precious and deserving of respect, not collectives or ideologies or "causes." And they know this no matter what they've been told to believe. I've seen first hand that there are people who "just know" these things, as if there is something inside them telling them, something that is not dependent upon culture or race or even indoctrination or teaching. It's the one thing that gives me a little bit of peace tonight.

 

 

 

CBS Censors Brady Bunch Measles Episode

 

You remember - Season 1, Episode 13, the episode where the whole family comes down with measles and it's NO BIG DEAL.

Well, now CBS doesn't want you to see that episode. They've removed it from their list of "full episodes" that you can watch online.

Still think you're not being manipulated?

 

 

 

 

Help Stop Forced Vaccination in NYC

I've just made two donations in support of legal action to stop NYC's recently declared forced vaccination program.

First, to Children's Health Defense. According to a statement released today:

In an unprecedented move, the New York City Health Commissioner on April 9, 2019 has imposed an emergency forced vaccination order, requiring ALL people living in four Brooklyn zip codes to receive the MMR vaccine (if they do not have proof of immunity or medical contraindication) within 48 hours or risk criminal and civil penalties. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement.

...

Children’s Health Defense is supporting a legal effort to restrain this order immediately. Vaccination choice is a human right. While New York City unquestionably has the authority to isolate infectious individuals, and even to quarantine them, and to exclude unvaccinated children from schools during an outbreak in that school, it does not have the authority to require vaccination for all individuals on the basis of zip codes with vaccines that explicitly carry the risk of death. This government overreach requires challenge.

And also to health-freedom-rights attorney Patti Finn, who helped to overturn the earlier Rockland County ban on unvaccinated children in public places. You can donate to Patti Flinn's Vaccine Rights Defense Fund here.

 

So here's a thing to note: If the mandated beach balls in parts of NYC is overturned - and it should be - it will cost Mayor De Blasio NOTHING (other than a bruised ego and maybe some credibility - not that that seems to matter in the realm of politics.)

Think about that for a moment. If you or I threatened to violate other people's rights, and if we were found guilty of doing so in a court of law, there would be some repercussion for us. We would owe some money, or possibly do jail time. Not for those who act on behalf of the government though. They can do whatever they want, and if a court overturns their actions, they just shrug it off and go about their business. There are no real negative consequences for screwing up, or for abusing others.

And that's the whole problem.

 

 

 

On Orthodox Jews, Fear Mongering, and Beach Balls

 

Image credit.

 

From the New York Times:

"Another shopper standing next to him suddenly dropped the item she had been holding and clutched her child. “She was buying something, and she just threw it down,” Ms. Wingate recalled. “She said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go! Jews don’t have shots!’”

I'm not vouching for the article in any way. It is full of the usual official misinformation about beach balls. But what is happening in New York is well worth paying attention to.

The ease with which so many people take to fearmongering scares the hell out of me. What we are seeing now is that it just doesn't take very much to get them there. And that should frighten everyone - regardless of what you think of beach balls.

Ask yourself where this fear was in the 1980s, when measles numbers were much higher;

Ask yourself where the fear is over those who are recently beach-balled with live-strain beach balls? Or over adults who don't have their beach balls with them?;

Ask yourself why grown-assed adults have to substitute words like "beach ball" for other words that are now forbidden if we want our words to be seen by anyone else;

Ask yourself what is REALLY going on here, and whether it has anything at all to do with safety, or "public health."

And just remember: That angry, ignorant, mob that has decided - on a moment's notice and with very little information - to turn its fear and hatred on people who don't have beach balls? They might just decide to fear YOU next.

 

UPDATE: Every once in a while, sanity prevails. Today, the Rockland state of emergency was overturned by a New York State Supreme Court judge. Whether the frenzied hysteria over a benign childhood illness will ever be overturned is another question.

 

Listen: Against the Medical Narrative

 

Image: Public domain.

 

I talked last week with CJay Engel and Jeremy R. Hammond on the topics of medical propaganda, efforts to squash the vaccine debate - and how those efforts are going to backfire very very badly. Check it out here.

Great Response to Pro-Vax Propaganda from a Doctor

This response, to another piece bemoaning the difficulty of trying to convince people who have done their homework, that vaccines are safe, from Dr. Ray Andrew (whose identity I haven't verified) is beautiful:

 

I am running into increasing numbers of patients/parents who decline to receive vaccinations. I don’t call them “anti-vaxxers” because that is the most immature way I can imagine to refer to another human being with an opinion, whether I consider it informed or not. Name-calling is what people do in politics when they don’t have an intelligent response to an opposing party’s argument or viewpoint. This is supposed to be science, not politics.

Based on my experience, those who choose not to vaccinate care just as much about their children as you and I do. But they are looking for information. They no longer consider the AAP and the CDC as unbiased sources of information because the former has ties to the drug industry and the latter actually owns vaccine patents. These parents want me to show them long-term safety studies, which I am unable to find. They are bothered by the ingredient lists of vaccines, knowing that there are EPA-listed toxins in many of them. Some don’t like knowing that cells and DNA from aborted fetuses as well as animals are used in vaccine production. Some demand true double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled (using saline controls, not adjuvants) trials proving efficacy, which simply do not exist, even though we keep telling everyone that this is the gold standard in medicine. Some ask why—if informed consent exists for every other procedure in medicine—doctors and governments are trying to force vaccination on them, throwing informed consent (a legal right, I was taught) out the window. Some make the argument that, if vaccines are so effective, the vaccinated shouldn’t worry about getting sick from the unvaccinated. And they ask me for scientific proof of the theory of herd immunity. I don’t remember being shown any evidence of this in medical school. It was simply taught as a self-evident fact. But my patients don’t accept “facts” anymore, not without seeing some proof.

So, when I receive all of these communications from different organizations telling me how I am supposed to combat the growing threat of vaccine deniers, I feel like a straw man because these communications never present actual evidence to respond to the questions of these parents. They’re just talking points, empty claims, and official pronouncements.

In conclusion, some of my patients vaccinate, and some don’t. I respect both kinds. They are both intelligent and care for their children. Last I checked, the Hippocratic oath doesn’t require me to insult people with whom I don’t agree. I present what evidence I can find, and let them choose based on their values, not mine. Maybe that’s not allowed anymore. Maybe I’m supposed to kick them out of my practice if they disagree with me. Maybe they should be kicked out of school. Out of the country, even. If that’s the America of the future, that’s not a country I would want to live in.

NY State Health Commissioner Needs Our Support!

 

Yesterday, I signed a letter opposing the emergency declaration and forced quarantine of unvaccinated children in Rockland, NY. One of the recipients of that letter, the New York State Health Commissioner, Howard Zucker, wrote back to me. 

I saw it as a cry for help. This is his email to me, and my response is below.

 

 

Dear Mr. Zucker,

Thank you for writing to me. I am so relieved to hear that you were not involved in the emergency declaration in Rockland. Nevertheless, it must be a great source of embarrassment for you, as many people are now pointing to all of New York as an example of draconian and ill-informed – not to mention anti-Semitic – legislation that demonizes and restricts the freedom of one group of people for no legitimate reason.



You write, "Together with the Rockland County Department of Health, we launched a successful school exclusion initiative for unvaccinated students in the outbreak area and in partnership with the County and local healthcare providers, administered nearly 17,000 MMR vaccinations across the County - more than four times the number given over the same timeframe in each of the last two years."



OK, the first thing is: DON'T PANIC! Yes, you made a stupid decision, but haven't we all? I promise you can get through this if you just stay calm. 



As you know, measles is a relatively benign disease that only a few decades ago nearly EVERYONE contracted and recovered from. Before there even was a vaccine, the case fatality rate was around one in every ten thousand cases. Now we know that vitamin A is an effective treatment for measles, and that number would likely be much lower.

As I'm sure you also know by now, there has only been one confirmed death from measles in the US since 2003 (and a handful of unconfirmed deaths), but there have been more than 200 deaths associated with the MMR vaccine during the same period (the real number is probably much higher, due to well-documented underreporting). I'm sure you are also aware that the Cochrane Review has determined that safety studies for the MMR vaccine are "largely inadequate."



It is understandable if you've been caught up in the media's hysteria over this mild illness – so has most of the country. The hype has been pretty relentless, and completely one sided. So if you're not checking facts on your own, it's easy to get swept up in the misinformation. DON'T WORRY! You are not alone! That's the main thing to remember here: A lot of other people were taken in by this too. Now is not the time for judgement, but for healing. You WILL get through this!

The violation of basic rights (and, I believe, quarantine law), by restricting the unvaccinated (but ONLY the unvaccinated under the age of 18!) from public spaces, will be a bit harder to recover from. The anti-Semitic nature of the ban (which primarily targets an orthodox jewish community, and just before Passover) even more so. But again, you weren't directly involved in that, so I think you should be OK. Just be sure to avoid saying anything in public that might lead people to believe that you support this grotesque infringement of individual and parental rights.

Well that's all I've got. Just know that I'm so happy to hear that your department wasn't involved in this embarrassing travesty, and my thoughts are with you during this difficult time.



Don't give up!



Bretigne Shaffer

 

 

Some Questions About the Rockland Measles "Emergency"

 

 

The county of Rockland, New York, has declared a "state of emergency" over what, only recently, was widely seen as a benign childhood disease: 

Effective at the stroke of midnight, Wednesday, March 27, anyone who is under 18 years of age and unvaccinated against the measles will be barred from public places until this declaration expires in 30 days or until they receive the MMR vaccination.

 

This raises some questions, including:

1. Why only those under 18? If not being vaccinated against what was only recently seen as a benign childhood disease is such a terrifying threat to those around us, then why allow unvaccinated adults (read: MOST adults) out in public?

2. Likewise, why allow those recently vaccinated with a live-virus vaccine out in public? If this is really about protecting people, and preventing the spread of disease, then it is even more important to isolate those who have been recently vaccinated and able to shed, than it is those who are simply not vaccinated.

And 3. How on earth are we going to identify all of these scary children who haven't been vaccinated? Some have suggested little patches that could be sewn on to their clothing. Or maybe tattoos.

...or maybe it's time to stop the hysteria, take a deep breath, and look at what's actually going on here. This is NOT about public health, or protecting people. It's about something else, and that something else actually IS pretty scary.

 

 

 

Libertarians for Forced Vaccination?

 

(Image: Public Domain.)


No, you don't have a "right" to demand that others are vaccinated. From my latest article, on FEE.org:

It's hard to think of a more fundamental right than the right to determine what happens to one's own body. Forcing someone to undergo medical treatment against their will violates this most basic of rights—the right to be free from physical assault. Yet even some libertarians have jumped on the mandatory vaccination bandwagon, arguing that one person not taking every possible precaution against contracting a disease constitutes an assault against another. But this line of thinking requires some very tortured logic...

Del Bigtree: How to Shut Up Anti-Vaxxers Forever

 

 

 

Generally, if I watch a video on YouTube, it's because I'm doing some other task that takes 10-20 minutes or so. so I don't usually watch videos much longer than that. But I am watching this one in pieces because so far, every moment of it is GOLDEN.

Del Bigtree is on fire, and he nails everything here. The stuff on Plotkin trying to cover his ass, and the asses of the other asses who might be called upon to testify on behalf of vaccines only to find that they are asked real questions... is PRICELESS.

And Del is spot on about this: We were pretty quiet about our healthcare decisions for our families, until a bunch of asshole politicians and pharma cronies decided to try forcing their decisions on us. We're not so quiet anymore. And that's a good thing, because it's long past time we had this conversation out in public. Maybe a lot more children will be protected from vaccine harm now, because we're not being so quiet. Maybe the next generation of "anti-vaxxers" won't, in fact, be "ex-vaxxers" like this one is.

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Here's Another Wakefield Myth You Can Stop Repeating

 

No, any recent upsurge in measles cases cannot be attributed to a drop in MMR vaccination rates following the Lancet paper, because there was none.

My latest, on LewRockwell.com.

 

 

 

Amazon Removes Content Critical of Vaccines After Pressure from Congressman

 

 

From CNN: "Amazon also had not removed some anti-vaccine books that CNN Business had previously reported on, which users searching the site could mistake for offering neutral information accepted by the public health community. Titles still listed include "Miller's Review of Critical Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized for Parents and Researchers" ...

Let this sink in. According to CNN, a book that summarizes 400 scientific papers on the topic of vaccines is by definition "anti-vaccine."

For those who aren't keeping score, here's what happened:

On March 1, Congressman Adam Schiff wrote to Amazon, and after making the medically inaccurate statement that "there is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause life-threatening or disabling diseases", expressed his concern that Amazon might be allowing content with "medically inaccurate information."

Schiff asked what actions Amazon was taking to address "misinformation about vaccines." That same day, Amazon removed documentaries critical of vaccines from its streaming service. Now, CNN (or, more accurately, the people pulling CNN's strings) complains that Amazon still allows "anti-vaccine" books to be sold on its platform. Books including the one by Neil Z. Miller, that summarizes 400 scientific papers on vaccines.

So here's how this works: First, the establishment goons assert that there is "no evidence" that vaccines cause serious harm. Next, it pulls out all the stops to remove all signs of this non-existent evidence from the public sphere.

The problem though, is that unlike in regimes like the USSR or North Korea, the US state and its cronies do NOT have a monopoly on the press and channels of communication - much as they would clearly love to. So the more they pull ham-handed moves like this, the more attention they will bring to the issue of vaccine safety.

I say bring it. It's long past time we had this conversation in public.

 

UPDATE: Neil Miller's book is now at #1 on Amazon's Bestseller list for Health Policy. 

 

Image: Public domain.

Six-Year-Old Victim of the War on (Some) Drugs

This is Charly's story. Charly was six years old and had the same genetic condition that our daughter has. Her parents were treating her seizures with THC, but had to drive across state lines to get it, and could not get any advice from doctors on dosing, because the gang that runs the state they live in said they couldn't.

What the news report below doesn't say is that, after Charly had passed away and her mother had called 911, the gang members who showed up threw the family out of the house so they could search it for THC.

If anyone ever wonders why I despise the violent gang known as the state with every fiber of my being, please stop wondering that now. If you wonder why I refer to the monsters who enforce its laws as monsters, you can stop wondering that too. And if you want to help prevent more needless deaths like Charly's, one of the most important things you can do is to stop rationalizing and supporting predation and violence when it wears a uniform.

 

 

 

 

 

Charly's Voice Must Be Heard

 

 

I don't usually post things I haven't read, but I'm making an exception here. I literally cannot read this. I started to, and I can't. But I do know what happened, and I want others to know about this.

Charly was six years old when she passed away two weeks ago from seizures. She has the same condition our daughter has. The family called 911, and when the police came, the mother mentioned that they had been using THC to treat her seizures. Which is illegal in their state.

Instead of behaving like actual human beings, the officers forced the grieving family out of their house so they could search it for THC.

If anyone ever wonders why I refer to the monsters who enforce these laws as monsters - please stop wondering.

If anyone ever wonders why I detest the state with every fiber of my being - please stop wondering.

This is not just about the war on drugs. It's not even just about the state (although it largely is.) It is about our humanity. It is about blind obedience to authority, and it is about how so very many of us have sacrificed our humanity and our souls to an institution. There is no way any of us living in this time get to look back at any other period of history and shake our heads in disbelief. History is us. And we should be ashamed.


Charly's mother has asked that her story be shared widely. Here it is.

(Image public domain.)

 

 

 

The One Way to Spot Vaccine Propaganda

 

Image: Public domain. Source.

 

I've got an article on LewRockwell.com today, about how mainstream coverage of the vaccine controversy is little more than propaganda. From the article:

It’s that season again: Another outbreak of a benign childhood disease that only a couple of generations ago the vast majority of the US population contracted and recovered from, serendipitously occurring precisely at the time when legislators across the country are putting forward bills to strip parents of the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate their own children.

In this climate of interest-driven hysteria, it is important to be able to distinguish between reliable information on the issue, and misinformation. Here is one quick way to tell the difference:

 

You can read the whole thing here.

 

 

Jon Ronson on the Ugly Tyranny of the Normal

 

 

 

This is a wonderful presentation. For those who aren't going to watch the whole thing, here is the takeaway. Although you really should watch the whole thing:

"Because we seem to love nothing more than to declare other people insane. We love to reduce people to their outermost aspects, to the aspects of their personalities that might be labeled 'mental disorders.'

"All this is creating a more conservative, conformist, age, where were reduce people to the worst Tweets that they ever wrote, or we reduce them to their flaws. It feels like an escalation in the war on human nature and its flaws.

"'look', we're saying, 'we're normal. This is the average. We are defining the boundaries of normality, by labeling those on the outside of it'. 

"But the truth is, there is no evidence that we have been placed on this planet to be especially happy, or especially normal, and in fact, it's our unhappiness and our anxieties, and our compulsions, those least fashionable aspects of our personalities, that quite often lead us to do rather interesting things."

 

I've discovered that Ronson is British, and thus tends toward understatement. I think what he meant to say here was: "...lead us to bring about the most important and amazing advancements humanity has ever seen."

(And I have to wonder whether Ronson is familiar with the work of Thomas Szasz.)

 

 

 

If You Don't Think the Conversation on Vaccines Is Being Controlled, Think Again:

 

 

 

Anne Mason, the author of this article writes:

Medium just removed my "Measles Scare Tactics Hurt Us All" article from their platform. If you think free speech exists in this country, think again. If you need a valid link to the article, please use this one at GreenMedInfo. They added valuable hyperlinks to the body of the article, so it's a better version to use anyway:

Without specifics, they determined I was in violation of their rules and explained that they "do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation." So, my guess is "disinformation." My article was fully referenced. Every study and link I mentioned is backed up. Alarming, to say the least.

 

This is not the first time a social media platform has silenced someone who was critical of vaccines. Last December, Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo, wrote:

On Dec. 13th, 2018 Pinterest removed GreenMedInfo.com, one of the world’s most trafficked and widely referenced natural health research sites, from its platform, stating: “your linked website violated our misinformation policy. This policy includes things like promotion of false cures for terminal or chronic illnesses, and anti-vaccination advice.”

This action occurred after a number of other sites which either question the safety of vaccines, or are critical of the vaccine industry, reported similar de-platforming.

...Other platforms who have reported on Pinterest’s censorship include The National Vaccination Information Center (NVIC), Mercola.com, NaturalNews.com, and Health Impact News. You can learn more by reading, Eroding Freedoms: Pinterest Removes NVIC’s Boards, and Pinterest Censoring Anti-Vaccine Doctors and Pins Related to Vaccine Rights.

 

You can see the entire email Pinterest sent to GreenMedInfo.com, here.

Whatever a person's views on vaccines may be, anyone who values a culture of free and open debate on important issues should be very concerned by the current trend of social-media companies to establish themselves as arbiters of the truth, rather than as platforms for open discussion.

As both of these examples demonstrate, the vaccine debate is far from "settled." Both Mason's pulled article and GreenMedInfo.com reference peer-reviewed literature on vaccine safety, and both carefully cite their sources. This is in bold contrast to the vast majority of mainstream coverage of the topic, which typically repeats without support the assertions that "vaccines are safe and effective", and "vaccines do not cause autism," while regurgitating tired untruths about Dr. Andrew Wakefield and the 1998 Lancet paper.

There are, sadly, a great many people who don't care all that much about free and open debate, and who are quite happy to have their truths handed to them by gatekeepers. But I don't personally believe that there are as many of them as the social media giants are counting on. And unless they are able to get government to regulate their own industry (a move that would only benefit the existing power players, at the expense and possibly to the exclusion of newcomers), they will soon start to face some real competition from platforms promising spaces for genuine free speech. 

 

CORRECTION: The above has been corrected to read that only Mason's article was removed from the Medium platform. Her account has not been suspended, as was earlier stated.