Cosmos Magazine's take on the vaccination 'debate'

Please note: We did originally have a link to Fiona MacDonald's article in this location, but on the 25th of August, we received a letter from Wilson da Silva, Cosmos' Editor in Chief, requesting that we remove this scan of their article due to copyright concerns. The last thing the AVN or Living Wisdom would ever want to do would be to breach another publications' copyright so though we believed that this article was shared through fair use, we are happy to agree to remove the article from our blog.

Back in early June, Fiona MacDonald from Cosmos magazine contacted me to ask if I would be interested in participating in an article they were planning on vaccination. Knowing Cosmos' strong connection with the non-skeptics and their rabid opposition to the pro-choice cause, I declined. I did say that I was willing to participate if I could get to see my section of the article before it went to print but they said no so I chose not to be involved.

Despite the fact that they didn't actually interview me, they did attribute one quote to me which was incorrect! One has to ask, if they managed to get this so wrong, how many other statements made in this article were also incorrect?

The article says that I have been quoted in other media outlets (way to go 'science' magazine! Where are your references and who was your source or is this just a convenient way to make something up and get away with it?) as saying, "the dangers of vaccines outweigh the benefits."

Now, there have been many times that I have said that for some people, the benefits of vaccination do not outweigh the risks and I stand by that statement. Ask any parent of a vaccine-injured child or a child killed by vaccines if they think that the risks were worth it for their child and their answer would surely be a resounding NO! But I have NEVER said that the dangers of vaccines outweigh the benefits as a broad statement though Cosmos has quoted some nameless reference as quoting me making that statement.

There are so many ridiculous statements in this piece, it's hard to know where to begin.

The map of Australia with the 'Danger Zones' in red showing where the unvaccinated populations live is a good example. At the top of the map is a key and the lowest vaccination rate is between 8 and 12% unvaccinated yet in the text, they say that Byron Bay's vaccination rate is 70% - so where is that in the map? And if an 88% vaccination rate against pertussis is too low and causes outbreaks, how does Cosmos explain away the fact that in 1991, with only 71% of the children vaccinated against whooping cough, our rate of the disease was 50 times lower than it is today?

The North Coast Area Health Service which includes Byron Bay has a vaccination rate of 88% fully vaccinated and yet, Cosmos states that it is 70%. Where does this figure come from? Thin air, perhaps?

We have tried to find shire-wide statistics for vaccination and it seems that they don't exist yet magazines like Cosmos use shonky data from Byron Shire and Bellingen Shire to prove their point that areas that are more 'alternative' have lower rates of vaccination and higher levels of disease yet there is no evidence to show that these data are even available - and if they are - it would be great if Cosmos would share their sources and certainly, they should have provided those references in the article but in fact, there is not ONE single reference to be found.

They talk about the use of the quick test to determine whether or not someone has pertussis without saying that there have been times when epidemics of pertussis have been declared using this test only to find later that not one case could be shown by blood culture (the most accurate way to test for whooping cough) to actually have been pertussis. So is this a real epidemic or a scare campaign to try and frighten parents into vaccinating?

Please read this article yourself and if you feel that those who have chosen not to vaccinate have been portrayed unfairly or if you think that this should have been a lot more scientific and a lot less anecdotal in its approach, please do write to their editor at letters@cosmosmagazine.com