So, about a week ago a few people contacted me to ask what had happened to the National Geographic article about our family's decision to delay the vaccinations of our sons. When you click on the links, the page comes up blank. I saw many hundreds of comments on the National Geographic Facebook page, and they weren't pretty. I can't find them today. I reached out to the writer, Karen Lowe, and she wasn't aware of it but told me that she'd check.
I'm wondering what's up, imagining that The Powers That Be don't want a story about a family who makes responsible but controversial decisions about their children's health on the sacred scientific pages of National Geographic. I could be wrong, though, and just another insane, stupid, immoral and irresponsible anti-Science conspiracy theorist.
Interesting.
Holy shit.
ReplyDeleteCuriouser and curiouser. On that front, I am heartened that Oregon and Washington's bills to repeal personal and religious exemptions to vaccines have both been pulled for now. Fingers crossed that California's goes the same way! I'll be meeting with my legislative rep for coffee on Sunday to talk to him about it in depth and I hope to give him information he doesn't already have (not being a parent or a medical professional, and generally being in support of most liberal ideas of choice - gay marriage, reproductive rights, etc.). When I saw that he was the co-sponsor of the Washington bill, I reached out to to him to share how incongruent I thought that position was with his other beliefs and he asked me to meet with him. Hopeful, hopeful. In the meantime, keep me posted as to whether the article reappears.
ReplyDeletekario -- I signed one of those Credo petitions against the California bill that would remove the personal exemption choice, and a day later, the Credo site ITSELF pulled the petition because they didn't agree with it, even though it had gotten well over the 100,000 signatures necessary. Here's what they said in an email: "Allowing anyone to create petitions helps CREDO’s team find out about local issues all over the country that we might not know about otherwise, and allows us to work on campaigns on a broad range of issues. But it also means that people sometimes create positions that we disagree with. That’s what happened here.
DeleteSometimes progressives disagree. And in this case, CREDO disagrees with the position taken in the petition you signed. We respect your right to your opinion, and we hope you respect our right to our position which is outlined here"
WTF? I hope the petition creators moved the petition somewhere else. Someone created one on the Care2Alerts site for Washington state's, but it only got a few signatures, I think because the media hasn't publicized the progress of the bill at all and you have to really look to figure out what is happening with it. Unlike the way they all freaked out about a few measles cases in our state, they seem to be quite mum on the subject of the bill. Fortunately, it got tabled for now. Crazy.
DeleteYes. Do keep us posted.
ReplyDeleteI don't think censorship is playing fair.
ReplyDeleteKate J -- I'm hoping that it's a fluke and that it wasn't actually censored, but who knows?
DeleteIf that is the case, I agree with Kate J..
ReplyDeleteBest,
Bonnie
Hmmmm! I would be VERY surprised if, once published, the article were taken down for editorial reasons. That would be a very unusual decision -- one generally reserved for huge faux-pas like libel and plagiarism. I'm putting my money on a technical glitch of some kind.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope.
DeleteInteresting. Once an article goes out it's hard to take it down unless our friend "censorship" hops into the picture.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from London.
I agree. I do believe it was pulled.
Delete