Indiegogo to ban anti-vaccine projects, ask for scientific backing

[Bubbajim]

In brief: Many companies have recently taken a stand against anti-vaccine content on their platforms, and soon popular crowdfunding site Indiegogo will do the same. The platform confirmed that a new policy will require health claims to be backed by scientific evidence.

So far in 2019 major companies like Facebook and YouTube have already implemented new policies to crack down on misinformation about vaccines. Other companies are following suit and, according to Buzzfeed, Indiegogo will soon be banning anti-vaccine projects from their site, too.

The spread of so-called ‘anti-vax’ media is largely to blame for the dramatic increase in outbreaks of highly contagious diseases like measles. The problem has gotten so bad that the World Health Organization listed ‘vaccine hesitancy’ as one of their top ten threats to health in 2019.

In the U.S., measles was declared eliminated in 2000, but the disease is making a comeback as more and more parents are refusing to vaccinate their children over fears that vaccines aren’t safe.

Given this context, any move to limit the spread of anti-vaccine content is a welcome one – including Indiegogo’s upcoming policy. Speaking to Buzzfeed, Indiegogo confirmed that their policy will not solely target anti-vax media, but instead will broadly apply to any project that’s making health claims. Such claims will need to have scientific evidence to back them up.

What constitutes evidence, and who verifies the claims, are yet to be decided. Indiegogo have yet to give any specifics beyond confirmation that they are working on this new policy.

This has all come about after anti-vaccine proponents raised over $85,000 for a documentary repeating the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. The documentary is not alone on the platform though, as a quick search reveals numerous such ‘documentaries’ have been funded via Indiegogo.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/79836-indiegogo-ban-anti-vaccine-projects-ask-scientific-backing.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Going back into history it appears that this entire mess was started by a single physician in the UK that wrote an article for self promotion, that was published then rather quickly debunked by the medical community. It's claims were so ghastly wrong that the doctor lost his license to practice medicine of any kind, but that part of the story never got the wide spread publication. To make matters worse, when you had a presidential candidate that claimed during the election process that the vaccines did in fact cause autism, it gains traction with the under informed public. By the way, this is the same candidate that not so long ago claimed that wind turbine's caused brain cancer .......

While a free press is an absolute, the press should exercise considerable peer pressure to police those in it's ranks that exercise poor or wrong judgement. In the early days "news" and "editorial" were clearly identified but today all seem to be blended under the title of "entertainment". Once again, the press could police themselves by moving back to the old standard of specific identification of what kind of story they are about to report and eliminate one heck of a lot of confusion.

 

[polvo]

Another health claim with scientific backing... abortion stops more beating hearts per year than the measles could ever dream of... how about we tackle that one as well?

 

[yRaz]

Another health claim with scientific backing... abortion stops more beating hearts per year than the measles could ever dream of... how about we tackle that one as well?

Going to have to disagree, there is a significant chunk of the population that I wish was aborted

 

[Lew Zealand]

Going back into history it appears that this entire mess was started by a single physician in the UK that wrote an article for self promotion, that was published then rather quickly debunked by the medical community. It's claims were so ghastly wrong that the doctor lost his license to practice medicine of any kind, but that part of the story never got the wide spread publication.

More specifically that former doctor, Andrew Wakefield, was paid by a vaccine maker which only made single vaccines (only measles or mumps, etc.) to publish that paper full of fake data in order to trash the reputations of the combo vaccines (MMR and DTaP) so that the single vaccine maker would get more sales.

The damn thing wasn't even a hit piece on vaccines in general, rather it was intended by one vax maker to boost sales by talking smack about another one.

So 2 decades later a now-retracted paper full of invented numbers, written by a medical fraud, paid for by a sleazy company is being used to brainwash gullible and paranoid people to sicken, maim, and kill children.

There's your antivax in a nutshell.

 

[psycros]

I wonder how these scientists can claim that all vaccines are harmless when there has never been a single study done on the subject. Even after the swine flu nightmare of the 70's there has been no serious research on side effects, allergies etc.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I wonder how these scientists can claim that all vaccines are harmless when there has never been a single study done on the subject. Even after the swine flu nightmare of the 70's there has been no serious research on side effects, allergies etc.

Who claims all vaccines are harmless? I don't see that anywhere. Everything has a risk, including breathing and eating.

The question is whether the benefits outweigh the risks and for vaccines the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.

 

[polvo]

...to sicken, maim, and kill children.

Killing children?... 61 million lives and counting snuffed out in the US alone since 1973... unless people are willing to acknowledge this when discussing how not vaccinating will "kill children" then spare me the paper thin concerns

 

[Lew Zealand]

Killing children?... 61 million lives and counting snuffed out in the US alone since 1973... unless people are willing to acknowledge this when discussing how not vaccinating will "kill children" then spare me the paper thin concerns

What?

What specifically are you referring to? What 61M children are these and what happened to them? Do you have a credible reference or two?

What is your point?

 

[seeprime]

I wonder how these scientists can claim that all vaccines are harmless when there has never been a single study done on the subject. Even after the swine flu nightmare of the 70's there has been no serious research on side effects, allergies etc.

I don't see the claim that all vaccines are harmless. Some people will have a reaction to a vaccine. The issue is that claiming that vaccines do more harm than good is simply untrue and about as real as our earth is flat.

 

[Evernessince]

Going back into history it appears that this entire mess was started by a single physician in the UK that wrote an article for self promotion, that was published then rather quickly debunked by the medical community. It's claims were so ghastly wrong that the doctor lost his license to practice medicine of any kind, but that part of the story never got the wide spread publication. To make matters worse, when you had a presidential candidate that claimed during the election process that the vaccines did in fact cause autism, it gains traction with the under informed public. By the way, this is the same candidate that not so long ago claimed that wind turbine's caused brain cancer .......

While a free press is an absolute, the press should exercise considerable peer pressure to police those in it's ranks that exercise poor or wrong judgement. In the early days "news" and "editorial" were clearly identified but today all seem to be blended under the title of "entertainment". Once again, the press could police themselves by moving back to the old standard of specific identification of what kind of story they are about to report and eliminate one heck of a lot of confusion.

I'm fine with freedom of the press and speech until the point it physically hurts someone. People dying from not being vaccinated or because others aren't vaccinated crosses that line.

Another health claim with scientific backing... abortion stops more beating hearts per year than the measles could ever dream of... how about we tackle that one as well?

If a beating heart is your definition of life then every time an earthworm is killed, 5 are gone. Abortion is a tricky subject. A heartbeat develops in a fetus before the mother may even know they are pregnant. If the mother doesn't want the baby they might not even have a choice if you state that no abortion may be had after a heartbeat can be detected. Forcing children into the world where not even their mother wanted them? You are inducing one of the greatest psychological traumas on a child. I'm pro life but if you are going to require an unwanted child be born, you'd better be damn sure someone will take care of that child. In this case, the government. Anything less is just cruel.

I wonder how these scientists can claim that all vaccines are harmless when there has never been a single study done on the subject. Even after the swine flu nightmare of the 70's there has been no serious research on side effects, allergies etc.

Here is a list of scholarly studies done on the link between autism and vaccines. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=vaccine+autism+study&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

I wonder how these scientists can claim that all vaccines are harmless when there has never been a single study done on the subject. Even after the swine flu nightmare of the 70's there has been no serious research on side effects, allergies etc.

Who claims all vaccines are harmless? I don't see that anywhere. Everything has a risk, including breathing and eating.

The question is whether the benefits outweigh the risks and for vaccines the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.

This risk of developing side effects from a vaccine are <0.001%, as observed from studies to date. That's 1 in 10,000. Mind you these side effect include things like a temporary rash, itchiness, and other minor symptoms. I'd say that a good chunk of those who did exhibit those symptoms might simply be allergic to one of the ingredients.

...to sicken, maim, and kill children.

Killing children?... 61 million lives and counting snuffed out in the US alone since 1973... unless people are willing to acknowledge this when discussing how not vaccinating will "kill children" then spare me the paper thin concerns

You are going to have to reference what you are referring to and site a source. The only thing that comes up when I search 61 million children is a bunch of articles stating that is the number of children out of school. That's an amazing number considering we have free public education.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I did a search and 61M is reasonably close to the historical abortion statistics in the US since the early 70s. Abortion was mentioned in his previous post so he came here with a separate axe to grind and was replying somewhat indiscriminately.

 

[polvo]

I did a search and 61M is reasonably close to the historical abortion statistics in the US since the early 70s. Abortion was mentioned in his previous post so he came here with a separate axe to grind and was replying somewhat indiscriminately.

It's not indiscriminate... everyone gets up in arms when people don't vaccinate... that's when they "care about the kids"... but when it comes to abortion, it's open season... so it's not a separate ax to grind, it's that if you're going to get outraged over something like not vaccinating a kid, then get equally (and possibly more) outraged when that kid never even got a chance to see the light of day

And yes... since RvW was introduced, approximately 61M lives have been exterminated in just the United States alone... where's the outrage for the mistreatment of kids for that?

 

[polvo]

You are going to have to reference what you are referring to and site a source. The only thing that comes up when I search 61 million children is a bunch of articles stating that is the number of children out of school. That's an amazing number considering we have free public education.

61M kids just in the United States alone have been exterminated through abortion since Roe vs Wade was put into law in 1973... my point is... where is the outrage over that? People lose their minds when they read an article about non-vaxxers because they "care about the kids"... but when it comes to abortion, they turn a blind eye... do they only care about kids after they've breached the birth canal?... those "fetuses" as they like to refer to them as are developing human beings that will turn into........ kids. So be equally as outraged about that as you are about kids being unvaccinated. (and by "you" and "they", I mean people in general)

 

[polvo]

Anything less is just cruel

So death by lethal injection is less cruel? Right. And I find it amazing that you use an earthworm in comparison to a human being... maybe that's why you don't think ending a human beings life simply because "the mother doesn't want them" is that big of a deal.

 

[yRaz]

So death by lethal injection is less cruel? Right. And I find it amazing that you use an earthworm in comparison to a human being... maybe that's why you don't think ending a human beings life simply because "the mother doesn't want them" is that big of a deal.

The biggest lie ever told is the idea that we believe life is precious. So you want to bring a child to be brought into this world and then let it die of easily preventable disease? Do we need to start seeing children with missing limbs after getting polio before people start to care again? Fact of the matter is that your ignorance is doing more harm to society than the people getting abortikns. You don't get to tell other people what is right simply because those ideas make you feel good.

As far as vaccines? May father helped create some of the first flu vaccine and he has gone over the science with me extensively. While "not 100% harmless" there is nothing in vaccines other than deactived virus and, increasingly less common, a preservative. Many people blame the preservative as what causes autism but people don't think twice about eating a bag of chips or drinking a pop.

The tablets we shove in front of kids faces while we let them down high fructose corn syrup does far more harm than a vaccine ever will. Your outdated and unfounded ideas do more damage than vaccines ever could

 

[polvo]

The biggest lie ever told is the idea that we believe life is precious. So you want to bring a child to be brought into this world and then let it die of easily preventable disease? Do we need to start seeing children with missing limbs after getting polio before people start to care again? Fact of the matter is that your ignorance is doing more harm to society than the people getting abortikns. You don't get to tell other people what is right simply because those ideas make you feel good.

So right there, we don't see eye to eye... because if life isn't precious, then why should we even care about anything at all? In-the-womb kids or the ones on the outside? And if you want to see missing limbs on kids... pull up some abortion videos and watch them rip the limbs off little human beings as they're trying to get all the "parts" out after an abortion... yes, that's what they do... Don't pretend to care about the well being of kids unless you're going to start from the very beginning.

And if the idea that all life should be cared for is outdated and unfounded, then call me old fashioned, because killing humans in the name of convenience and ideology is what Hitler did.

 

[Evernessince]

So death by lethal injection is less cruel? Right. And I find it amazing that you use an earthworm in comparison to a human being... maybe that's why you don't think ending a human beings life simply because "the mother doesn't want them" is that big of a deal.

You are awfully selective with your definition of life. No, the earthworm example was to point out how ridiculous it is to classify a living creature simply by a heartbeat. A fetus can have a heartbeat in 5 weeks but does not gain consciousness until 24 -25 weeks and cannot feel pain until the 27th week.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...ther-scientific-answers-on-abortion-1.3506968

There are many reasons an abortion is needed, stop trying to take words out of context to fit your narrative.

Cut the drama and look at the facts.

So right there, we don't see eye to eye... because if life isn't precious, then why should we even care about anything at all? In-the-womb kids or the ones on the outside? And if you want to see missing limbs on kids... pull up some abortion videos and watch them rip the limbs off little human beings as they're trying to get all the "parts" out after an abortion... yes, that's what they do... Don't pretend to care about the well being of kids unless you're going to start from the very beginning.

And if the idea that all life should be cared for is outdated and unfounded, then call me old fashioned, because killing humans in the name of convenience and ideology is what Hitler did.

Well first off you clearly don't care about all life, otherwise you wouldn't have balked at earthworms being compared to humans.

Second, you go off and make incorrect assumptions about what yRaz said.

Third, whatever abortion video you are watching isn't how 99.9% of abortions are performed

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/l...res/what-happens-during-an-in-clinic-abortion

Let me guess, you saw a video on facebook?

Fourth, stop trying to BS the reason for an abortion taking place. People do not get abortions for convenience and you completely downplay how hard it is for someone to make that decision. It's because of people like you that people who were raped in Georgia have issues finding an abortion clinic. There are many reasons people get abortions and none of them are desirable. Demonizing people who get them though is wrong. You claim to care for people yet you so easily put down people without even knowing their reasoning. If anything persecuting people for getting an abortion and making it harder only increases the chances of them getting an illegal abortion. You aren't helping the situation, you are making it worse.

Fifth, I have yet to see a single word for you on how you plan to take care of all these babies.

 

[yRaz]

Fifth, I have yet to see a single word for you on how you plan to take care of all these babies.

The point I was trying to make with this guy is that he wants the babies to be born because the idea makes him feel good but he doesn't want yo take care of them after they're born because "socialism". And I hate it that people all too often confuse communism with socialism.

He doesn't want to feed these babies, he doesn't want to vaccinate them. He doesn't believe life is precious at all.

 

[wiyosaya]

More specifically that former doctor, Andrew Wakefield, was paid by a vaccine maker which only made single vaccines (only measles or mumps, etc.) to publish that paper full of fake data in order to trash the reputations of the combo vaccines (MMR and DTaP) so that the single vaccine maker would get more sales.

The damn thing wasn't even a hit piece on vaccines in general, rather it was intended by one vax maker to boost sales by talking smack about another one.

So 2 decades later a now-retracted paper full of invented numbers, written by a medical fraud, paid for by a sleazy company is being used to brainwash gullible and paranoid people to sicken, maim, and kill children.

There's your antivax in a nutshell.

It is not the only time that some industry has paid doctors to say things in their favor. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat

 

[amghwk]

Another health claim with scientific backing... abortion stops more beating hearts per year than the measles could ever dream of... how about we tackle that one as well?

Going to have to disagree, there is a significant chunk of the population that I wish was aborted

Thanos thinks the same too.

 

[captaincranky]

By the way, this is the same candidate that not so long ago claimed that wind turbine's caused brain cancer .......

Was this the same candidate who also claimed that living next to wind turbines caused your homes value to decrease by 70%? I say bring one on next to everybody's house, as long as you can get ther tax accessors go fo along with it.

In fact, I wouldn't be sat all surprised if Trump had a wind turbine on a flat bed trailer, to frag around and park next to his golf courses when, "the tax man cometh".

(Not in an election year though, then they're worth "billions and billions of dollars".

 

[Markoni35]

Instead of battling anti-vaccination movement someone should punish vaccine producers for what they do. And if you ask "What is it that they do", thank you for asking, well... the answer is pretty simple.

Let me make an analogy with a rotten car mechanic:

He fixes one problem on your car, but causes 2-3 other problems. Two weeks later, you're visiting him again. He fixes those new problems, and charges you for that, but then causes a few more problems (free of charge). A few weeks later, you'll have to visit him again. Until one day you figure out he's a dirty cheating bastard. It's not that car mechanic can't be good. Of course he can.

Vaccines can be good too. The problem is, those who were making good vaccines didn't earn as much money as those who were corrupt. So the honest ones went bankrupt and were bought by the rotten ones. The bad guys won. That's how evolution works. The dirtiest scumbags survive, the good ones go extinct.

But wait, there's more. It hurts even more that you're not allowed to tell the truth. I mean, you're allowed to say "my car mechanic is a piece of ****" but you're NOT allowed to call the pharmaceutical industry rotten and corrupt. If you say so, the media will call you "a conspiracy theorist". That's the name you get every time you tell the truth about powerful people. So basically, it's a compliment.

 

[captaincranky]

Instead of battling anti-vaccination movement someone should punish vaccine producers for what they do. And if you ask "What is it that they do", thank you for asking, well... the answer is pretty simple.

Let me make an analogy with a rotten car mechanic:

He fixes one problem on your car, but causes 2-3 other problems. Two weeks later, you're visiting him again. He fixes those new problems, and charges you for that, but then causes a few more problems (free of charge). A few weeks later, you'll have to visit him again. Until one day you figure out he's a dirty cheating bastard. It's not that car mechanic can't be good. Of course he can.

Vaccines can be good too. The problem is, those who were making good vaccines didn't earn as much money as those who were corrupt. So the honest ones went bankrupt and were bought by the rotten ones. The bad guys won. That's how evolution works. The dirtiest scumbags survive, the good ones go extinct.

But wait, there's more. It hurts even more that you're not allowed to tell the truth. I mean, you're allowed to say "my car mechanic is a piece of ****" but you're NOT allowed to call the pharmaceutical industry rotten and corrupt. If you say so, the media will call you "a conspiracy theorist". That's the name you get every time you tell the truth about powerful people. So basically, it's a compliment.

This is a bizarre analogy, and it smacks of anti vaxer propaganda. Additionally, it makes almost no sense.

Accordingly, I'm reporting the post. I don't have the authority to remove your post. That privilege falls to our moderators

But as with any contest, (even enjoying the sound of one's own voice at Techspot), "decision of the judges is final"!

 

[Lew Zealand]

Instead of battling anti-vaccination movement someone should punish vaccine producers for what they do. And if you ask "What is it that they do", thank you for asking, well... the answer is pretty simple.

Let me make an analogy with a rotten car mechanic:

He fixes one problem on your car, but causes 2-3 other problems. Two weeks later, you're visiting him again. He fixes those new problems, and charges you for that, but then causes a few more problems (free of charge). A few weeks later, you'll have to visit him again. Until one day you figure out he's a dirty cheating bastard. It's not that car mechanic can't be good. Of course he can.

Vaccines can be good too. The problem is, those who were making good vaccines didn't earn as much money as those who were corrupt. So the honest ones went bankrupt and were bought by the rotten ones. The bad guys won. That's how evolution works. The dirtiest scumbags survive, the good ones go extinct.

But wait, there's more. It hurts even more that you're not allowed to tell the truth. I mean, you're allowed to say "my car mechanic is a piece of ****" but you're NOT allowed to call the pharmaceutical industry rotten and corrupt. If you say so, the media will call you "a conspiracy theorist". That's the name you get every time you tell the truth about powerful people. So basically, it's a compliment.

That's a nice piece of fiction, full of bogeymen, straw men and imaginary circumstances, but ultimately devoid of any facts.