Facebook's militant moms fuel the dangerous anti-vaccination movement across Britain that could kill your kids

Her eyes swollen, her tiny body swollen and covered with a horrible rash, Alba Moss was barely a year old when she had to fight the killer measles virus.

Too young at the time for receiving the first dose of the MMR vaccine, she spent eight days in the hospital critically ill.

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This terrifying experience made his mother Jill angry to see the parents hiding behind their Facebook profile and fueling the anti-vaxx movement, which is leading the UK into a measles epidemic.

Jill blames them for leaving his little girl exposed.

"Alba was too young to receive her MMR vaccine when she got sick, which forced her to fight this killer virus without any immunity," she says.

"Measles is not just a rash – it can cause blindness, encephalitis and pneumonia. We must do more people. Vaccinate your children. "

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Fortunately, Alba has recovered, but many children are not so lucky.

More than 41,000 people across Europe have been infected with measles in the first six months of 2018, killing 37 people.

231 others were diagnosed in England in the first three months of this year.

At the same time, vaccination rates fell steadily to 87.2%, a level insufficient to allow widespread immunity.

Celebrity moms are also peddling the dangerous anti-jab message like Melinda Messenger, Jenny McCarthy and Kristin Cavallari who have chosen not to vaccinate their children.

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The British epidemic

The resurgence of measles is on the brink of an epidemic in London schools and leading doctors are calling for WRM to become a legal requirement for students.

But who is responsible for the deadly rise?

The responsibility lies largely with the so-called "anti-Vaxx" groups – an increasingly powerful lobby dedicated to scare parents to prevent their children from taking the optional option – although recommended by the NHS – from MMR.

But these people do not bind themselves to Parliament to make a point; These are women you see on the doorstep of the school, like Anna Watson, a Surrey mother, who brags openly about her parents that she's convinced to follow the "natural" way and questions medical facts and advice on immunization.

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Get rid of anti-vaxx

On social networks, moms like Anna will see a macabre picture of dead pigs tied up in a slaughterhouse and share them.

For a passerby, it is tempting to think that this is a page dedicated to the defense of animal rights.

Only the legend below shows that it is something very different.

"It's here that autism begins," one reads.

"The plant pork bones soaked with glyphosate were the source of the MMR virus. And parents want to inject them to babies?

This is one of many deliberately provocative images posted on social media pages, all of which evoke a similar theme.

Another shows images of critically ill children lying in hospital beds – the victims, according to legend, have had serious side effects after receiving the MMR vaccine.

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Fact against fiction

Given to immunize against measles, mumps and rubella, MMR vaccine is traditionally given in two doses, the first dose between 12 and 15 months and the second dose between 4 and 6 years.

On the other hand, the anti-vaxx movement dates back to 1998, when a study by Andrew Wakefield – a former disgraced gastroenterologist – published a study in which he claimed to have found a connection between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). vaccine and autism.

This study has now been completely discredited and, in 2010, Wakefield was stripped of its medical license.

Yet the damaging myth that he has created and that associates MMR vaccine with other diseases persists.

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Although public health agencies estimate that 20 million cases of measles and 4,500 deaths have been prevented since 1968 in the United Kingdom because of vaccination, an increasing number of social media sites are disseminating an alternative reality: that vaccinations they themselves cause illness and death.

In February of this year, it was reported that eight of the twelve largest Facebook groups that had proposed research "vaccination" spoke out against vaccines.

One of the most popular is Arnica Parents Support Network (36,000 members and up).

Founded in 2007 by the aforementioned mother, Anna Watson – she also serves as secretary of the European Forum for Vaccine Vigilance – she claims to have created the site to help mothers like her to sift through the "mountain of conflicting evidence" about vaccines and crows the growing number of parents who choose not to vaccinate.

"I can now join ten families who have chosen not to vaccinate," she boasts.

Some of the most common publications on the site include questions from parents asking "What natural things can children take to prevent measles? – the answers only recommend vitamins – and a mother said, "You want your children to contract these mild childhood diseases. That's the goal. "

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The Arnica Facebook Group has a sister site – arnica.org.uk – which sells badges, shows ads and asks for donations – a common point with many similar sites, many of which offer advertising and donation link buttons – although it is not done. clear in all cases where the money goes.

The virus becomes viral

The website of his anti-vaxx colleagues, VINE – the Vaccine Information Network – also features a donation button.

Created in 2011, it has more than 4,500 followers and also shares videos and articles highlighting the dangers of various vaccines.

Like others in the same vein, it is designed to shock, and abounds with endlessly alarming stories, including a section called "Vaccine-related Injuries" showing horrific images of sick babies lying in hospital beds with son, detailing horrible stories of alleged injuries.

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Charisse, one of the administrators of the site, says that his vaccines have hurt his son, as "countless other children".

"Have you looked for vaccines? I did it, she continues.

"I learned that all safety tests were fraudulent. Therefore, any child receiving a vaccine is a guinea pig.

"I also looked at ingredients like aluminum and discovered that injection into human life had never been proven safe, let alone in babies whose immune system was developing.

"Science does not support vaccination and has not done so since history."

The anti-vaccination sites are designed to shock, with horrific images of sick babies lying in hospital beds with attached wires, detailing horrific stories of alleged injuries.

On the same site, Carla Moscatelli writes that her son Luka was a perfectly normal baby before being vaccinated at the age of eighteen months, after which he suffered irreversible physical and neurological injuries.

"My son has no functional language and he has been following speech therapy since March 2017," she writes, which is heartbreaking for any parent to read.

"My son is always sick and screams / cries in pain," she adds.

Of course, while it is understandable that desperate moms often want answers to their child's illness, none of these claims have been subjected to medical examination.

There's only one little warning, hidden at the bottom of VINE's home page, that shows no one on the site is a health professional: "We do not give medical advice because we do not we are not general practitioners, "we read.

"We are simply providing immunization research information and research to enable parents to make an informed decision."

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The lack of certifiable medical knowledge has not prevented anti-vaxxers from making more and more ridiculous follies: the founder of Vaccine Risk Awareness, Joanna Karpasea-Jones, 42, of Nottingham- says that his five children and three grandchildren are unvaccinated and completely unhealthy. Problems – says that one of his children contracted what "looked like measles" after sitting next to a baby who had just had his MMR.

"I suspected it was coming from excretion," she writes, peddling even more misinformation to other Facebook parents, who, in turn, make money from sick children. .

"According to one study, the MMR vaccine stays for 21 days and the nasal flu vaccine for 28 days. It is possible to pass it on to other people simply by breathing. "

We are working to combat misinformation about vaccines on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the subject.

Monika BickerVP, Global Policy Management at Facebook

Such statements have led many people to ask Facebook to stop misinformation.

Monika Bickert, Vice President, Global Policy Management at Facebook, insists that they are closely monitoring and investigating such groups.

Among other things, they reduce the ranking of groups and pages that propagate erroneous information about vaccination and can also remove access to their fundraising tools.

"We are working to combat the misinformation about vaccines on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the subject," said Bickert.

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In the real world, in the meantime, the issue dominated discussions at the door of the school and led to angry exchanges on social media.

Many parents point out that children of anti-vaxxers benefit from "collective immunity", a form of indirect protection against infectious diseases that occurs when a high percentage of the population has been infected, thus offering a some protection to individuals who are not.

It only works when the vast majority of children are vaccinated, which, as we have seen, is under threat.

So when will it stop?

To learn more about Fabulous Digital, check out our report on the glorification of suicide on Instagram.

Want to know more about measles? Can you catch twice, what are the symptoms and can you get the disease if you have received the MMR vaccine? Read here

A mother tells how her son almost died of measles while a study warns of a crisis caused by anti-vaccination sites online