The Panic Virus

A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

De: Seth Mnookin

Narrado por: Dan John Miller

The Panic Virus is a gripping scientific detective story about how grassroots radicals, snake-oil salesmen, and cynical journalists have perpetrated the biggest health-scare hoax of all time. It explores what happens when the media treats all viewpoints as equally valid, regardless of facts, from parents who are convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism to right-wing radicals who believe that climate change is a myth. It also explains how the endless quantity of information available online has radicalized partisans by fueling their tendency to filter out anything that doesn't reinforce their way of thinking.

Tens of millions of dollars have been wasted appeasing denialists who think the government is perpetrating a health "holocaust" on children. Declining vaccination rates have caused recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and Hib - and children around the country are dying as a result.

Like works by Oliver Sacks and Richard Dawkins, The Panic Virus uses everyday experiences to show how science affects our lives. Listeners will learn why definitive proof in science is virtually impossible, how rational decision-making is ruled by emotion, and why paupers' graves in the 1880s led to an outbreak of throat cancer in the 1950s.

©2011 Seth Mnookin (P)2011 Tantor

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A riveting and important chronicle of one life-and-death realm in which passionate, panicky belief has dangerously trumped reason---and put millions of children at risk." (Kurt Andersen, author of Heyday)

Parents need to read this!

New parents experience a powerful need to protect their young children--a need that often surpasses all others. Having a new child can be a frightening time--the world seems to present so many threats to this vulnerable new human being depending on you for its welfare and survival. There are so many choices to make, often with competing views on how to make them. It is every parent's nightmare that a choice he/she makes might cause their child harm.

What this book makes clear is that vaccinating your child should NOT be one of those hard choices. The author powerfully demonstrates that widespread misinformation can all too often lead conscientious parents into very bad decisions; specifically, to avoid the potential harm to their child through childhood vaccinations (which is, in fact, minuscule) they actually expose their own child and other children to a fair greater danger--that of the very diseases these vaccines have so effectively conquered since they have been introduced.

What made me most angry reading this book was the callous attitude of those refraining from vaccinating their own children with regard to the welfare of other children. The only reason they can maintain their position is by relying on the fact that the large majority of children ARE vaccinated thereby creating a "herd Immunity." They certainly wouldn't want EVERYONE to take their advice in refraining from these critical vaccinations, because then the likelihood of their own child contracting the illness would dramatically increase. In fact, this phenomenon is already occurring in some locations and sadly the victims tend to be among the most vulnerable--new infants who are too young for the vaccine and babies with compromised immune systems.

This book will convince you that you are doing the right thing by your child AND your community by adhering to your doctor's advice in administering all recommended vaccinations!

Broad & Detailed

If you want a comprehensive view of the history of the science and psuedoscience of vaccines, this book will provide it. Seth Mnookin thoroughly exposes the anti-vaccination forces by describing in detail the contexts in which they rose. He also reveals the mistakes that govenrnment and science-based organizations have made which have contributed to the growth of the anti-vax movement within mainstream society. I was engrossed from start to finish. Highly recommendedf for those interested in the topic.

Interesting but slow

What did you like best about The Panic Virus? What did you like least?

The topics covered are very interesting but the way it is discussed seems to be the same stories retold in different ways over and over. I wish it focused more on the social/psychological aspects at work rather than specific autism vacine cases.

Don't vaccinate and see what happens

This book is an eye oppener. For the people who don't know how important vaccination is, and how exposed you become when you don't get your shots. The only problem, I guess, is that the book focus too much at autism. The author could shorten some one hundred pages.

Finally a Logical History on Vaccines and the Media

This is the first time I have come across a well documented, factual look at vaccines that doesn't try to manipulate your descision with emotions and hate toward science. Thank you!

Captivating, Enlightening, and Thoroughly Written

I found The Panic Virus, a non-fiction work by Seth Mnooke about the vaccine-autism controversy, to be fascinating and captivating - in fact, I finished the entire book in one day. Previously to reading, frequently hearing snippets here and there about the supposed harm of vaccines, I was not only curious about the subject but also frustrated that I didn’t know enough about it to defend the field of medicine, a honorable field that I someday hope to enter.

I was very grateful for the enlightenment I gained through reading this book, even as a college student without imminent plans of raising children. Thus, I can only imagine how appreciative parents might be for it. Mnooke recognizes parents’ fears without being accusatory or making them feel guilty for fearing or questioning, brings those fears directly into the limelight, and transparently addresses them using cold and hard logic. He also routinely incorporates an assortment of candid vignettes, compelling the reader to identify with the characters he descibes. Each of these anecdotes is crafted to just the right length, providing satisfying detail without becoming boring or excessive.

Additionally, Mnooke provides miniature lessons in psychology in an effort to help the audience gain insight on the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind the actions of the book’s characters. One such lesson, for example, was on a type of cognitive bias called cognitive dissonance and how pioneers of the anti-vaccine movement developed strengthened beliefs in response to evidence of their glaring mistakes and reports of their pseudoscience methods. Overall, Mnooke does an impressive job explaining this subject, especially since it’s one that he knew relatively little about previous to the start of this project.

As a result of reading this book, I’m upset about the damage that the anti-vaccine movement has caused but hopeful that more people will read this and come to their senses. Looking ahead, I agree with Mnooke that the best thing that parents can do is educate themselves and become more active in medical discussions, particularly during prenatal care, where things like a crying baby, gullible preschool parents, and temporal pressures cannot distract them from truly understanding why vaccines are imperative to their future child and all of society.

Eye opening information

Would you consider the audio edition of The Panic Virus to be better than the print version?

Yes as I have both.

Any additional comments?

It is good to hear this information that presents another view point on the immunization and vaccine safety issue. It comes across as truthful and the story told by someone who has the research experience to be able to tell the truth. As a nurse, I have seen the resurgence of medical illness' thought to controlled forever. This book can provide information needed to help people make a fair decision about the safety of vaccines.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

The day after I finished Seth Mnookin's "The Panic Virus" (2011) I heard Paul Krugman's March 30, 2014 New York Times Op-Ed "Jobs and Skills and Zombies." Referring to the 'skills gap', Krugman says, "It’s a prime example of a zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die." Mnookin makes the same point about the idea that vaccines cause autism: that theory's long ago disproven, and anti-vaccine/autism activists should let it pass peacefully.

That isn't to say that vaccines are either entirely safe, or entirely effective. They are neither, and no one should fault actress/activist Jenny McCarthy for demanding an investigation, especially with the recent substantial increase in autism diagnoses. Mnookin discusses some spectacular public health failures, including a MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine campaign in the United Kingdom that killed 19 children in a small community. The vaccine, stored without preservatives at the time, was contaminated with staphylococcus. There have been polio vaccine campaigns that have given people polio, and still do - although it's usually a very mild case. Mnookin's point is that, after careful study, autism isn't a complication - even of the preservative thimerosol. And, by the way - thimerosol hasn't been used in vaccines in the United States for more than a dozen years.

[Reviewer's commentary: Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, using (in part) intelligence provided by Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi administering CIA-funded Hepatitis-B vaccines in Abbatobad. The program was dramatized as a polio vaccine program in Kathryn Bigelow's 2012 movie "Zero Dark Thirty." According to a March 27, 2014 Huffington Post article, at least 30 polio health workers have been killed in Pakistan since then. That makes the odds of being killed while administering the polio vaccine substantially higher than the odds of having an adverse reaction to the polio vaccine.]

The book was well written and engaging, although it was a bit repetitive. That actually means, like Andrew Solomon's "Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity" (2012), various chapters can stand alone without the entire book. Solomon's book, by the way, has a lot of information on autism and disabilities and is a good follow up to "The Panic Virus."

Mnookin points out a problem for everyone: deciding not to vaccinate, especially against pertussis, or whooping cough, eliminates crowd immunity. As Nancy Shute reported for NPR on September 30. 2013, "Vaccine Refusals Fueled California's Whooping Cough Epidemic." In 2010, 10 babies in California who were too young to be vaccinated died.

Setting aside the 'good of the many' argument for immunizations, Mnookin drives home - with actual dollar amounts - that money and other resources that could be used to study the actual cause of autism, and to treat those on 'the spectrum' are being used to disprove a zombie theory. Dr. Temple Grandin, a PhD and widely respected scientist with autism recommended iPads for people with autism in her 2013 book "The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum." How many occupational therapists could have been hired, and how many iPads could have been purchased, for what the government has spent repeatedly studying the non-existent autism/vaccine link?

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Everyone should read this!!

This is a great chronology of the idiotic and dangerous "Anti-Vaxer" movement. People like Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield should be ashamed for every child who dies because people didn't vaccinate their children. But then that would require them to take themselves off their own pedestals first. (Oprah and the media are equally guilty)

Overview of the media being co-opted by the fringe

What did you love best about The Panic Virus?

The Panic virus provided a detailed history of vaccinations and various outbreaks. I thought it was fair because it covered the mistakes governments and companies made while still debunking the lunatic fringe and those who would profit off of the fears of parents. The two theme that stood out the most for me is the way in which the media enabled individuals, groups and doctors like Andrew Wakefield pushing junk science in part because outlets like CNN decided to fire their science staff. No one was vetting the stories! The other theme that stood out for me is the AVOIDABLE infant deaths that were caused by parents who decided not to vaccinate their children. Those stories are incredibly sad and I wondered if any of those refusing to vaccinate feel any guilt. I also couldn't help but think of all the money being wasted because children get sick due to preventable diseases making a return because parents decide to ignore valid scientific.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ethylmercury - it is not going to cause mercury poisoning.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

Michelle Cedillo exhibited signs of autism before she was vaccinated.

Any additional comments?

Just because someone "feels" they are right should not be taken as seriously as what can be verified through repeatable experimentation.