Read full text: https://www.unz.com/article/vaccine-evangelists-apostates-and/
Part 1 – The Evangelists
This essay series is a deep dive into the vaccine conflict: the preaching of the Vaccine Evangelists, the refutation of that preaching by the Vaccine Apostates, and the protection of the Vaccine Evangelists by the Vaccine Apologists.
Evangelists preach and promote the faith.
Apostates have abandoned the faith and may work to actively undermine it.
Apologists defend the faith.
Here’s what’s happening – Vaccine Evangelists preach, and have long been preaching, the doctrine of Salvation Through Vaccination in which they credit vaccines as having brought us deliverance from the high mortality rates, especially among infants and children in the 19th and early 20th centuries, caused by massive yearly numbers of deaths attributed to infectious diseases.
Vaccine Apostates have debunked, and continue to debunk the Vaccine Evangelists’ sermons.
Vaccine Apologists have the task of damage control and containment. The apologists do not directly defend the central misconception put forth by the Vaccine Evangelists. Rarely do the Vaccine Apologists even acknowledge the central misconception being preached by the Evangelists at all, because to do so would emphasize that such a misconception is, indeed, being preached. They instead protect the evangelists by rerouting the conversation with red herrings, accuse the Vaccine Apostates of attacking strawmen, and act as though the Evangelists haven’t been saying the things they’ve been saying.
So then, the first order of business to keep the conversation honest and in accordance with reality, is to demonstrate, that yes, Vaccine Evangelists, absolutely do, quite frequently, promote the belief that vaccines played a primary role in causing the drastic decline in deaths attributed to infectious disease in general, and many major diseases in particular, that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially as this relates to the plummet in infant and child mortality rates. And they also imply and sometimes directly preach the corollary belief that, these diseases would return with comparable devastation if we stopped vaccination against them. (Which I will sometimes refer to in this series simply as “The Belief in Question” and “Central Misconception” for short)
Therefore, this first installment of this essay series is centered on an exhibition (collection of noteworthy examples) of Vaccine Evangelists preaching the aforementioned belief. We’ll get to this exhibition right after some introductory words and forewarnings, analogies to assist in understanding the dynamic at play here, and clarification of some basic terminology that will be important for the reader to keep in mind throughout this essay series.