Anti-vaxx mum used social media sources
A teenager who made headlines after defying his anti-vaxx mother testified in front of Congress yesterday, saying his mother’s misinformation stemmed from social media.
Ethan Lindenberger, a teenager from of Norwalk, Ohio, travelled to Washington, DC to speak at a health, education, labour and pension committee hearing yesterday on a panel alongside health experts including John Wiesman, Washington state’s Secretary of Health.
He said as he approached high school and questioned why he wasn’t vaccinated, his mother often met him with misinformation she found online and in social media groups – never trusting health officials. He recalled showing his mother articles from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and her replying with scepticism.
‘‘That’s what they want you to think,’’ she would tell him, Lindenberger said yesterday.
In a question and answer portion of the hearing, Lindenberger named Facebook as one of the sites his mother used often to wrongly suggest vaccines could cause harm. He also said she has posted videos with fake news on the site.
He said it’s with ‘‘respect and love’’ he disagrees with his mother. Learning to research and debate in high school, Lindenberger, 18, said he learned ‘‘there always seems to be two sides to a discussion . . . This is not true for the vaccine debate.’’
This isn’t the first time Facebook has been accused of being a platform for fake health news. Responding to backlash last month, Facebook said it had ‘‘taken steps’’ to reduce misinformation around anti-vaxx posts.
The committee hearing comes as the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention monitors six measles outbreaks across the nation, including in Clark County Washington where 70 confirmed cases have been reported.
Lindenberger reached out to Reddit users a few months ago to ask whether he could be vaccinated as an adult.
After his thread went viral, he told Good Morning America he never received vaccines for hepatitis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella or chickenpox. In December, he caught up on his missed immunisations. – USA Today