Anti Vaccination Movement

In February 1998, The Lancet published a paper by London gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield claiming that MMR vaccination was linked to a mix of colitis and regressive developmental disorders in 12 children studied at the Royal Free Hospital in London, with the parents of eight blaming the shot for behavioural changes that started shortly after their child was vaccinated1. British reporter Brian Deer investigated the study for The Sunday Times of London and later exposed it as research fraud, showing that patient histories had been altered and that Wakefield had undisclosed financial ties to lawyers preparing to sue vaccine manufacturers1.

Nine years after the paper first appeared, actress Jenny McCarthy went public with the claim that vaccines had caused her son's autism, a position that helped strengthen the movement's celebrity wing2.

On June 30, 2015, California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 277, one of the strictest school-vaccination laws in the United States, ending personal-belief and religious exemptions for schoolchildren4. Actor Jim Carrey answered the signing with a long Twitter rant calling Brown a "corporate fascist" and accusing the state of "poisoning" children with mercury and aluminum in "manditory vaccines"2. Carrey insisted he was not anti-vaccine but "anti-Thimerosal, anti-mercury," and pointed followers to a documentary called Trace Amounts4. He also called the US Centers for Disease Control "corrupt" for defending Thimerosal6.

The story pulled Jenny McCarthy back into the spotlight, since Carrey had dated the actress for five years and her advocacy had already helped push the movement into the mainstream4. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel had already skewered anti-vax parents earlier that year, telling viewers that "unvaccinated kids put all kids in danger, especially babies who are too young to get the vaccination shot"4.