Re: “Some skepticism can be healthy” (Letters to the Editor, March 18)
Paul Van Esbroeck writes that some skepticism can be healthy. He indicates that the long discredited Wakefield study linking the measles vaccine to autism cannot be the sole cause of the anti-vaccine movement, that the study was a lightning rod for those who already distrusted the medical/pharmaceutical industry.
I would suggest that the majority of the people who are against vaccines are not skeptics. Rather they are denialist, irrational thinkers, unable or unwilling to accept peer-reviewed, credible, complex and unnerving meta evidence.
A skeptic relies on public, observable, repeatable data to make and support an argument. Skepticism is indeed healthy. Denialism based on pseudoscience is harmful and can threaten our lives.
Stratis Ioannou, Verdun
