The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy

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The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

The fierce wars over vaccines and autism won't end because of one book, but The Panic Virus is at least a first step in making the debates more civil. Seth Mnookin, the author of this book, knows that vaccines are a volatile issue. Everyone who remembers the polio epidemic or who knows a parent raising an autistic child will recognize the seriousness of what gets into our children's body. Mnookin discusses this complicated issue in detail, not ignoring either the epidemics of past eras or early vaccine mishaps. Nor does he limit his exposition to scientific reports: He devotes full chapters to vaccine critics David Kirby (Evidence of Harm) and Jenny McCarthy (Louder Than Words). This is a significant milestone in a debate too important to simply end. —R.J. Wilson, Bookseller, #1002, New York NY

From the Publisher
“Seth Mnookin’s The Panic Virus is a lesson how fear hijacks reason and emotion trumps logic. . . . A brilliant piece of reportage and science writing."

—Michael Shermer, The Wall Street Journal

"The Panic Virus is sure to attract attention. . . . Mnookin's book is an unsparing brief against the vaccine skeptics. But in a larger sense, this volume is less about the insurrection against inoculations than it is about the democratization of information. . . . Less about the contagion of ideas than about the contagion of misinformation and mistrust that metastasizes in the new technology."

—David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe

Sandra G. Boodman
…[a] disturbing and well-told chronicle of the childhood vaccine wars in the United States and England.
—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
In this searching exposé, the recent hysteria over childhood vaccinations and their alleged link to autism be-comes a cautionary tale of bad science amplified by media sensationalism. Journalist Mnookin (Hard News) treats the belief that autism is caused by common vaccines as an epidemic, tracing its origin to a young British doctor's dubious research into Crohn's disease and measles in the early 1990s. This "panic virus" spread through online communities of parents desperate for answers; fueled by mainstream media, it has created a growing reluctance on the part of parents to vaccinate their children, which, Mnookin warns, results in an increased rate of children dying from preventable infectious diseases. Crucial to this virus's spread was the unwillingness of reporters to parse complex health statistics and their embrace of a populist story line about feisty "Mercury Moms" challenging a corrupt and covert medical establishment. Mnookin presents a thorough and lucid debunking of the claims of a link between vaccines and autism and the charlatanism and profiteering of those who publicize it. The result is a hard-hitting contribution to the debate and a troubling portrait of a public sphere that elevates intuition and emotion above reason and evidence. (Jan. 11)
Kirkus Reviews

Does vaccinating a child cause autism? In the face of a considerable lobby arguing in the affirmative, Vanity Faircontributor Mnookin (Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top, 2006, etc.) replies with a resounding no.

Vaccination has had its critics since the days of Edward Jenner and cowpox, but the autism scare is fairly new, gathering force with the declaration of a British gastroenterologist named Andrew Wakefield, in 1998, that a gut disorder was linked both to the MMR vaccine and to the onset of autism. Wakefield's alarm echoed widely. As Mnookin notes, it seems to have been heard particularly clearly in wealthy communities and "left-leaning, well-educated enclaves," among them Ashland, Ore., and Marin County, Calif. In these affluent areas, children are not being vaccinated, with the result that "an entire century's worth of medical advances have effectively been reversed." Some readers may suspect hyperbole, but the author has the numbers in his favor. Mumps, measles, whooping cough and other illnesses once thought conquered have returned, far more dangerous than the statistical risk of any mishap attributable to vaccination. Mnookin ties the current anti-vaccination fervor, which vastly outstrips earlier campaigns against vaccination (and its close cousin, fluoridation), to the flourishing of the anti-science mood generally, relating it to, say, the Kentucky legislature's insistence that evolution be treated as a mere theory on par with creationism. But bad science and its champions are one thing, Mnookin adds; quite another is the spreading of fear and alarmism via "media outlets that eschew nuance and depth in favor of attention-grabbing declarations." In all of these areas, the author names names—to the point that one wonders whether we'll be hearing more about his worthy book in the legal news.

A solid work of popular science, and sure to court controversy.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781439158654
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Publication date: 1/3/2012
  • Pages: 439
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Table of Contents

Cast of Characters xv

Abbreviations xix

Introduction 1

Part I

1 The Spotted Pimple of Death 23

2 Milkmaid. Envy and. a Fear of Modernity 30

3 The Polio Vaccine: From Medical Miracle to Public Health Catastrophe 39

4 Fluoride Scares and Swine Flu Scandals 55

5 "Vaccine Roulette" 67

6 Autism's Evolving Identities 76

7 Help! There Are Fibers Growing Out of My Eyeballs! 87

Part II

8 Enter Andrew Wakefield 99

9 The Lancet Paper 106

10 Thimerosal and the Mystery of Minamata's Dancing Cats 118

11 The Mercury Moms 133

12 The Simpsonwood Conference and the Speed of Light: A Brief History of Science 146

13 The Media and Its Messages 160

14 Mark Geier, Witness for Hire 170

15 The Case of Michelle Cedillo 178

16 Cognitive Biases and Availability Cascades 192

Part III

17 How to Turn a Lack of Evidence into Evidence of Harm 203

18 A Conspiracy of Dunces 221

19 Autism Speaks 228

20 Katie Wright's Accidental Manifesto 239

21 Jenny McCarthy's Mommy Instinct 249

22 Medical NIMBYism and Faith-Based Metaphysics 265

23 Baby Brie 274

24 Casualties of a War Built on Lies 283

Epilogue 299

Afterword 309

Acknowledgments 315

Notes 319

Bibliography 381

Index 421

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
( 26 )
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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 26 Customer Reviews

  • Posted March 19, 2011

    The Passion behind the Panic

    In THE PANIC VIRUS, Mnookin effectively brings to life the debate over vacinations in hopes of delinquishing mass hysteria that has attacked child innoculations and blindly accuses thimerosal laced in needles to be a cause of autism. Mnookin's use of past disease statistics and personal accounts of disease-stricken children educates the reader on the horrific consequences of viruses in unvaccinated populations. The reader may be overwhelmed with mass evidence provided by Mnookin stating the power of scientific exploration. Although there is strong evidence of scientific success, Mnookin also reveals mistakes that have been made in early stages of vaccination production that may be a source of present hysteria. Nonetheless, this book digs into both sides of the debate and leaves science based on reason as a clear winner. I chose this book for an assignent in my english class that required me to read a nonfiction book that connects to my major, microbiology pathogenesis. When I purchased this book, I was unaware that the contents would move me and bring the nature of science so vividly to my discretion. As a young woman, I am oblivious of disasterous diseases such as measles and polio. Thanks to Mnookin, I was able to understand the montrous consequences of viruses, current hysteria of vaccinations, and public health relations regarding the growing field of microbial science. I was emotionally torn when I read of Baby Brie and her fight with whooping cough. As a studying microbiologist, I find it heart-breaking when people choose not to vaccinate when the science is so clear. After reading this book, I was inspired to inform the public of the importance of vaccinations. Unfortunately, mass media seems to bring about the resurgence of once eradicated diseases, such as whooping cough. I am hoping that the scientists of today can follow Mnookin's steps in attacking the anti-vaccine movement. This book was an excellent read and I suggest this book to be read by any parent or person desiring to have children because the debate over vaccinations is significant and deadly to humanity. Jessica, OSU Comp Student Spring 2011

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 30, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    A Must Read, Especially by Parents of Small Children

    THE PANIC VIRUS is about the allegation that childhood vaccines cause autism, and the resulting anti-vaccine campaigns that have resulted in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries.


    Seth Mnookin's book starts out slow: there's a great deal of solid scientific study spanning decades to be explained and to his credit, he takes the time and space to do it. When he finishes, the case he makes is detailed and devastating. There is absolutely no reliable, reproducible science supporting the contention that childhood vaccines cause autism. There is, however, mounting and undeniable evidence that, because parents are neglecting to vaccinate their children in response to these groundless fears, communicable diseases that we thought conquered fifty to seventy years ago are making a comeback, and children are dying as a result.


    Public health officials were slow to appreciate the threat to public health that the anti-vaccine campaigns represented, and clumsy and flatfooted in their response, and in their attempt to educate the public; Mnookin makes no attempt to minimize their failings. Mnookin also makes it clear that the parents of autistic children, parents who have been the foot soldiers for these campaigns are not the villains here. These people who are trying night and day to do what's best for their children have been exploited by charlatans and misled by ill-informed celebrities without an iota of scientific or medical training. Their fault, if any, is one that we all share to a greater or lesser extent: uncritical use of and belief in the flood of information, and more particularly misinformation, available on the Internet.


    Mnookin reserves his real fire for three actors. The first is the junk scientists who publish results that cannot be reproduced, and then confuse the parents and other laypeople by insisting that, since legitimate scientists can't accomplish the logical impossibility of proving a negative -- in this case, that all vaccines are always safe for all children -- all vaccines must be suspect. The second is the list of celebrities who give a forum to the first group, and repeatedly tell parents that they should rely on "Mommy Instinct" (an actual term used in the campaigns) rather than science. The third, and perhaps the most culpable group, is those in the news media, who have consistently treated this debate as if it were a real "controversy" that required "equal time for both sides of the question", even though all the science and all the facts are on just one side, and wherever confusion is created, children are dying.


    Every parent of a small child should read this book. Parents of small children should especially read this book if they happen to meet this description from the book in any way:


    "These people were our peers: They gravitated toward fields like journalism or law or computer programming or public policy; they lived in college towns like Ann Arbor and Austin or sophisticated centers like Boston and Brooklyn; they drove Priuses and shopped at Whole Foods. They tended to be self-satisfied, found it difficult to conceive of a world in which their voices were not heard, and took pride in being intellectually curious, thoughtful and rational."


    Those towns and others like them are where the number of unvaccinated children is increasing today -- and where the outbreaks of tomorrow will probably originate, if the cur

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 15, 2012

    Excellent

    Highly recommended

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 13, 2012

    Ashfur to deathstar

    I smell twolegs!

    0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 19, 2012

    great examination of the public's perception of medicine

    Great, great read. Mnookin examines the reasons why an increasing number of people are resisting vaccination for their children, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary. He presents a history of vaccination and how the government and media have affected the public's understanding of vaccines. Mnookin's writing is clear and easy to read, and the book is very enjoyable.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 1, 2011

    Tragically riveting

    The story about Matthew at the beginning was the perfect hook. I could barely put it down. Given that I was already in support of vaccination, I tried to approach it objectively so I just didn't nod obediently as Mnookin preached to the choir. Though some aspects were slightly sensationalized, on the whole it was very informative and eye opening, even to me (I considered myself pretty well educated in the controversy). It inspired me to do a bit of my own research into the topic, and that's been very fulfilling.

    I also thought he treated the topic of autism responsibly. I'm not personally acquainted with anyone afflicted with autism, but I don't believe it would be at all offensive to those who are.

    Overall, a great read for everyone from science lovers to new parents.

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