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snkpolls · 7 years ago

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SnK Chapter 97 Poll Results

The chapter 97 poll closed with 1,235 responses. Thank you to everyone for participating.

RATE THE CHAPTER (1,157 RESPONSES)

This is the highest rated chapter since we started asking this question 6 months ago. Many were delighted to see Eren again and felt that the plot was moving forward.

This is the chapter I've been waiting months for. Flashbacks with meaning. Plot progression. New revelations. Great chapter.

Best Marley chapter yet.

This chapter was honestly amazing, easily one of my favorite chapters. Not only do we get to see my boy Kenny again, Annie is there kicking his ass. We got Bertholdt's fortune telling sleeping positions(bless him). We got Reiner who is so fucking gone, I lost my shit for a second when I thought it was all gonna be over for him. Then we finally hear from the Tybur's and learn that Amputee-kun was Eren(no surprise with that one). Honestly just a beautiful chapter!

Made me more happy than getting a buy one get one coupon for Chick Fil A

Honestly I was expecting this chapter to be another flashback and generally boring instead I was pleasurably surprised by seeing my boi eren and Kenny ~wipes tear~ I JUST HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS CHAPTER O

This is the chapter we all needed. Finally, the plot's moving forward, and it's doing so really quickly! Hyped!

We went from "another useless flashback chapter" to "omg Isayama let us catch our breath" and this is hilarious. Not that I disliked flashback chapters, they were great...but THIS was THE chapter.

It's about time we had a chapter that pushed the plot forward and gave us some juicy reveals. The curtain has been down for far too long and it's now time for some conflict. Gimme grim reminder in the next chapter as well as more Pieck and Porky.

This chapter is just amazing. We got Eren as Amputee-kun, Willy Tybur, and a hint of Zekerets. Plus, there's also Eren's letter to look forward to. I feel like we'll be seeing the Paradis crew towards the end of Chapter 98. It serves as a great way to end the volume.

I was so happy to see the plot finally starting to move forwards again. I've loved getting the Marley perspective, but as I've said before, the pacing of these chapters has been abysmal. The plot's been largely stalled for nearly a year at this point, and I'm very excited to see it finally seeming to pick up direction again.

WHAT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE CHAPTER? (1,169 RESPONSES)

Things Involving Eren made up more than 55% of the vote. Anny vs Kenny pulled in 16.8% coming in third. And yes, I screwed up. I should’ve made Reiner’s suicide attempt a “best part” but I got caught up in the semantics of it all. I couldn’t see it as anything but a tragedy.

FINALLY!!! WE GOT TO SEE EVEN THE TINIEST GLIMPSE OF EREN.

Reiner's attempted suicide was one of the best moments of the chapter but you only made it an option under "worst"

Voted for nothing in the first two sections as the suicide attempt my favorite part of the chapter in terms of emotion and character development.

Annie "badass" Leonhardt was definitely a highlight of this chapter, though Eren's conversation just edged out ahead

Eren's character development and understanding Falco's situation

Loved the insight into Reiner's frame of mind on paradis. It seems like he was just as much in denial while being a warrior as he was as a soldier. Neither seem to be his genuine self. Poor kid!

MY SON IS BACK, MY SON IS BACK!!! Also I will eat my left shoe if the whole survey corps isnt nearby. This plan just seems like it has Armin written all over it.

It's so exciting to finally have the plot picking up again after an entire year of mostly exposition and development. Shit is definitely going down at that Tyber festival. Also lets just call Billy Thor because I can't deal with the idea that that is his name

WORST PART OF THE CHAPTER (1,080 RESPONSES)

What’s more tragic, the unfortunate name of the 9th titan shifter or Reiner’s desperate situation? Rather than include Reiner’s suicide in either of these questions, I probably should’ve just asked “How much do you want to hug Reiner?” because so many people do.

Lack of best girl Pieke

Can someone like... hug reiner?

Fucking WILLY is his name?!?!?

We thought Reiner's life couldn't get worse. Isayama works his magic yet again.

Willy is a term for dick so in actuality his name is Dick Tybur, the Wardick titan shifter

Blessed Reigner need not turn to suicide, fulfillment is in the self

Willy the Warhammer is even worse than Billy.

Reiner's suicide attempt was WICKED.

i wanna die almost as bad as reiner

WHAT WAS THE BEST REVEAL? (1,173 RESPONSES)

The Best Reveal is that we were all correct about Eren being Amuptee-kun. In a series this unpredictable, we take our victories where we can.

Since we're right about Eren being Amputee-kun, we might (should) as well be right with Annie x Father Leonhardt siding with Paradis! (please)

That justice boner being exactly right about Eren being the bum.

Annie and crazy uncle Kenny did meet and were on screen together. That makes me happy. I'm trying to understand Kenny's appearance lol. Did Isayama miss him or what ?

WE ASKED THIS LAST MONTH, BUT SINCE BERTOLT BROUGHT IT UP IT, LET’S DO IT AGAIN. DO YOU THINK ANNIE AND REINER ACTED ALONE AND KILLED THE MAN FOUND HANGING IN THE TREE? (1,087 RESPONSES)

When we first asked this question last month only 22% thought RBA might be involved in killing the man in order to create a bullet-proof hometown alibi. With the inclusion of Bert’s nightmares and Reiner’s shady expression, it looks like more people are coming around to the idea.

Why the hell people still think RBA or RA killed that man? It makes absolutely no sense and has no basis in the story.They kept saying it last chapter and it was proven wrong, and now they say Bert just didn't know about it? Really? Why wouldn't they tell him? They always discuss everything together, why not this? That look Reiner gave Bert was just him worried about his friend having nightmares or, if he's in his warrior mindset, worried that it might affect his performance.

I think Reiner was clearly involved in the hanged man's death, but there's little to zero evidence Annie was involved. I think this chapter also emphasized, despite his affection for Bert, how unreliable Reiner considered Bert to be.

'the man who hung himself' srsly the answers right there are u retarded?

I actually think Reiner killed the old man solo and didn't tell Bertholdt and Annie, though I'm not quite sure why he would do that.

CHAPTER 97'S "HOT OR NOT"

Annie got the most positive responses but it seems everyone is this chapter is hot except poor Magath. (That’s ok, Theo. I will continue to love you!)

Kenny is hot, Eren will be hot when he takes a shower, Reigner is hot too but is also broken beyond repair. This chapter fucked me up, everyone needs a rest.

You much awesomeness in this chapter! Willy is hot af!

I want Kenny to be my sugar daddy

My beautiful best girl Annie is back, and is cuter than ever. I love her. I want her to come back

my son looks like a hobo and I don't know how to cope with this

eren should fucking shave

Magath is making me wet with his humanity once more.

Annie is bae

WHO WORE IT BETTER?

LONG HAIR (1,172 RESPONSES)

For the "who wore it better" for long hair I didn't choose because both Willy and Eren look fab

Eren always looked a lot like his mother, but now he started looking like grisha too

The old Eren can't come to the phone rn. Why? Cause he's DEAD

eren became daddy

Eren looks like a pedo-hobo hybrid just so everyone knows.

How dare you not like Eren's hair mom

👀

PIGTAILS (1,126 Responses)

Poor Mina. Less than 30% felt like the original was better.

HAT (1,170 Responses)

Thank you fandom! My faith is restored.

THE " OH CRAP I'M USELESS" EXPRESSION (1,180 Responses)

Eren wins for now but hopefully Falco has a few more years to work on mastering the expression.

IN THIS PANEL, WILLY TYBUR IS: (1,090 Responses)

I think if I’d included a “both” option it would’ve been a landslide. Next chapter I hope we see Willy’s “I 💖 Helos” tattoo.

WHERE DO YOU THINK WILLY TYBUR IS GOING TO LAND ON THE MORALITY SCALE (1,120 Responses)

The range was from “Cinnamon Roll (1)” to “Final Boss (5)”. Most people seem to think Willy will end up the series being mostly bad news.

I almost wonder if Billy is a red flag and is going to end up dead or eaten instead of serving as a "final boss"

Billy Tybur is totes gonna be morally ambiguous , like every other villain.

DO YOU THINK THE ORIGINAL HELOS WAS AN ACKERMAN? (1,122 Responses)

WILLY SAID “MARLEY NEEDS HELOS ONCE MORE.” WHO DO YOU THINK THAT NEW HERO WILL BE? (1,054 Responses)

We are crazy divided on this question. While most seem confident the original Helos was an Ackerman, we have no idea who the new one will be. Eren is narrowly ahead of Levi. Mikasa and Zeke are battling it out for third. And even Magath pulled in a chunk of the vote with almost 7%. Gabi and Falco were popular choices. And Jean, Connie, Flocke, Sasha and Hange all got included as well.

Bertholdt rises from the dead and becomes the hero.

Obviously Mads I mean...duh

Pieck (As expected)

Falco will save marley with his cuteness

I really hope Mikasa, so she can be more relevant again.

I think Tybur referred to himself.

It's going to be Magath, but he will be used as a scapegoat; i don't see willy really trying to change the status quo.

There won't be a new Helos. The idea of becoming Helos is the apple that Willy is using to tempt Magath into doing something horribly stupid that is probably going to get him killed and fuck up the lives of all of his Titan Children even more. If that's even possible.

Udon, the reincarnation of Borutoruto, the God of Destruction and the right hand of Our Lord and Savior Reigner Braun.

Zofia, the true key character of this story, Helos reincarnated, Bringer of Doom and Savior of the Weak.

WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PANEL OF ZEKE ON THE PHONE: (1,100 Responses)

Slightly more than half the fandom believe the single panel of Zeke was included because he’s on the receiving end of Eren’s letter.

zeke looked like a fucking 70s teenage girl talking to her crush on the phone in that panel and that is the best part of the chapter to me

Zeke might be listening to the Willy/Magath coversation via a bug, or Magath wearing a wire. A Zeke/Magath plot is possible.

Significance of Zeke's panel is Zekerets

zeke's totally plotting something- don't know what but there's no way he's not. oh and eren pls. the mop needs to go.

I think Zeke was plotting with Magath, not the Tybur

I feel like Zeke being on the phone IS significant but not for any of the answers listed so I just had to say none.

what if Zeke was talking to one of the SC members & said something along the lines of ""He's here"" or something like that? Just thought that would kinda be badass.

IS EREN IN MARLEY ON A PERSONAL MISSION OR A SURVEY CORPS ONE? (1,108 Responses)

I was a bit surprised that this chart was so lopsided. I think a strong case could be made either way as to whether or not Eren is operating alone.

The "It's hard for me to show my face to my family now" line honestly has me worried. If the story takes it down this path as opposed to what we expect, then something ground-breaking must have happened during the time-skip. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin have been through everything together. If that was somehow torn apart, then so will my heart.

I wonder if Eren saying that he "can't go back" is a reference to Paradis (and he's acting on his own) or a reference to a more innocent past, where they knew nothing of the world and he didn't have all these memories inside him

I'm surprised there wasn't a question about whether or not Eren being there meant EMA separation, but I guess that'll be speculated until we get info one way or the other.

WHO IS EREN’S LETTER ADDRESSED TO (1,105 Responses)

The majority say the letter is for Zeke, but some write-ins include Pieck, Marcel and the Restorationists. Annie’s father showed up several times as well.

This question is Annie's father who happens to be harboring the Survey Corps

Armin and Mikasa explaining why he left alone without warning them

Eldian doctor that work with the owl

I think all these options are possible but I hope it's for Reiner.

I'm still debating on who it is but it's either Zeke or the SC

It could be either one of the survey corps or annie's father. I don't know, let's see in the future chapters ^^

It's not addressed to anyone, but delivering it is a signal to the others "Begin Operation Grim Reminder 2.0"

it's probably Zeke but I hope he contacts Reigner at some point

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO SEE IN CHAPTER 98? (CHOOSE 3) (1,190 Responses)

The recipient of the letter was top pick with 54% followed by the Tybur Family Festival with 44%. “The Survey Corp” and “Reiner and Eren Reunion” tied for third with 40.4%.

I really hope we don't have to wait too long to learn more about Eren's letter like we did with Ymir. Nonetheless I'm looking forward to future chapters!

I really need to see the Warhammer Titan in action

Can Reiner just be happy for once. Like please

This is it. Next chapter we'll get to see everyone else from paradis whether they're in Marley or not. It's the end of the volume! AAAH!

Damn excited for that festival!!!

Marley final arc is clearly a go now. Eren's in place, I suspect the Survey Corps are in place, reintroductions will happen soon and then everything will get moving. I still stand that 96 felt like stalling, but I totally get it, Isayama wants a big ch. 98 moment and we're getting it.

I really want to see more of Pieck and Porco. PLUS I want to see Porco meet Historia because that'd be an interesting conversation/fight!

I want to see adult Annie and Mikasa, and also Historia

My heart is beating whenever I think about chapter 98.

I'm really looking forward to knowing what the end-game is, and what plans the Teibers and Zeke have. Also, I'm really looking forward to what Eren is up to. I think next chapter is going to be a doozy and I can't wait!

HOW BADLY DO YOU WANT TO RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL CAST ON PARADIS? (1,189 Responses)

Last month 58% would sell theirs souls to see the original cast. That was down very slightly this month to 54%. Despite Eren being included in this chapter most are still anxious for news about the rest of the Survey Corps.

With Amputee-kun being Eren, there is no reason to want to return to Paradis. The important stuff is happening in Liberio, Paradis has nothing new.

Now that eren is back i think that the story will stay in Marley till the end, barring the occasional flashback

Would like to see how the original cast looks now.

I miss Levi and it's been so long since we've seen any of the main cast. It's nice to see the effects of the last four years on Reiner, but I'm very curious to see how Levi and the rest of the SC are dealing with their new knowledge, the loss of Erwin, their island without titans. Please, please get back to the main cast.

I wonder what is Mikasa's and the others' view on Eren's doings (yeah i understand that Marley is important but gimme Paradis already... please?

WHICH CHARACTERS DO YOU GENERALLY ENJOY THE MOST (1,195 Responses)

Very little changed from last month. I suspect it will remain consistent from here on out.

I love the 104th with all my heart!! But they can only truly qualify as my favourite group if RBA are included...

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES (1,103 Responses)

We took away the “other” option on this question to simplify the results and allowed people to check more than one. Hopefully this makes a better reflection of how we are discussing the series.

Thoughts about Reiner

Since I screwed Reiner over in the best/worst question, here’s a whole section of love for him

GIVE. REINER. HAPPINESS. NOW!!!

Plot armoured Titan strikes the feels.

#save reiner braun

Give Reiner some hapiness Isayama :(

That sequence of flashbacks interwoven with Reiner's suicide attempt are some of the strongest pages of this goddamn manga. I was so shook by it when I first saw it that I was left in a morbidly awed silence at how powerful the delivery was. I actually couldn't speak, so bravo isayama.

Reiner deserves all happines in this world

Reiner's suicide attempt made me cry and I've never been any more sad reading the manga..... Suicide is just such a realistic issue in reality that seeing it snk has affected me more than giant man-eating titans ever will

will reigner ever find happiness :(

Man I just really want Reiner to be happy :,((((

Give Reiner some happiness in his life, please ;_;

I hope ReinerxHappiness becomes canon someday.

I feel as if I lose 10 years of my life every time I see Reiner's suicide attempt.

Reiner's suicide attempt messed me up emotionally

Reiner's suicide attempt was the BEST part of the chapter

Reiner's thoughts about the past and the following suicide attempt will fuck me up for a whole month. Please help him.

Reiner was so heartbreaking. But so was eren GAH IT WAS SUCH A BITTERSWEET CHAPTER

Other Comments

I can’t list everything, but I read each comment and thank you for sharing your ideas. Some of the longer comments were theories that I enjoyed but don’t think belonged in the poll results. With some longer comments I extracted a few sentences rather than publish the whole thing.

Willy looks kind of handsome and Falco should stop being a warrior and become a mailman.

More Marley please, more revelations, MORE PAIN.

WhaT iS It ERen?

Apparently, in the japanese version, the warhammers identity was more ambiguous and could be anyone my bet would be the tall guard inside the room. Reiners suicide attempt was depressing, especially if you consider that he was feeling guilty for helping eren improve so much which got Bertholdt killed. Hyped to see what Zeke is up to, he may be plotting with Pieck or something against the Tybur idk.

Eren vs Armin for the final arc - you heard it here first

Everytime I see my top 3 characters (Kenny, Jean, Reiner) they are either suffering or in danger, and the fandom is more focused in others like Annie, Eren or Gabi. Then there will be Zeke with a suicidal, Erwin-like attitude. I always thought that Eren was going to meet his grandparents, but I have no clue of what will happen now. Anyways, Billy is an interesting guy, and Eren has reached Jean's maturity level (after Trost). Let's hope Falco doesn't suffer much, because of his two "teachers". Colt looks like a Farlan figure to me.

The art improvements tho. And i did not know that thor moves to snk u know "warhammer titan" stuff. Nice issayama

I am very happy to see again Eren. He is matured a lot, just thinking about the conversation with Falco. But I am sad for Reiner 'cause it was due the Falco's voice to save him from the suicide and so he went to looking for Falco, tell him that everything will be alright. Reiner is concerned to Falco, he wants to be useful for him but BAM, he found an excited Falco (after talking with Amputee-kun). Reiner can't do anything. He is still alone.

Everyone's going gaga for Eren's new look and I'm sitting here like......ehh..? Seeing Jean (stupid, bratty, Jean) for three panels was wonderful. Zeke and Billy best be plotting. I'd like to see their interactions. I like Billy's character design too, especially the nose and hair.

poll is good but you should do some spell check because you mispelled Tybur as Tyber like 9 times lol

(I know! sorry!)

Great poll, as always, and Billy totally wore wore it better. Also, fingers crossed, Grim Reminder doesn't happen.

FALCO IS A FUCKING CINNAMON ROLL AND DESERVES MORE LOVE!!!!

Reiner's suicide attempt was absolutely haunting. The fact that he didn't hesitate as he loaded up the rifle (Even though doing so would consume a lot of time that could be used to be like 'Wait what am I doing'), the way it was interwoven into the flashbacks (made it seem that everything just piled and piled on him until finally he couldn't take it anymore), the fact that Reiner didn't seem to be thinking about anyone until Falco showed up outside (and that he seemed to only be motivated to live due to the Titan shifter candidates, which would imply a lot about his current connection to his mom ;_;). That shit left me in emotional pain for two days, not even joking.

the Reiner/Eren parallels reminded me of their fairly friendly dynamic during their 104th days and gave credence to my mini-theory that Reiner asked Eren to come with him and Bertholdt because he was sentimental ;_;.

"Deer Isayama Reiner is reindeer Jean is horse Conny is monkey Armin is rabbit Zeke has zekerets And Pieck is exactly right"

I just want to hug Reiner, telling him "it's just two more years, come on, you can do it. Help the younglings and then you'll meet Bert again". Plus, I really really hope that Isayama is showing us a lot of Annie to hint she's soon getting out of that f***ing crystal!

Finally a decent chapter; we have the plot moving forward with the Teiber-Magath convo and the Eren reveal, we have some nice flashbacks and also some character development (Eren maturing and Reiner hitting rock bottom :'( ). The pacing was great, not too much focus on one single thing like last chapter.

Eren is Daddy now and that's all my mind had been able to thoroughly process with this chapter.

Friendship between Reiner and Bertl was strong in this one. I want... MORE. I would also like some back story on the berb turtle please thanks bye

I have a feeling that Annie is starting to side with Paradis Island (Isayama seems to keep dropping hints).

No. Annie still isn't going to switch sides.

im crying in the club

grim remind me Armin

Every time the warriors are hurt in any way shape or form a hostage dies, you've been warned Isayama-sensei.

Hoping to God Willy/Billy is actually Vili

Yeah could we stop with these flashbacks of Annie and actually see her in the present for once? Thanks bye.

Willy's nose is suspiciously like Armins. I realize they're all related, but the nose makes me wonder if he's an Arlert. If so, is Armin the true hero, as Eren predicted?

i was annoyed with the marley arc the first chapter but now am loving it & the marley mandem. i also used 2 think amputee-kun was 2 people (eren & someone else) but now idk

EXTRA DANCC

I think it's high time we see Pieck being exactly right again! It's been 2 WHOLE chapters man, I need my feed of Pieck

I'm worried to death that Eren is gradually losing his spark D:

When will we see the concluding conflict of this beautiful series? Who will die and survive?

can't wait for Isayama to wreck us with feels and revelations

Seeing Kenny again was such a blessing. Also, I'm super excited where the whole Tybur thing is going and can't wait for the revelations we are bound to see sooner or later.

Love it when Isayama tortures Annie and Reiner.

I think, Reiner sees himself as he sees or remembers falco (whyyy i'm crying when i see this boy???!!! And I see bertolini and reinder when they still a trainee wth i'm dying. Thank you Isayama). it give me heart attack too when seeing reiner and that gun in his hand.

although reiner's almost-suicide attempt was tragic, i feel like it was a long time coming. it seems like isayama has been building up to it for a while

"Light of of the Seven" played in my head when I was reading the chapter. I bet next month "The Rains of Castamere" will be played instead

eeeEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK

I wonder why Isayama decided to put that panel of Zeke right before Eren gives the letter to Falco. It could have been placed somewhere else, but I think he put it there to signify that Eren's letter is to Zeke (or maybe his grandparents?). But a lot of people think its to the Survey Corps, so...

How is Annie so much shorter than Kenny how tall is he???

Unexpected turn of events w/the Tybur controlling Marly. Such a shock! Isa will choose more shocking reveals. Im scared. The end will be the hardest choice between the lives of one side opposite the other.

I was so happy to see the Marley arc merge with the Survey Corps and pre-Marley arc events with Eren. It really marks the beginning of something new and epic. That letter is gonna set so many things in motion, and now that we have been properly introduced to the holder of the 9th titan's power, things are bound to be more interesting.

One of the best chapters so far. If not the best.

LET EREN ADOPT FALCO

do you think they have sour cream in marley

(This last was comment played out on Reddit and Tumblr . The OP reached out to me and mentioned that they were eating mexican food while taking the poll. Mystery solved!)

#snk chapter 97 #snk 97 #snk poll #snk poll results

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weannewashere · 7 years ago

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#KeepingUpWithKym

Who comes into my mind when I think of the phrase “partner-in-crime?” Definitely not Kym. Hahaha because honestly, the things we do when we’re together are as close to crime as Duterte is to being presidential. Basically we attend paint classes, watch musicals, bake cookies, comment on each other’s tumblr, and make loom bands with pediatric patients. If we had a reality show, we’d be the GeneralPatronage-rated version of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie - we literally receive the middle finger from irate Italian drivers for slowing down to let them pass.

But it works, because sharing the exact same interest for grandma activities means we automatically know what each other wants to do when we hang out. (Also, look at us, how cute do we look in our matching pajamas hahahahaha effort tong mga pictures na to in fairness, photo credits to Kym’s camera stand lol.)

For example, this weekend. Kym had flown in from California to spend her vacation leave with her loved ones (ehem) in the Philippines. When she told me she had time in her schedule for a day together, I didn’t even have to think twice about our itinerary - stay in McKinley Hill for the night to drink tea and read books haha, have breakfast at the Venice Piazza Mall, and soak in some art at the Pinto Art Museum (we also wanted to try our hand at this archery place, but alas we ran out of time).

Good morniiiing.

Breakfast at Mary Grace. Their mushroom cheese omelette and lemon squares are DIVINE.

Riding a gondola in the Manila version of Venice instead of actually going to Venice because the angry Italian drivers traumatized us lololol.

The Pinto Art Museum is my absolute favorite museum in the Philippines. The old Filipino/Greco aesthetic, the unique contemporary artwork by local artists, the huge windows and natural light, the open, intimate vibe of the place - ugh I seriously could stay here all day.

What I love most about the artwork at this museum is that they all reflect contemporary issues - poverty, inequity, colonial mentality, gender, urban life, politics - making the art so completely relatable and thought-provoking.

Here, let me try to show you a sampler of the art:

Oh wait, you mean like paintings and sculptures? HAHAHA yes sure the museum had those too. There were so many interesting pieces, but here are my favorites because well, they made me feel things:

The Hollow Man Alab Pagarigan I dunno, I like calling this one Turning Invisible lol. My photograph isn’t too good, but at the right angle, it really looks like the figure is slowly turning invisible as he rocks back and forth on his swing.

Roulette Leonard Aguinaldo The roulette is marked with various traits such as galante (generous), magalang (respectful), malandi (flirtatious), praning (paranoid). Around the roulette are the words ikaw (you), ako (I/me), sila (them), tayo (us). I guess this artwork spoke to me because it deals with the human tendency to define people by one specific trait, as if we all get one spin at the character roulette of life.

Manyika Elmer Borlongan The painting unfolds like a tense drama. At the edge of a railroad stands a middle-aged woman in a dress, her plumpness and vacant stare suggest a form of mental retardation. She seems to have been under care for so long, but what startles us is a mannequin leg of a man that she clutches like a doll. Is she lost? Where has she come from? Why is she here? And where did she get that leg?

Even in his early career in the 1990s, Borlongan has been drawn to observe and paint unusual street characters in the urban metropolis. These are people with idiosyncracies who, under the artist’s rendering, stand as monuments to the dissonance we encounter in the streets of Manila: armless guitar players, homeless children, blind men leading other blind men, and people swimming in reused oil drums, head first.

Manyika resonates this everyday strangeness. She is someone we can indeed encounter roaming some back street in Tondo, or Paco, or even in some remote edge of megapolitan Makati, holding the limbs of an amputated mannequin like a cherished toy. Is the leg an ersatz for a partner or a relationship that is too difficult for a person of her disability? Does it stand for a lover, perceived as real? Is this a personal fetish? Does it startle us to realize that even in mental regression, the desire for a connection is present? Manyika challenges our questions, engages our concept of humanness, of personal longing. It also addresses the difficult question of Otherness: Why does she look like an Other, in her strangeness?

Tinggang Baluti Salvador Alonday The subject of this bust sculpture is Superman. Look at his face and discover the little kiss of hair that is suggested across his forehead. But it is a Superman reimagined and reinterpreted in the manner of Christ as Sagrado Corazon, the Sacred Heart. Alonday merges the image of both heroes, tongue-in-cheek to create a cross commentary on the idea of redeemer and savior. After all, both heroes are not from this world, reared in the simple hearth-centered morality of farmers and workers, which in turn provides a check against their overwhelming powers: Superman with his brute strength and invincibility and Christ with His healing and ability to overcome death. This core of values lies beneath the shell of Alonday’s Superman - a heart that is both exposed and covered.

Alonda’s Superman is made to appear to be made of two metals, copper and lead. But the title refers to the possibility of Superman having a shell or outfit made of lead, the only thing that shields him from the radiation of Kryptonite. Thus with his tinggang baluti, Superman becomes truly invincible, invulnerable. He is rendered safe from weakness and death, and being so, he is able to expose his own heart. Does the artist imply that there is a need for an effective and powerful layer of protection before one can choose to be vulnerable? That even the most powerful of heroes need to wear a shell before choosing to be open to the manifestations of the heart? Alonday’s Superman casts his eyes downward in a glance of compassion. The work thus forges a wonderful sense of ambiguity, the paradox of power and love.

I don’t remember feeling this empty Joanna Helmut The painting is of an unusual visage: a young girl suffering from the throes of depression. I don’t remember feeling this empty is set in a bare blue room with an empty picture frame and a lone stool standing too close in a corner. Occupying almost two-thirds of the picture is a girl in a pink dress, with her one hand clasping her forehead in a gesture of culpability. The title of the piece could very well serve as her inner monologue and we are left to wonder why. What can cause such emptiness in the heart of a child so young? Joanna Helmut’s work derives its power not just from her carefully arranged elements and muted hues, but also in her courage to represent what the Filipino public once dismissed as taboo: the affliction of melancholy. The dismissal is one of non-acknowledgment, confident as we are that the time-honored structures of family and friendship could soothe any depression, which is misunderstood as sadness. Helmut’s emphasis on the condition of emptiness, that is the loss of vital meaning for living, is efficiently portrayed here and even strongly amplified in the subject of child sufferer. It is a work that requires the choice to observe and affirm that life is simply not a precession of values and generations, but also a cycle of vigor and shadow.

The script at the top left of this piece reads:

Poetry Loaves Wash your hands. Rid them of a lifetime’s hesitation. Roll up your sleeves. Keep paper towels on hand Preheat oven to 375. Combine flour and loud pauses for flavor Add spices to thrill away boredom: cinnamon risk, a dash of blanched candour to taste one-half teaspoon of doubt to balance. Fill the room with baking smells. Lose your hands in a mound of batter, the hill of bound matter, not yet ready for climbing. Knead the mixture until it tumbles into birth. Cover dough with a damp cloth, and rise to unseemly heights. The sun will appear in this unbaked loaf Poem should double in bulk after one uncertain age of introspection, many reincarnations and editions. Pound down dough, it will survive and be the stronger for it Do not follow recipe too closely: shut your eyes and burn the rules Roll into loaves of different shapes and sizes. Even an outspoken lump has its place.

Kasal sa Hatinggabi (Wedding at Midnight: The Church and the State) Elmer Borlongan, Karen Flores, Mark Justiniani, Joy Mallari, Federico Sievert This painting ridicules even as it exposes what hte artists perceive as a “testy and treacherous” alliance between Church and State. The scene is a parody of the rural wedding dance that often includes the release of doves hiding in a makeshift papier mache bell. The wedding couple: a politician and a cleric stand beneath this bell arch, at a dance that occurs curiously in the dead of the night, each with a weapon in one hand, while an arm seems to embrace the other. By showing them as marrying, even if in the most treacherous of arrangements, the artists declare openly that it is a match that is so ominous in their prospect for everyone. It is a painting of warning.

Oblivious Steph Lopez Two sculpted figures in wire approach each other in a tentative embrace. The taller male form stretches his right arm out to touch the female’s hip, while his left hand is bent back, reluctant. The more engaged female is inches away from a caress, her face focused on the moment of the touch, even as the male appears withdrawn, impassive, like a distant deity. The work hints at an incipient moment of intimacy, which somehow fails, and we are left seeing the gestures of affection that has either waxed or waned.

Kubli Elmer Borlongan With its face and bodily proportions stretched out like the figure of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, Elmer Borlongan’s painting of a child sleeping in a dimly-lit corner on a bare concrete floor possesses a foreboding drama that is rare in the artist’s oeuvre. The single source of light casts a long shadow of a post that runs across the feet of the dormant boy, like an ominous presence that watches over his slumber. Yet, with his palm as a pillow and the other nestled for warmth between his knees, our sleeper is unaware, almost dead to everything else in the world. It is the sleep of extreme exhaustion, from going through a day’s worth of work, or of endless meandering and seeking alms and food. It is the sleep of an animal that has run out of energy to scrounge and is content to find the darkest, most secure place it can find, as shelter.

The Undelivered Project Think of the one whom you have loved and lost. Take a pen and write an anonymous letter to him or her using the stationery provided. Empty your thoughts. Fold and seal the letter. Deposit the letter in one of the drawers - Let it remain undelivered - Move on!

#travel

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recklesstreacherous · 7 years ago

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Oh my gosh, Rebekah Harkness had such a messy and sad life www(.)nytimes(.)com/1988/05/22/books/is-there-a-chic-way-to-go(.)html?pagewanted=all

Thanks for linking this article! I love reading about her… and yes, she did have a very unique and tragic life. I’d love to watch a documentary about her.

_______________________________________________________________________‘IS THERE A CHIC WAY TO GO?’A week after her death on June 17, 1982, the mortal remains of Rebekah Harkness were toted home by her older daughter Terry in a Gristede’s shopping bag. The ashes were placed in a $250,000 jeweled urn made by Salvador Dali. They didn’t fit: “Just a leg is in there, or maybe half of her head, and an arm,” said one of Rebekah’s friends. Several hours later, the top of the urn - called the Chalice of Life - was somehow, by unknown agencies, uncovered. “Oh, my God,” said a witness. “She’s escaped.”

This post-mortem mischief was going on at Harkness House, the East 75th Street town house headquarters of the Harkness Ballet Foundation, which Mrs. Harkness had modeled on the St. Petersburg Ballet School. The building, according to Craig Unger, the author of this rich-man/eye-of-the-needle biography, was in a state of putrefaction, “crumbling like Tara after the Civil War.” Meanwhile, in her apartment at the Carlyle Hotel, people who called themselves Rebekah Harkness’s friends were pillaging, “grabbing things right and left.”

Rebekah’s younger daughter Edith, a failed suicide who had spent many years in mental institutions, took only her mother’s pills: Seconal, Nembutal, Valium, Haldol, Librium and various painkillers - 40 vials in all. Allen Pierce, Rebekah’s son by the first of her four husbands, was unable to be present. Convicted of murder in the second degree, he was behind the bars of a Florida jail. Bobby Scevers, Rebekah’s lover, 25 years younger than she and a self-declared homosexual, pronounced her children “the most worthless, selfish, useless creatures I’ve ever seen.” (Mr. Scevers has a stunning way of placing himself squarely in the center of every sentence he utters; he appears to believe that Rebekah Harkness’s death happened more to him than to her.) If I report on the demise of the multimillionaire patron of the dance dry-eyed, it is because I am confident in the belief that nothing we say about the dead can prejudice the Defense or tip the Scales of Judgment. I myself wouldn’t give the time of day to anyone who cleaned her pool out with Dom Perignon, put mineral oil in the punch at her sister’s debutante ball and (all in the middle of the Great Depression) got tossed off an ocean liner for shouting obscenities, throwing dinner plates at an orchestra of Filipinos gamely playing the American national anthem, and offending the sensibilities of her fellow passengers by swimming nude - for which actions she counted herself witty. (I do admit, however, that I’d go a long way to read a sentence like this, spoken by Bertrand Castelli, the co-producer of “Hair,” about the time he made love to Rebekah Harkness in her office: “It was as if we were two camels in the desert who suddenly know that the only way to make an oasis is to really talk sense.” After his brief interlude in the oasis, Mr. Castelli was made the artistic director of the Harkness Ballet. “Kiss me,” she commanded. “The others, they just know how to bite.”) Craig Unger, a former editor at New York magazine, appears to be dazzled by all this, although it is sometimes hard to tell whether his breathlessness arises from approval, disapproval, sadness, awe or simple bewilderment. Mr. Unger, who records interviews uncritically and unreflectively, does not permit us to know exactly how he feels about his subject.

Rebekah Harkness was born in 1915 to a rich, emotionally frigid St. Louis family. She was brought up by a nanny who was chosen because she had worked in an insane asylum. She went to Fermata, a South Carolina finishing school that had sheltered Roosevelts, Biddles and Auchinclosses. There she delighted, as she wrote in her scrapbook, in setting out to “do everything bad.’' After her divorce from W. Dickson Pierce, an upper-class advertising photographer, she chose for her second husband the Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness, who enjoyed a lofty social status, as her own family did not. He appears to have been an embarrassing sort of man; he wrote and privately published a book called ’'Totem and Topees,” which he described as a “conglomeration of uninteresting misinformation,” and followed that with a book called “Ho hum, the Fisherman,” which, he said, did not “have the excuse even of literary merit.” We are told by Mr. Unger - who is an uncomfortable stranger in the world of the rich, unused to deciphering nuances of caste - that the Harknesses’ seven-year marriage was a happy one. Little evidence is given in support of this thesis except that the two wrote a song together called “Giggling With My Feet.”

After she was widowed, Mrs. Harkness renovated her Rhode Island house; she installed 8 kitchens and 21 baths. This arrangement effectively kept her from having to see her three children on anything like a regular basis. She had a salon of sorts. She traveled a lot.

She fancied herself a composer.

She acquired a guru, also a yogi.

She married again. And again.

She was surrounded by a group her son Allen described as “all the fairies flying off the floor, the blackmailing lawyers, the weirdos, the people in the trances.” “We were the favorites,” says a dancer. “We were the loved ones.” In 1961, Rebekah Harkness became the sponsor of the late Robert Joffrey’s small ballet troupe. She did this in grand - if occasionally Marie Antoinette-ish -style. Generous, wasteful, willful, demanding and delusional, she broke with Joffrey to form the Harkness Ballet when he refused to perform the compositions she insisted on writing. In the eyes of many, she had betrayed him. “Costumes, sets, musical scores,” Mr. Unger writes, “many of the best dancers, the entire repertory - even the works choreographed by Joffrey himself - were owned by her foundation.”

“You see,” she said. “Money can buy anything.” It bought her the services of George Skibine, Marjorie Tallchief, Alvin Ailey, Erik Bruhn and Andy Warhol, but it did not guarantee her success. Mr. Unger tells us that under the direction of the dancer-choreographer Larry Rhodes the company began to garner critical raves - whereupon Mrs. Harkness fired him. Soon Clive Barnes was writing that the Harkness Ballet had “descended beyond the necessity of serious consideration,” and in 1975 it folded. She had spent the 1987 equivalent of $38 million on a failed enterprise. She rang J. D. Salinger’s bell dressed as a cleaning lady, having conceived the harebrained scheme that the reclusive writer’s short stories be put to music.

She dyed chocolate mousse blue. She dyed a cat green.

She moved hundreds of thousands of dollars from one bank to another for the pleasure of confusing her accountants. She believed in reincarnation. She filled her fish tank with goldfish and Scotch.

Her daughter Terry gave birth to a severely retarded and disabled child. For a time, Rebekah Harkness appeared to be enamored of the passive child, called Angel. Her passion, such as it was, burned itself out quickly, coincidentally with the baby’s pulling a ribbon out of her hair. Bobby Scevers, Mr. Unger writes, “had no sympathy” for the child. “So absurd,” Mr. Scevers pronounced. “When they started talking about putting the nursery over my room … I just hit the ceiling. I don’t want this screaming baby over my room! … Let the little creature die!” When she was 10 years old, she did.

Her daughter Edith jumped off roofs, swallowed pills and managed not to kill herself. “How should she do it?” Rebekah Harkness asked. “Is there a chic way to go?”

She lived on champagne and injections - Vitamin B, testosterone, painkillers - as a result of which her bathrooms were splattered with blood and her muscles calcified. (“She walked,” an acquaintance said, “like Frankenstein.”) One could almost feel sorry for her.

At the very end, according to Bobby Scevers, as she lay dying of cancer, “It was complete chaos… . It was so wonderful - everybody running around signing wills and trying on different wigs.”

Her daughter Terry hired Roy Cohn in a (failed) attempt to have her will invalidated.

Her daughter Edith killed herself. (“I’m glad Edith is gone,” said the unquenchable Bobby Scevers.

“I can’t believe it took her this long to succeed.”) Her son Allen says the years he spent in prison were the happiest of his life. He likes to talk about blowing people away. Knowing all this (and much, much more; Mr. Unger withholds no ugly or racy detail), what is it exactly that we have learned? That money can’t buy happiness? That even the rich must die? These are facts of which we have already been apprised.

One sometimes wonders if the point of all these poor-little-rich-girl/boy biographies is to lull the rest of us into a false sense of security: She is so unlike us that we are not encouraged to reflect upon our own mortality, the contemplation of which is a healthy and necessary exercise. We are meant to take comfort and a measure of relief from our difference - though, as we know but do not frequently wish to remember, the grave awaits us all.

It would be interesting to see what a social historian, someone familiar with the hierarchies of caste and class in America - or, better yet, a novelist with a theological bent - would make of the raw material Mr. Unger has gathered. I am beginning to think that biography, especially the biography of such a chaotic personality as Rebekah Harkness, needs to be molded and informed by a novelist’s ordering imagination. It might also have been interesting to see how a feminist writer would have assimilated the facts of Rebekah Harkness’s sorry life. Might Mrs. Harkness be seen as a casualty of her own doomed and defiled expectations? Unfit for mothering, unfit for ordinary love, unfit - untrained - to be the caretaker of a great fortune, was she altogether silly or altogether bad? Was she power or pawn? And how in the world did she get that way?

It is possible to write an edifying biography about an unedifying life. Jean Stein and George Plimpton did that brilliantly in “Edie,” the biography of poor Edie Sedgwick. “Blue Blood” is edifying only insofar as it raises questions about what a biography should be. A terrible story is told here. It makes no sense - and no sense is made of it.

#8 KITCHENS #21 BATHS

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parentingguide8-blog · 6 years ago

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How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All

New Post has been published on https://parentinguideto.com/must-see/how-panicked-parents-skipping-shots-endanger-us-all/

How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All

The debate over childhood vaccination has been in the news on and off for nearly a decade. In 2009 WIRED published a comprehensive cover story on the subject—An Epidemic of Fear—laying out the debate and analyzing how unjustified and unscientific thinking was fueling a growing anti-vaccine moment. As another wave of stories about vaccination dominate the media, we thought it was time to revisit our earlier coverage.

To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a “biostitute” who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctor’s attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: “Grab ’em and stab ’em.” Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN’s Larry King Live and singled out Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: “Greed.”

Thousands of people revile Offit publicly at rallies, on Web sites, and in books. Type pauloffit.com into your browser and you’ll find not Offit’s official site but an anti-Offit screed “dedicated to exposing the truth about the vaccine industry’s most well-paid spokesperson.” Go to Wikipedia to read his bio and, as often as not, someone will have tampered with the page. The section on Offit’s education was once altered to say that he’d studied on a pig farm in Toad Suck, Arkansas. (He’s a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine).

Then there are the threats. Offit once got an email from a Seattle man that read, “I will hang you by your neck until you are dead!” Other bracing messages include “You have blood on your hands” and “Your day of reckoning will come.” A few years ago, a man on the phone ominously told Offit he knew where the doctor’s two children went to school. At a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an anti-vaccine protester emerged from a crowd of people holding signs that featured Offit’s face emblazoned with the word terrorist and grabbed the unsuspecting, 6-foot-tall physician by the jacket.

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt me,” Offit recalls. “He was just excited to be close to the personification of such evil.” Still, whenever Offit gets a letter with an unfamiliar return address, he holds the envelope at arm’s length before gingerly tearing it open. “I think about it,” he admits. “Anthrax.”

This isnt a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. Its a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines.

So what has this award-winning 58-year-old scientist done to elicit such venom? He boldly states — in speeches, in journal articles, and in his 2008 book Autism’s False Prophets — that vaccines do not cause autism or autoimmune disease or any of the other chronic conditions that have been blamed on them. He supports this assertion with meticulous evidence. And he calls to account those who promote bogus treatments for autism — treatments that he says not only don’t work but often cause harm.

As a result, Offit has become the main target of a grassroots movement that opposes the systematic vaccination of children and the laws that require it. McCarthy, an actress and a former Playboy centerfold whose son has been diagnosed with autism, is the best-known leader of the movement, but she is joined by legions of well-organized supporters and sympathizers.

This isn’t a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. It’s a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines. It is partly a reaction to Big Pharma’s blunders and PR missteps, from Vioxx to illegal marketing ploys, which have encouraged a distrust of experts. It is also, ironically, a product of the era of instant communication and easy access to information. The doubters and deniers are empowered by the Internet (online, nobody knows you’re not a doctor) and helped by the mainstream media, which has an interest in pumping up bad science to create a “debate” where there should be none.

In the center of the fray is Paul Offit. “People describe me as a vaccine advocate,” he says. “I see myself as a science advocate.” But in this battle — and make no mistake, he says, it’s a pitched and heated battle — “science alone isn’t enough … People are getting hurt. The parent who reads what Jenny McCarthy says and thinks, ‘Well, maybe I shouldn’t get this vaccine,’ and their child dies of Hib meningitis,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s such a fundamental failure on our part that we haven’t convinced that parent.”

Consider: In certain parts of the US, vaccination rates have dropped so low that occurrences of some children’s diseases are approaching pre-vaccine levels for the first time ever. And the number of people who choose not to vaccinate their children (so-called philosophical exemptions are available in about 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas, and much of the West) continues to rise. In states where such opting out is allowed, 2.6 percent of parents did so last year, up from 1 percent in 1991, according to the CDC. In some communities, like California’s affluent Marin County, just north of San Francisco, non-vaccination rates are approaching 6 percent (counterintuitively, higher rates of non-vaccination often correspond with higher levels of education and wealth).

Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort.

That may not sound like much, but a recent study by the Los Angeles Times indicates that the impact can be devastating. The Times found that even though only about 2 percent of California’s kindergartners are unvaccinated (10,000 kids, or about twice the number as in 1997), they tend to be clustered, disproportionately increasing the risk of an outbreak of such largely eradicated diseases as measles, mumps, and pertussis (whooping cough). The clustering means almost 10 percent of elementary schools statewide may already be at risk.

In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.

“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”

The rejection of hard-won knowledge is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1905, French mathematician and scientist Henri Poincaré said that the willingness to embrace pseudo-science flourished because people “know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether illusion is not more consoling.” Decades later, the astronomer Carl Sagan reached a similar conclusion: Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort. “A great many of these belief systems address real human needs that are not being met by our society,” Sagan wrote of certain Americans’ embrace of reincarnation, channeling, and extraterrestrials. “There are unsatisfied medical needs, spiritual needs, and needs for communion with the rest of the human community.”

Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense. Much like infectious diseases themselves — beaten back by decades of effort to vaccinate the populace — the irrational lingers just below the surface, waiting for us to let down our guard.

Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people. And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns. Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage. Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans — now regarded as a third world problem — were a first world reality.

Peter Yang

Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines. If your newborn gets pertussis, for example, there is a 1 percent chance that the baby will die of pulmonary hypertension or other complications. The risk of dying from the pertussis vaccine, by contrast, is practically nonexistent — in fact, no study has linked DTaP (the three-in-one immunization that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) to death in children. Nobody in the pro-vaccine camp asserts that vaccines are risk-free, but the risks are minute in comparison to the alternative.

Still, despite peer-reviewed evidence, many parents ignore the math and agonize about whether to vaccinate. Why? For starters, the human brain has a natural tendency to pattern-match — to ignore the old dictum “correlation does not imply causation” and stubbornly persist in associating proximate phenomena. If two things coexist, the brain often tells us, they must be related. Some parents of autistic children noticed that their child’s condition began to appear shortly after a vaccination. The conclusion: “The vaccine must have caused the autism.” Sounds reasonable, even though, as many scientists have noted, it has long been known that autism and other neurological impairments often become evident at or around the age of 18 to 24 months, which just happens to be the same time children receive multiple vaccinations. Correlation, perhaps. But not causation, as studies have shown.

And if you need a new factoid to support your belief system, it has never been easier to find one. The Internet offers a treasure trove of undifferentiated information, data, research, speculation, half-truths, anecdotes, and conjecture about health and medicine. It is also a democratizing force that tends to undermine authority, cut out the middleman, and empower individuals. In a world where anyone can attend what McCarthy calls the “University of Google,” boning up on immunology before getting your child vaccinated seems like good, responsible parenting. Thanks to the Internet, everyone can be their own medical investigator.

There are anti-vaccine Web sites, Facebook groups, email alerts, and lobbying organizations. Politicians ignore the movement at their peril, and, unlike in the debates over creationism and global warming, Democrats have proved just as likely as Republicans to share misinformation and fuel anxiety.

US senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut have both curried favor with constituents by trumpeting the notion that vaccines cause autism. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the most famous Democratic family of all, authored a deeply flawed 2005 Rolling Stone piece called “Deadly Immunity.” In it, he accused the government of protecting drug companies from litigation by concealing evidence that mercury in vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids. The article was roundly discredited for, among other things, overestimating the amount of mercury in childhood vaccines by more than 100-fold, causing Rolling Stone to issue not one but a prolonged series of corrections and clarifications. But that did little to unring the bell.

The bottom line: Pseudo-science preys on well-intentioned people who, motivated by love for their kids, become vulnerable to one of the world’s oldest professions. Enter the snake-oil salesman.

When a child is ill, parents will do anything to make it right. If you doubt that, just spend a day or two at the annual conference of the nonprofit organization Autism One, a group built around the conviction that autism is caused by vaccines. It shares its agenda with other advocacy groups like the National Autism Association, the Coalition for SafeMinds, and McCarthy’s Generation Rescue. All these organizations cite similar anecdotes — children who appear to shut down and exhibit signs of autistic behavior immediately after being vaccinated — as proof. Autism One, like others, also points to rising rates of autism — what many parents call an epidemic — as evidence that vaccines are to blame. Finally, Autism One asserts that the condition is preventable and treatable, and that it is the toxins in vaccines and the sheer number of childhood vaccines (the CDC recommends 10 vaccines, in 26 doses, by the age of 2 — up from four vaccines in 1983) that combine to cause disease in certain sensitive children.

Their rhetoric often undergoes subtle shifts, especially when the scientific evidence becomes too overwhelming on one front or another. After all, saying you’re against all vaccines does start to sound crazy, even to a parent in distress over a child’s autism. Until recently, Autism One’s Web site flatly blamed “too many vaccines given too soon.” Lately, the language has gotten more vague, citing “environmental triggers.”

But the underlying argument has not changed: Vaccines harm America’s children, and doctors like Paul Offit are paid shills of the drug industry.

To be clear, there is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that has largely been removed from vaccines since 20011) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems. The so-called epidemic, researchers assert, is the result of improved diagnosis, which has identified as autistic many kids who once might have been labeled mentally retarded or just plain slow. In fact, the growing body of science indicates that the autistic spectrum — which may well turn out to encompass several discrete conditions — may largely be genetic in origin. In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.

But that hasn’t stopped as many as one in four Americans from believing vaccines can poison kids, according to a 2008 survey. And outreach by grassroots organizations like Autism One is a big reason why.

Researchers, alas, cant respond with the same forceful certainty that the doubters are able to deploy not if theyre going to follow the rules of science.

At this year’s Autism One conference in Chicago, I flashed more than once on Carl Sagan’s idea of the power of an “unsatisfied medical need.” Because a massive research effort has yet to reveal the precise causes of autism, pseudo-science has stepped aggressively into the void. In the hallways of the Westin O’Hare hotel, helpful salespeople strove to catch my eye as I walked past a long line of booths pitching everything from vitamins and supplements to gluten-free cookies (some believe a gluten-free diet alleviates the symptoms of autism), hyperbaric chambers, and neuro-feedback machines.

To a one, the speakers told parents not to despair. Vitamin D would help, said one doctor and supplement salesman who projected the equation “No vaccines + more vitamin d = no autism” onto a huge screen during his presentation. (If only it were that simple.) Others talked of the powers of enzymes, enemas, infrared saunas, glutathione drips, chelation therapy (the controversial — and risky — administration of certain chemicals that leech metals from the body), and Lupron (a medicine that shuts down testosterone synthesis).

Offit calls this stuff, much of which is unproven, ineffectual, or downright dangerous, “a cottage industry of false hope.” He didn’t attend the Autism One conference, though his name was frequently invoked. A California woman with an 11-year-old autistic son told me, aghast, that she’d personally heard Offit say you could safely give a child 10,000 vaccines (in fact, the number he came up with was 100,000 — more on that later). A mom from Arizona, who introduced me to her 10-year-old “recovered” autistic son — a bright, blue-eyed, towheaded boy who hit his head on walls, she said, before he started getting B-12 injections — told me that she’d read Offit had made $50 million from the RotaTeq vaccine. In her view, he was in the pocket of Big Pharma.

The central message at these conferences boils down to this: “The medical establishment doesn’t care, but we do.” Every vendor I talked to echoed this theme. And every parent expressed a frustrated, even desperate belief that no one in traditional science gives a hoot about easing their pain or addressing their theories — based on day-to-day parental experience — about autism’s causes.

Actually, scientists have chased down some of these theories. In August, for example, Pediatrics published an investigation of a popular hypothesis that children with autism have a higher incidence of gastrointestinal problems, which some allege are caused by injected viruses traveling to the intestines. Jenny McCarthy’s foundation posits that autism stems from these bacteria, as well as heavy metals and live viruses present in some vaccines. Healing your child, therefore, is a matter of clearing out the “environmental toxins” with, among other things, special diets. The Pediatrics paper found that while autistic kids suffered more from constipation, the cause was likely behavioral, not organic; there was no significant association between autism and GI symptoms. Moreover, gluten- and dairy-free diets did not appear to improve autism and sometimes caused nutritional deficiencies.

But researchers, alas, can’t respond with the same forceful certainty that the doubters are able to deploy — not if they’re going to follow the rules of science. Those tenets allow them to claim only that there is no evidence of a link between autism and vaccines. But that phrasing — what sounds like equivocation — is just enough to allow doubts to not only remain but to fester. Meanwhile, in the eight years since thimerosal was removed from vaccines (a public relations mistake, in Offit’s view, because it seemed to indicate to the public that thimerosal was toxic), the incidences of autism continue to rise.

The battle we are waging will determine what both health and freedom will look like in America. — Barbara Loe Fisher

In the wake of the latest thimerosal studies, most of the anti-vaccination crowd — even Autism One, despite the ever-changing rhetoric on its Web site — has shifted their aim away from any particular vaccine to a broader, fuzzier target: the sheer number of vaccines that are recommended. It sounds, after all, like common sense. There must be something risky about giving too many vaccines to very young children in too short a time. Opponents argue that for some children the current vaccine schedule creates a “toxic overload.”

“I’m not anti-vaccine,” McCarthy says. “I’m anti-toxin.” She stops just short of calling for an outright ban. McCarthy delivered the keynote address at the Autism One conference this year, just as she had in 2008. She drew a standing-room-only crowd, many of whom know her not from her acting but from her frequent appearances on TV talk shows, Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and Twitter (@JennyfromMTV). McCarthy has authored two best-selling books on “healing” autism and is on the board of the advocacy group Generation Rescue (motto: “Autism is reversible”). With her stream-of-consciousness rants (“Too many toxins in the body cause neurological problems — look at Ozzy Osbourne, for Christ’s sake!”) and celebrity allure, she is the anti-vaccine movement’s most popular pitchman and prettiest face.

Barbara Loe Fisher, by contrast, is indisputably the movement’s brain. Fisher is the cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Virginia, the largest, oldest, and most influential of the watchdog groups that oppose universal vaccination. At the Autism One conference, Fisher took the podium with characteristic flair. As she often does, Fisher began with the story of her son Chris, who she believes was damaged by vaccines at the age of two and a half. A short film featuring devastating images of sick kids — some of them seemingly palsied, others with tremors, others catatonic — drove the point home. The film, accompanied by Bryan Adams’ plaintive song “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,” ended with this message emblazoned on the screen: “All the children in this video were injured or killed by mandatory vaccinations.”

Against this backdrop, Fisher, a skilled debater who often faces down articulate, well-informed scientists on live TV, mentioned Offit frequently. She called him the leading “pro-forced-vaccination proponent” and cast him as a man who walks in lockstep with the pharmaceutical companies and demonizes caring parents. With the likely introduction of a swine flu vaccine later this year, Fisher added, Americans needed to wake up to the “draconian laws” that could force every citizen to either be vaccinated or quarantined. That isn’t true — the swine flu vaccine, like other flu vaccines, will be administered on a voluntary basis. But no matter: Fisher’s argument turns vaccines from a public health issue into one of personal choice, an unwritten bit of the Bill of Rights.

In her speech, Fisher borrowed from the Bible, George Orwell, and the civil rights movement. “The battle we are waging,” she said, “will determine what both health and freedom will look like in America.” She closed by quoting the inscription above the door of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC: “The first to perish were the children.” And then she brought it home: “If we believe in compassion, if we believe in the future, we will do whatever it takes to give our children back the future that is their birthright.” The audience cheered as the words sank in: Whatever it takes. “No forced vaccination,” Fisher concluded. “Not in America.”

Paul Offit has a slightly nasal voice and a forceful delivery that conspire to make him sound remarkably like Hawkeye Pierce, the cantankerous doctor played by Alan Alda on the TV series M*A*S*H. As a young man, Offit was a big fan of the show (though he felt then, and does now, that Hawkeye was “much cooler than me”). Offit is quick-witted, funny, and — despite a generally mild-mannered mien — sometimes so assertive as to seem brash. “Scientists, bound only by reason, are society’s true anarchists,” he has written — and he clearly sees himself as one. “Kaflooey theories” make him crazy, especially if they catch on. Fisher, who has long been the media’s go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call “parents rights,” makes him particularly nuts, as in “You just want to scream.” The reason? “She lies,” he says flatly.

“Barbara Loe Fisher inflames people against me. And wrongly. I’m in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?” he asks, exasperated. (Merck is doing no such thing). But when it comes to mandating vaccinations, Offit says, Fisher is right about him: He is an adamant supporter.

“We have seat belt rules,” he says. “Seat belts save lives. There was never a question about that. The data was absolutely clear. But people didn’t use them until they were required to use them.” Furthermore, the decision not to buckle up endangers only you. “Unless you fly through the window and hit somebody else,” he adds. “I believe in mandates. I do.”

We are driving north (seat belts on) across Philadelphia in Offit’s gray 2009 Toyota Camry, having just completed a full day of rounds at Children’s Hospital. Over the past eight hours, Offit has directed a team of six residents and med students as they evaluated more than a dozen children with persistent infections. He pulls into the driveway of the comfy four-bedroom Tudor in the suburbs where his family has lived for the past 13 years. It’s a nice enough house, with a leafy green yard and a two-car garage where a second Toyota Camry (this one red, a year older, and belonging to his wife, Bonnie) is already parked. Let’s just say that if Offit has indeed made $50 million from RotaTeq, as his critics love to say, he is hiding it well.

Offit acknowledges that he received a payout — “several million dollars, a lot of money” — when his hospital sold its stake in RotaTeq last year for $182 million. He continues to collect a royalty each year. It’s a fluke, he says — an unexpected outcome. “I’m not embarrassed about it,” he says. “It was the product of a lot of work, although it wasn’t why I did the work, nor was it, frankly, the reward for the work.”

Similarly, the suggestion that pharmaceutical companies make vaccines hoping to pocket huge profits is ludicrous to Offit. Vaccines, after all, are given once or twice or three times in a lifetime. Diabetes drugs, neurological drugs, Lipitor, Viagra, even Rogaine — stuff that a large number of people use every day — that’s where the money is.

That’s not to say vaccines aren’t profitable: RotaTeq costs a little under $4 a dose to make, according to Offit. Merck has sold a total of more than 24 million doses in the US, most for $69.59 a pop — a 17-fold markup. Not bad, but pharmaceutical companies do sell a lot of vaccines at cost to the developing world and in some cases give them away. Merck committed $75 million in 2006 to vaccinate all children born in Nicaragua for three years. In 2008, Merck’s revenue from RotaTeq was $665 million. Meanwhile, a blockbuster drug like Pfizer’s Lipitor is a $12 billion-a-year business.

To understand exactly why Offit became a scientist, you must go back more than half a century, to 1956. That was when doctors in Offit’s hometown of Baltimore operated on one of his legs to correct a club foot, requiring him to spend three weeks recovering in a chronic care facility with 20 other children, all of whom had polio. Parents were allowed to visit just one hour a week, on Sundays. His father, a shirt salesman, came when he could. His mother, who was pregnant with his brother and hospitalized with appendicitis, was unable to visit at all. He was 5 years old. “It was a pretty lonely, isolating experience,” Offit says. “But what was even worse was looking at these other children who were just horribly crippled and disfigured by polio.” That memory, he says, was the first thing that drove him toward a career in pediatric infectious diseases.

There was something else, too. From an early age, Offit embraced the logic and elegance of the scientific method. Science imbued a chaotic world with an order that he found reassuring.

“What I loved about science was its reason. You have data. You stand back and you discuss the strengths and weaknesses of that data. There’s just something very calming about that,” he says. “You formulate a hypothesis, you establish burdens of proof, you subject your hypothesis to rigorous testing. You’ve got 20 pieces of a 1,000-piece puzzle … It’s beautiful, really.”

There were no doctors in the Offit family; he decided to become the first. In 1977, when he was an intern at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, he witnessed the second event that would determine his career path: the death of a little girl from a rotavirus infection (there was, as yet, no vaccine). The child’s mother had been diligent, calling her pediatrician just a few hours after the girl’s fever, vomiting, and diarrhea had begun. Still, by the time the girl was admitted, she was too dehydrated to have an intravenous line inserted. Doctors tried everything to rehydrate her, including sticking a bone marrow needle into her tibia to inject fluids. She died on the table. “I didn’t realize it killed children in the United States,” Offit says, remembering how the girl’s mother, after hearing the terrible news, came into the room and held her daughter’s hand. “That girl’s image was always in my head.”

The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk. Its just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, Heres what that different risk looks like.” — Paul Offit

The third formative moment for Offit came in the late 1980s, when he met Maurice Hilleman, the most brilliant vaccine maker of the 20th century. Hilleman — a notoriously foulmouthed genius who toiled for years in the Philadelphia labs of Merck — invented vaccines to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella (and later came up with the combination of the three, the MMR). He created vaccines for hepatitis A and B, Hib, chicken pox, pneumococcus, and meningococcus. He became Offit’s mentor; Offit later became Hilleman’s biographer.

Offit believes in the power of good storytelling, which is why he writes books, five so far. He dearly wants to pull people into the exciting mysteries that scientists wrestle with every day. He wants us all to understand that vaccines work by introducing a weakened strain of a particular virus into the body — a strain so weak that it cannot make us sick. He wants us to revel in this miracle of inoculation, which causes our immune systems to produce antibodies and develop “memory cells” that mount a defense if we later encounter a live version of that virus.

It’s easy to see why Offit felt a special pride when, after 25 years of research and testing, he and two colleagues, Fred Clark and Stanley Plotkin, joined the ranks of the vaccine inventors. In February 2006, RotaTeq was approved for inclusion in the US vaccination schedule. The vaccine for rotavirus, which each year kills about 600,000 children in poor countries and about 40 children in the US, probably saves hundreds of lives a day.

But in certain circles, RotaTeq is no grand accomplishment. Instead, it is offered as Exhibit A in the case against Offit, proving his irredeemable bias and his corrupted point of view. Using this reasoning, of course, Watson and Crick would be unreliable on genetics because the Nobel Prize winners had a vested interest in genetic research. But despite the illogic, the argument has had some success. Consider the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which reviews new vaccines and administration schedules: Back in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Offit was a member of the panel, along with experts in infectious diseases, virology, microbiology, and immunology. Now the 15-person panel is made up mostly of state epidemiologists and public-health officials.

That’s not by accident. According to science journalist Michael Specter, author of the new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, the controversy surrounding vaccine safety has made lack of expertise a requirement when choosing members of prominent advisory panels on the issue. “It’s shocking,” Specter says. “We live in a country where it’s actually a detriment to be an expert about something.” When expertise is diminished to such an extent, irrationality and fear can run amok.

Hence the death threats against Paul Offit. Curt Linderman Sr., the host of “Linderman Live!” on AutismOne Radio and the editor of a blog called the Autism File, recently wrote online that it would “be nice” if Offit “was dead.”

I’d met Linderman at Autism One. He’d given his card to me as we stood outside the Westin O’Hare talking about his autistic son. “We live in a very toxic world,” he’d told me, puffing on a cigarette.

It was hard to argue with that.

Despite his reputation, Offit has occasionally met a vaccine he doesn’t like. In 2002, when he was still a member of the CDC’s advisory committee, the Bush administration was lobbying for a program to give the smallpox vaccine to tens of thousands of Americans. Fear of bioterrorism was rampant, and everyone voted in favor — everyone except Offit. The reason: He feared people would die. And he didn’t keep quiet about his reservations, making appearances on 60 Minutes II and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

The problem with the vaccine, he said, is that “one in every million people who gets it dies.” Moreover, he said, because smallpox is visible when its victims are contagious (it is marked by open sores), outbreaks — if there ever were any — could be quickly contained, and there would be plenty of time to begin vaccinations then. A preventive vaccine, he said, “was a greater risk than the risk of smallpox.”

Ah, risk. It is the idea that fuels the anti-vaccine movement — that parents should be allowed to opt out, because it is their right to evaluate risk for their own children. It is also the idea that underlies the CDC’s vaccination schedule — that the risk to public health is too great to allow individuals, one by one, to make decisions that will impact their communities. (The concept of herd immunity is key here: It holds that, in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune.)

Risk is also the motivating idea in Offit’s life. This is a man, after all, who opted to give his own two children — now teenagers — the flu vaccine before it was recommended for their age group. Why? Because the risk of harm if his children got sick was too great. Offit, like everyone else, will do anything to protect his children. And he wants Americans to be fully educated about risk and not hoodwinked into thinking that dropping vaccines keeps their children safe. “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’ Dying of Hib meningitis is a horrible, ugly way to die.”

Getting the measles is no walk in the park, either — not for you or those who come near you. In 2005, a 17-year-old Indiana girl got infected on a trip to Bucharest, Romania. On the return flight home, she was congested, coughing, and feverish but had no rash. The next day, without realizing she was contagious, she went to a church gathering of 500 people. She was there just a few hours. Of the 500 people present, about 450 had either been vaccinated or had developed a natural immunity. Two people in that group had vaccination failure and got measles. Thirty-two people who had not been vaccinated and therefore had no resistance to measles also got sick. Did the girl encounter each of these people face-to-face in her brief visit to the picnic? No. All you have to do to get the measles is to inhabit the airspace of a contagious person within two hours of them being there.

The frightening implications of this kind of anecdote were illustrated by a 2002 study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Looking at 3,292 cases of measles in the Netherlands, the study found that the risk of contracting the disease was lower if you were completely unvaccinated and living in a highly vaccinated community than if you were completely vaccinated and living in a relatively unvaccinated community. Why? Because vaccines don’t always take. What does that mean? You can’t minimize your individual risk unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in.

Science must somehow prove a negative that vaccines dont cause autism which is not how science typically works. Until the cause of autism is discovered, scientists can establish only that vaccines are safe and that threshold has already been met.

Perceived risk — our changing relationship to it and our increasing intolerance of it — is at the crux of vaccine safety concerns, not to mention related fears of pesticides, genetically modified food, and cloning. Sharon Kaufman, a medical anthropologist at UC San Francisco, observes that our concept of risk has evolved from an external threat that’s out of our control (think: statistical probability of a plane crash) to something that can be managed and controlled if we just make the right decisions (eat less fat and you’ll live longer). Improved diagnostic tests, a change in consumer awareness, an aging society determined to stay youthful — all have contributed to the growing perception that risk (of death, illness, accident) is our responsibility to reduce or eliminate. In the old order, risk management was in the hands of your doctor — or God. Under the new dispensation, it’s all up to you. What are the odds that your child will be autistic? It’s your job to manage them, so get thee to the Internet, and fast.

The thimerosal debacle exacerbated this tendency, particularly when the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service issued a poorly worded statement in 1999 that said “current levels of thimerosal will not hurt children, but reducing those levels will make safe vaccines even safer.” In other words, there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever, but you never know.

“When science came out and said, ‘Uh-oh, there may be a risk,’ the stage was already set,” Kaufman says, noting that many parents felt it was irresponsible not to have doubts. “It was Pandora’s box.”

The result is that science must somehow prove a negative — that vaccines don’t cause autism — which is not how science typically works. Edward Jenner invented vaccination in 1796 with his smallpox inoculation; it would be 100 years before science, such as it was, understood why the vaccine worked, and it would be even longer before the specific cause of smallpox could be singled out. Until the cause of autism is discovered, scientists can establish only that vaccines are safe — and that threshold has already been met.

The government is still considering funding more research trials to look for a connection between vaccines and autism. To Kaufman, there’s some justification for this, given that it may be the only way to address everyone’s doubts. But the thimerosal panic suggests that, if bungled, such trials could make a bad situation worse. To scientists like Offit, further studies are also a waste of precious scientific resources, not to mention taxpayers’ money. They take funding away from more pressing matters, including the search for autism’s real cause.

A while back, Offit was asked to help put together a reference text on vaccines. Specifically, his colleagues wanted him to write a chapter that assessed the capacity of the human immune system. It was a hypothetical exercise: What was the maximum number of vaccines that a person could handle? The point was to arm doctors with information that could reassure parents. Offit set out to determine two factors: how many B cells, which make antibodies, a person has in a milliliter of blood and how many different epitopes, the part of a bacterium or virus that is recognized by the immune system, there are in a vaccine. Then, he came up with a rough estimate: a person could handle 100,000 vaccines — or up to 10,000 vaccines at once. Currently the most vaccines children receive at any one time is five.

He also published his findings in Pediatrics. Soon, the number was attached to Offit like a scarlet letter. “The 100,000 number makes me sound like a madman. Because that’s the image: 100,000 shots sticking out of you. It’s an awful image,” Offit says. “Many people — including people who are on my side — have criticized me for that. But I was naive. In that article, I was being asked the question and that is the answer to the question.”

Still, he hasn’t backed off. He feels that scientists have to work harder at winning over the public. “It’s our responsibility to stand up for good science. Though it’s not what we’re trained to do,” he says, admitting that his one regret about Autism’s False Prophets is that it didn’t hold scientists accountable for letting fear of criticism render them mute. “Get out there. There’s no venue too small. As someone once said, it would be a very quiet forest indeed if the only birds that sang were those that sang best.”

So Offit keeps singing. Isn’t he afraid of those who wish him harm? “I’m not that brave,” he says. “If I really thought my life was at risk or my children’s lives were at risk, I wouldn’t do it. Not for a second.” Maybe, he acknowledges, he’s in denial.

Later, I ask his wife the same question. When it comes to her husband’s welfare, Bonnie Offit is fiercely protective. A pediatrician with a thriving group practice, she still makes time to monitor the blogosphere. (Her husband refuses to read the attacks.) She wants to believe that if you “keep your finger on the pulse,” as she puts it, you can keep your loved ones safe.

Still, she worries. On the day I find myself sitting at her dining room table, every front page in the nation features an article about George Tiller, the abortion doctor gunned down at his church in Wichita, Kansas. When her husband leaves the room, Bonnie brings up the killing. “It upsets me,” she says, looking away. “I didn’t even tell him that. But it absolutely upsets me.”

Her husband, meanwhile, still rises every morning at 4 am and heads to his small, tidy study in a spare bedroom. Every morning, he spends a couple of hours working on what will be his sixth book, a history of the anti-vaccine movement. Offit gets excited when he talks about it.

In 19th-century England, he explains, Jenner’s smallpox vaccine was known to be effective. But despite the Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853, many people still refused to take it, and thousands died unnecessarily. “That was the birth of the anti-vaccine movement,” he says, adding that then — as now — those at the forefront “were great at mass marketing. It was a print-oriented society. They were great pamphleteers. And by the 1890s, they had driven immunization rates down to the 20 percent range.”

Immediately, smallpox took off again in England and Wales, killing 1,455 in 1893. Ireland and Scotland, by contrast, “didn’t have any anti-vaccine movement and had very high immunization rates and very little incidence of smallpox disease and death,” he says, taking a breath. “You’d like to think we would learn.”

Offit wants the book to be cinematic, visually riveting. He believes, fervently, that if he can hook people with a good, truthful story, maybe they will absorb his hopeful message: The human race has faced down this kind of doubt before.

His battle is, in at least one respect, probably a losing one. There will always be more illogic and confusion than science can fend off. Offit’s idea is to inoculate people one by one, until the virus of fear, if not fully erased, at least recedes.

Amy Wallace ([email protected]) has written for GQ, Esquire, and The New Yorker. This is her first article for Wired.

1. An earlier version of this story suggested that no childhood vaccines contain thimerosal; in fact some versions of the influenza vaccine, which is not typically mandated for children’s admission to school, does contain the preservative. Go here for a further explanation.