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Guest Essay

By Benjamin Mazer

Dr. Mazer is a physician and a writer covering medicine and public health.

As a physician and medical journalist, I have spent years watching, with both fascination and concern, as anti-vaccine groups honed their persuasive techniques.

My colleagues largely considered me eccentric for paying attention to this coterie of cranks. I remember when a prominent oncologist, Dr. Vinay Prasad, suggested a few years ago that debunking alternative medical views was akin to “dunking on a seven-foot hoop.” The work that I and others were doing was so easy, in other words, as to be a waste of time.

Today, Dr. Prasad is the Food and Drug Administration’s lead vaccine........

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