THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ASSIGNED TO TABULATE "PRIVILEGE" BASED ON RACE, GENDER, SEXUALITY, RELIGION~ADD 25 POINTS FOR BEING WHITE OR MALE, DEDUCT 100 POINTS FOR BEING BLACK, 500 FOR IDENTIFYING AS TRANSGENDER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Parents in the community of Saratoga Springs, New York are up in arms after a
shocking assignment that asked students to tabulate their “privilege” by adding
or subtracting points for their race, gender, religion, appearance, disability status,
and other factors was given to students at a public high school.
The “Privilege Reflection Forms” were given to students in a business class at Saratoga Springs High School, apparently with the approval of school administrators who considered it a useful tool to enlighten students on their relative status in society. According to the worksheet provided, students were told to calculate how privileged they are by adding or subtracting sums for possessing different attributes.For instance, Caucasian students completing the form are directed to add 25 points for being white, whereas African-American students are told to subtract 100 points for being black. Males are told to add 25 points whereas females are told to subtract 50 points. Nor does the lesson stop there. Straight students are told to add 20 points for the privilege they derive from that status, while gay students are told to subtract 150 points. And if a student identifies as transgender, they are supposed to deduct a whopping 500 points.The offensiveness of the scoresheet only increases from there. Under a section on religion, Jewish students are instructed to add 25 points (apparently Jews are the most privileged religious group), and Christian students to add 5 points, but Muslim students are told to deduct 50 points—that is unless a student is both black and Jewish, in which case they should deduct 25 points, as a note on the assignment specifies. Students are also asked to rank their own appearance and add 10 points for having an attractive face, but to subtract 10 points if they are overweight and subtract 40 points if they are “disfigured.” And then it gets even worse. A section of the form on “Disability” uses horrifically offensive and outdated language, asking students to add 25 points to their total for being “able-bodied” but to subtract 20 points for “social autism,” deduct another 30 points for being “immobile” and a full 50 points for being “retarded.”A diagram at the bottom of the form explains that students who score from 50-100 should consider themselves “privileged” while those scoring in excess of 100 are “very privileged” and should “check it [their privileged status] daily.” By contrast, those scoring -100 or less are “very disprivileged”—if that’s even a word.Parent Michelle King whose daughter received the scorecard in class called it “Absolutely offensive and appalling.”“I cannot comprehend as a parent whose child, whose daughter, was handed this, how anyone can say this was acceptable,” King told a local news program.Astoundingly, when questioned about the assignment, administrators at Saratoga Springs High School acknowledged that the offensive terminology should have been retracted, but refused to admit that the exercise as a whole was inappropriate.School district spokeswoman Maura Manny said that the privilege scorecard had been discussed at a recent faculty meeting, along with other potential activities for students. Manny also released a prepared statement about the lesson which said “our school district continues to champion efforts fostering and facilitating growth in becoming a culturally competent school community.” It also highlighted the district’s belief in “equity of opportunity.”A statement released by the school district claimed: “An unmodified version of the privilege reflection form was distributed to students without the removal of insensitive words. The district does not condone the use of the document with these insensitive words.” The school district’s statement notably did not condemn the exercise as a whole.But parent Michelle King still has questions. “How did it get into the school, and how did the principal say it was acceptable?” she asks. For now, she is receiving no answers.To learn more about the Freedom Center's campaign to halt indoctrination in K-12 schools, please visit www.stopk12indoctrination.org. To read the K-12 Code of Ethics CLICK HERE. To order the Freedom Center’s new pamphlet, “Leftist Indoctrination in Our K-12 Public Schools,” CLICK HERE. To donate to the Stop K-12 Indoctrination campaign, CLICK HERE.
(Shangrao, Jiangxi—April 15, 2019) Since September, authorities in an area of China’s eastern Jiangxi province have carried out a sweeping crackdown on Christianity, destroying the crosses of 25 churches and imposing various measures in order to keep a tight rein on religious activities.
Religious affairs and United Front Work Department officials started collecting information on Christians and churches in Poyang County, Shangrao, Jiangxi, and urged the local government to prioritize the management of religious venues, emphasize patriotic education, promote core socialism values, and guide religious people to love their country.On Sept. 30, Poyang County in Shangrao, Jiangxi, organized a flag raising ceremony at religious venues, with all personnel from the United Front Work Department and the local ethnic and religious affairs bureau, as well as leaders from the government-run branches of Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, etc., were present. Now, all churches must display China’s national flag, and authorities have installed surveillance cameras and systems within church buildings and posted various propaganda materials on the walls.People who receive government financial aid have also been forbidden from believing in Christianity. Otherwise, their state-supplied income will be terminated.In addition, the local ethnic and religious bureau banned Christians from worshipping at church if they take children and removed the crosses of 25 churches.Moreover, village cadres have occupied six churches, which were forcibly sold to the Communist Party. If the churches would not have been sold, the government would have blown them up.Poyang County authorities also held a training session about the cultivation of religious policy legislation, which more than 1,000 people attended. During the session, the Secretary of the County Committee, Zhang Zhenxiang, was present and spoke, stressing the difficulty of implementing projects regarding governing religions and the tremendous responsibility and profound significance the Communist Party places on it.The conference also featured officials from Jiangxi’s Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau.ChinaAid exposes abuses in order to stand in solidarity with the persecuted and promote religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law. If you wish to partner with us in helping those persecuted by the Chinese government, please click the button below to make a charitable donation.
ChinaAid Media TeamCell: +1 (432) 553-1080 | Office: +1 (432) 689-6985 | Other: +1 (888) 889-7757Email: media@chinaaid.orgFor more information, click here
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Colorado –-(AmmoLand.com)- Colorado is now the fifteenth state to sign a red flag bill into law. Twenty-nine other states are also considering such legislation. Colorado’s Democratic Governor, Jared Polis, signed HB 1177, the state’s red flag bill, into law. The legislation will take effect in 2020.
This new red flag law presents an interesting scenario because of it 2/3 of Colorado’s counties have become Second Amendment sanctuary counties. If somebody were to put a red flag on you, and the judge finds that you're a risk to yourself or others, you have 14 days for a hearing to prove your innocence. It used to be up to the government to prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The two biggest police departments in Colorado, both Denver and Aurora, have come out against the red flag law. Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock has been a big proponent for this bill backing it intensely, and as a result, he is now facing a recall effort to bounce him out of office. On the flip side, Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams disagrees with red flag laws and he even said he's willing to go to jail instead of enforcing it. This unconstitutional and illegal bill is riding on the coattails of the momentum that the red flag law movement has seen since the Parkland Shooting.
You might recall that Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Lindsey Graham have both recently submitted National Extreme Risk Protection Order Bills. Also, do not forget President Donald Trump, via his Federal Commission on School Safety, urged states to adopt “extreme risk protection orders” that would remove firearms from individuals who are a danger to themselves and others.
READ the Report of the Federal Commission on School Safety: www2.ed.gov/documents/school-safety/school-safety-report.pdf It is imperative that gun owners and lovers of the Constitution make an effort to be heard. No longer can we be the “Silent Majority.”
These unjust laws are spreading like wildfire and they will be the biggest threat to the future of the 2nd Amendment as we know it! There are now 15 states that have passed these laws that have only one intended goal: to circumvent the 2nd Amendment and confiscate guns from people who are then considered guilty until proven innocent. It is an outright attack on the law-abiding gun owners around the country.
These ERPO or RED FLAG bills do absolutely nothing to target criminals, illegally owned guns, mental health nor will they do anything to save lives! What red flag bills do, however, is to violate a person’s 1st Amendment Right to Free Speech, as a comment or even your social media, can be used against you. All one needs is to have someone say they fear what a gun owner MIGHT do, and they can seek an ERPO from a judge.
Jared J. Yanis
About Jared J. Yanis & Guns & Gadgets
With over 20 years of experience in the law enforcement field, I have learned the numerous channels used by those who would love to see our 2nd Amendment rights stripped. Because of this, I am often able to bring you the news on new bills submitted at the local, state and federal levels that look to carry out those attacks. If you are new to the channel or want to stay up to date with the constant infringements on our Constitutional Right to Bear Arms, please subscribe to my YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/GunsGadgets
GunsAndGadgets@charter.netGuns & GadgetsP. O. Box 940Douglas, Massachusetts 01516
Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib met with another extreme anti-Israel activist and terrorist-supporter in her Capitol Hill congressional office during American Muslims for Palestine Advocacy Day in mid-April. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) hosted the annual advocacy and training event, which was open to all adults who “seek justice in Palestine.” Additional criteria for participation includes supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to punish Israel by economically depriving the country for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes the BDS movement as “the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence” and has further criticized AMP for promoting anti-Semitism under the guise of educating Americans. AMP hailed the ADL’s anti-Israel description of its organization. Tlaib spoke to AMP on April 8 where she told the group that she feels “more Palestinian” when she is in Congress than she does elsewhere, according to The Investigative Project On Terrorism, who first reported on the meeting. AMP’s New Jersey chapter posted a photograph of Tlaib outside of her office with some of its members during the event, including Joe Catron, an avowed supporter of multiple Palestinian terrorist organizations. “A tip of my hat to Rashida Tlaib, who really goes above and beyond the call of duty in welcoming every supporter of Palestine to her office, listening to what we have to say, answering our questions, and posing for endless pictures,” Catron wrote on Facebook following the meeting. Catron is a long-time extreme anti-Israel activist and has openly supported terrorist organizations. He serves as the U.S. coordinator of Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Samidoun is an affiliate arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization.
MUSLIM REP. RASHIDA TLAIB HOSTS ANOTHER SUPPORTER OF "PALESTINIAN" JIHAD TERROR
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
There will be many others. Those who think Tlaib is going to stop doing this kind of thing are naive. The plan here is to normalize and mainstream support for the bloodiest, most avowedly genocidal “Palestinian” jihad terror groups. The Democrat leadership, which has already betrayed Israel, will fall in line with alacrity.
“SCOOP: Rashida Tlaib Hosts Another Extreme Anti-Israel, Terror-Affiliated Activist On Capitol Hill,” by Molly Prince, Daily Caller, April 17, 2019 (thanks to the Geller Report):
Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib met with another extreme anti-Israel activist and terrorist-supporter in her Capitol Hill congressional office during American Muslims for Palestine Advocacy Day in mid-April.
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) hosted the annual advocacy and training event, which was open to all adults who “seek justice in Palestine.” Additional criteria for participation includes supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to punish Israel by economically depriving the country for its alleged mistreatment of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes the BDS movement as “the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence” and has further criticized AMP for promoting anti-Semitism under the guise of educating Americans. AMP hailed the ADL’s anti-Israel description of its organization.
Tlaib spoke to AMP on April 8 where she told the group that she feels “more Palestinian” when she is in Congress than she does elsewhere, according to The Investigative Project On Terrorism, who first reported on the meeting.
AMP’s New Jersey chapter posted a photograph of Tlaib outside of her office with some of its members during the event, including Joe Catron, an avowed supporter of multiple Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Far Left: Joe Catron
[Facebook/screen shot]
“A tip of my hat to Rashida Tlaib, who really goes above and beyond the call of duty in welcoming every supporter of Palestine to her office, listening to what we have to say, answering our questions, and posing for endless pictures,” Catron wrote on Facebook following the meeting.
[Facebook/screen shot]
Catron is a long-time extreme anti-Israel activist and has openly supported terrorist organizations. He serves as the U.S. coordinator of Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Samidoun is an affiliate arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization. The United States designated PFLP a terrorist organization in 1997, and Australia, Japan, Canada and the European Union shortly followed suit. Catron’s cover photo on both of his personal Twitter and Facebook accounts is a montage of a PFLP fighter donned in the organization’s official logo, as well as rockets and soldiers pointed towards a target over the state of Israel. It also displays the Arabic phrase “If you do [more attacks on Gaza] we will do [as well], hell is waiting for you.” The phrase is attributed to Mohammad Deif, the supreme military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Cover photo for @jncatron [Twitter/screen shot]
Moreover, the feature image on his social media accounts are of himself posed alongside Leila Khaled, a member of PFLP who is a known Palestinian terrorist most notable for hijacking airplanes. After PFLP murdered an Israeli policewoman in 2017 during a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, Catron posted PFLP’s official statement on his social media and referred to the event as “heroic.” The attack was described by the PFLP as a “blood oath” to Palestinians, and the organization echoed the Hamas war cry to eradicate Israel.
_______________________________________________________________
SEE ALSO:
Palestinian Resistance to Apartheid, Israeli Occupation
Remarks by Sara Flounders, co director International Action Center and Joe Catron, of Samidoun, Prisoner Support Network on heroic resistance of Palestinians. Call for demonstration in support world wide on April 18th, Day of Nakba
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Remember: this is the same person who accused pro-Israel Americans of dual loyalty. Tlaib doesn’t have to worry about similar accusations being made against her: she knows that the Democrat leadership and the establishment media will cover for her.
“Dem Rep: I’ve Never Felt More Palestinian Than I Do in Congress,” NTK Network, April 17, 2019 (thanks to Ken):
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said that she never felt more Palestinian than she does in the halls Congress while addressing the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights on Sunday.
“You know myself, Ilhan [Omar], and all of us, we watch that people are policing what we say,” Tlaib said. “‘What do you mean by that Rashida? Do you condemn this?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, did you condemn that?”
“Honestly, I never felt more Palestinian than I ever felt in Congress…..
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Some in the mainstream media have been quick to accuse anyone of spreading “Islamophobic conspiracy theories” if they question whether the Notre Dame blaze may be a jihad attack. An NBC article states: “Images and videos of the flaming cathedral spread quickly across social media and were quickly seized upon to push Islamophobic narratives that have flourished in far-right politics.” The Huffington Post shouted “racial hatred.”
No one knows whether jihadists ignited the blaze or not, and there is ample reason to ask questions. Many in the media, however, have lost an ability which was once a job requirement of journalists: to ask probing questions.
One should not jump to conclusions about Nortre Dame, but there are a few occurrences that likely prompted questions.
Despite the unusually quick response to blame renovations for the fire, “the chief architect of historical monuments responsible for the restoration of the spire of Notre Dame, Philippe Villeneuve, states: ‘the work had not started yet, only the scaffolding was being assembled.’ From his point of view, ‘the hot spot hypothesis is therefore not the right one.” So there were no workers in the cathedral and no heat sources near the timber frame.
In September 2016, a Muslim was arrested after his car is found packed with explosive gas cylinders outside Notre Dame cathedral.
A couple days later, three more Muslims were arrested over a Notre Dame Cathedral jihad bomb plot.
In France, three churches a day are vandalized on average and last month “over 800-year-old Basilica of Saint-Denis in the now heavily migrant-populated suburbs of Paris was also vandalised, with the basilica’s organ being heavily damaged and stained glass windows were broken.” Across Europe, churches are routinely being desecrated.
A Catholic priest was beheaded by jihadists in front of horrified onlookers during mass in 2016. Father Jacques Hamel was first forced to his knees before he was murdered, while the jihadists “filmed themselves preaching in Arabic by the altar.”
And consider the words of Muslim political candidate Eve Torres in Montreal: she stated that the Notre Dame fire was divine retribution and that “firefighters should sleep in the church on Notre-Dame Street in Montreal.”
“The Australian Jewish Association cited alleged social media post by Muslims and people with Arab names that delighted in the church’s destruction.”
Prudent people ask questions in the face of suspicious occurrences, and it is not spreading conspiracy theories to do so. Nor is it “far right,” “racist,” or “Islamophobic.”
“Notre Dame Cathedral fire spurs Islamophobic conspiracy theories on social media,” by Ben Collins, NBC News, April 16, 2019:
As firefighters worked to contain the fire that ravaged the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday, Twitter and YouTube struggled to take down conspiracy theories being pushed by both anonymous accounts and verified white nationalists who spread Islamophobic theories about the disaster.
French officials investigating the fire have ruled out arson and terrorism, saying the fire that led to a roof collapse may have been tied to ongoing repairs at the cathedral.
Images and videos of the flaming cathedral spread quickly across social media and were quickly seized upon to push Islamophobic narratives that have flourished in far-right politics around the world in recent years. Those sentiments then made their way to more mainstream conservative pundits, who questioned whether the fire had been set on purpose.
Some anonymous users used editing software to push conspiracy theories on YouTube and Twitter, and their accounts remained active on the platforms — despite repeated debunkings and reports on the platform. One video on YouTube, viewed 40,000 times, superimposes audio of a man yelling “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is great”) over a video of the Notre Dame fire. The audio comes from a years-old video, which is the first result when a user searches for “Allahu Akbar Scream” in Google. The video has not been removed from YouTube….
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
A former chief architect and general inspector of French historical monuments has cast doubts on the official narrative that the Notre Dame fire was likely an electrical short that set the iconic cathedral ablaze.
Benjamin Mouton, who served as Chief Architect of Historic Monuments in France and oversaw restoration work of Notre Dame until 2013, says that it is highly unlikely an electrical short circuit took place, and that it would take an extraordinary effort to ignite the ancient oak of the cathedral.
“So, you’re telling us that this type of timber doesn’t burn like that?” Mouton was asked by an LCI host.
“Oak that is 800-years-old is very hard – try to burn it,” Mouton said. “Old oak, it is not easy at all. You would need a lot of kindling to succeed… It stupefies me.”
Asked to present an explanation for how the blaze spread so quickly and with such strength, Mouton asserted that there were no additional precautions that could have been taken to ensure such a “quick” incineration could be prevented.
“In the Nineties, we updated all the electrical wiring of Notre Dame,” Mouton said. “So there is no possibility of a short circuit. We updated to conform with the contemporary norms, even going very far – all the detection and protection systems against fire in the cathedral.”
Mouton also revealed that there are two watchmen on duty around the clock who monitor for any chance of fire, adding that the technical and security measures taken to protect monuments like Notre Dame are unprecedented.
More than a billion euros have been pledged to restore Notre Dame, which President Emmanuel Macron claims will be executed within five years.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
If you are someone who has questions about the safety of vaccines or the wisdom of giving so many vaccines at one time and over the course of a lifetime, or if you question the ethics of forced vaccination laws that deny the right to informed consent to vaccine risk taking, or if you just simply want to exercise the human right to bodily autonomy for yourself and your children when it comes to medical interventions in general, the chances are you’re a “college-educated white woman making decent money.”1
This is what reporter Alfred Lubrano suggested in a recent article in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
According to Lubrano, “The rebel forces in America’s latest culture war—the so-called anti-vaxxers—are often described as middle- and upper-class women who breast-feed their children, shop at Whole Foods, endlessly scour the web for vaccine-related conversation, and believe that their thinking supersedes that of doctors. Typically their families earn more than $75,000 a year.”1
This characterization of the very broad and derogatory label “anti-vaxxers” is based on “various studies,” wrote Lubrano, including the National Immunization Surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.1
In a 2017 referenced public commentary titled “Class and Race Profiling in the Vaccine Culture War,”Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) cited one of these studies published by the CDC in the Journal of Pediatrics.2 The authors of the 2004 CDC study wrote:
Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a household with an annual income exceeding $75,000 and to have parents who expressed concerns regarding the safety of vaccines and indicated that medical doctors have little influence over vaccination decisions for their children.3
These women, then, are intelligent, caring mothers who spend time doing their own research when it comes to health care issues, shop for healthy and nutritious food and come from families that are relatively stable and financially secure. The only negative trait Lubrano was able to discern about these women is that they are so confident in their research skills and ability to make rational decisions about risk taking that they prefer to think for themselves and not always take the word of doctors at face value, notably as it pertains to weighing the benefits and risks of using pharmaceutical products like vaccines.
It is worth noting that this is not an unreasonable preference, given the limited amount of training and education about vaccination that doctors receive in medical school and the fact that, after getting a license to practice medicine, doctors get much of their information from the Internet like everyone else.4567
Lubrano quoted pediatrician Paul Offit, MD who pushed back on the idea that well-educated mothers (and fathers) have the required intellect to make informed health care decisions for their families. “Frankly, these Caucasian, suburban, educated parents believe they can Google the word vaccine and get as much information as anybody,” said Dr. Offit.1
Epidemiologist Neal Goldstein, PhD agreed with Offit that “affluent” college educated parents are incapable of making rational decisions about vaccination. Goldstein stated:
The affluent classes tend to be more hesitant about vaccinating. [But that’s based] on wrong information that leads them down a rabbit hole of falsehoods. I can spot credible data online, but the general public doesn’t have my training.1
Lubrano also cited professor of sociology Jennifer Reich, PhD, who said, “Vaccine resistance has become a ‘form of privilege’ and that educated mothers develop a “sense of entitlement” that helps them decide which vaccines are unnecessary, and that their efforts to promote healthy practices at home enables them to think they know more than doctors “who don’t know their children.”1
The implication is that higher education leads to a “sense of entitlement” that gives college educated mothers the mistaken impression they should be allowed to engage in independent thought. The suggestion is that education and economic stability can lead to misguided and perhaps even dangerous thinking about health and medical care, and that the better way is for parents to trust doctors and do what they tell them to do.
Lubrano quoted professor of nursing Alison Buttenheim, PhD, who unfavorably compared educated independent thinking middle- and upper-class mothers to “minority mothers who ‘never hesitate’ to get shots for their kids.”1
“They (minority mothers) say, ‘A good mom does what the doctor tells me to do,’” said Dr. Buttenheim.1
That appears to be the crux of the message Lubrano intended to convey in his article. It is the same message many mainstream media sources and medical trade publications are marketing—Moms, don’t think and don’t ask any questions, just shut up and obey.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The marketing of vaccines is one of the most aggressive public health policies today.
The most common marketing strategy used by stakeholders to promote vaccines is to create a culture that fears disease.
Fear-based marketing generates vaccine demand and calls into question ethical standards in journalism.
One of the most visible and aggressive public health policies in the United States is the marketing of vaccines. A common strategy adopted by many media sources, medical trade associations, government health officials and pharmaceutical companies to market vaccines is to help create and fuel public fear of disease.1
Creating a Culture Fearful of Disease
Headlines such as the following have become all too common in the media:
“First Pediatric Flu Death in Three Years Raises New Concerns in Maine”2
“Opting Out of Measles Vaccine Could Be A Death Sentence for Others”3
“Why Intentionally Exposing Your Children to Chickenpox Is a Terrible Idea”4
“Unvaccinated Boy Almost Dies of Tetanus, CDC Says”5
If you carefully examine such articles, the content, words and tone used are presented in a manner that creates fears and elicit anxieties about infectious diseases that were once not considered as dangerous as they are portrayed today.
In order to sell a vaccine, you first have to sell people on the disease itself. The most effective way to generate vaccine demand is to market the disease as a threat of great proportion. The most common underlying theme in such news articles is that everyone is at risk of contracting these diseases and that everyone is at risk of serious complications regardless whether an adult or child is considered healthy.1
This theme is often paired with the claim that “vaccines save lives.” The theme of “threat” and the “solution” provided insinuates to the reader that the disease threatens their very existence and their child’s existence; therefore, triggering a sense of fear and driving the reader to consider vaccination.1
Understanding Fear-based Marketing
There are two main goals of fear-based news programming. The first goal is to grab the viewer/reader’s attention. This is usually done through selecting strategic attention-grabbing words in a headline. Words such as deaths, outbreak, hospitalization, children, etc. are usually used in association with the particular disease. The second goal is to present the viewer/reader with a solution for eliminating the identified fear. In many of these articles, vaccines are always presented as the solution for eliminating the fear of disease.16
According to an article in Psychology Today, “The success of fear-based news relies on presenting dramatic anecdotes in place of scientific evidence, promoting isolated events as trends, depicting categories of people as dangerous and replacingoptimism with fatalistic thinking.”6
This is reflective of fear-based media articles on infectious diseases. They typically lack context and scientific evidence and include selective reporting which often results in misleading information that triggers anxiety within the viewer/reader, thus driving the demand for vaccines.
Questioning Journalism Today
Historically, the mission of journalists has been to straightforwardly and with professionalism report news that contains accurate facts, fair balance and does not reveal the journalist’s bias or forward a perspective or narrative with a specific political, ideological or business agenda.
Peter Doshi, PhD, an associate editor for the British Medical Journal and assistant professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy wrote a feature article in the BMJ explaining the importance of good journalism on the issue of vaccines. He writes:
Good journalism on this topic will require abandoning current practices of avoiding interviewing, understanding, and presenting critical voices out of fear that expressing any criticism amounts to presenting a “false balance” that will result in health scares.7
Dr. Doshi adds…
… And among those uncertainties are the known and unknown side effects that each vaccine carries. Contrary to the suggestion—generally implicit—that vaccines are risk free (and therefore why would anyone ever resist official recommendations), the reality is that officially sanctioned written medical information on vaccines is—just like drugs—filled with information about common, uncommon, and unconfirmed but possible harms.”7
Doshi ends by writing that, “Medical journalists have an obligation to the truth. But journalists must also ensure that patients come first, which means a fresh approach to covering vaccines. It’s time to listen—seriously and respectfully—to patients’ concerns, not demonize them.”7
The vaccination to help prevent cervical cancer has been on offer here since 2008 and more than 200,000 New Zealand girls have had it. The scientists say it’s safe. But in tonight’s 3D Investigates, Paula Penfold hears from girls and their families who have serious doubts and want to know whether Gardasil is to blame for what’s happened to them. In two cases, that was sudden and unexplained deaths and others crippling illness. Are these families right to be concerned or is science on the vaccine side?
![Far Left: Joe Catron [Facebook/screen shot]](https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/AMPFacebook.png)
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