Even after the study was discredited, headlines such as “Now It’s Official:
FDA [Food and Drug Administration] Announced That Vaccines Are
Causing Autism!” continued to circulate online. Some actors, powerful
politicians, and committed activists also falsely claimed that vaccines
can cause autism. Believing the false stories, many American parents
have refused to have their children vaccinated for whooping cough,
measles, diphtheria, and other infectious diseases. Vaccine refusal puts
communities at high risk for disease outbreaks. In fact, disease outbreaks
and even deaths of unvaccinated children have occurred. In 2014, for
example, a measles outbreak began at Disneyland in Southern California.
Because many California parents had not had their children vaccinated,
the disease quickly spread. Soon measles infected more than 150 people
in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Fake News Isn’t New
Fake news didn’t begin in the social media era of the twenty-first
century. People and organizations have been spreading lies, rumors,
and false allegations for thousands of years. One of the earliest known
cases of fake news occurred in ancient Rome in the first century BCE.
Octavian, a politician, wanted to take power from General Mark
Antony, one of the rulers of Rome. Octavian obtained a false document
claiming that Antony had shifted his allegiance from Rome to Egypt.
Octavian read the document to the Roman Senate. Upon hearing this
fake news, the Senate stripped Antony of his command and forced him
to flee the country.
Fake news flourished in succeeding centuries, with the information
spread by word of mouth. In Europe, the majority Christian population
frequently persecuted the minority Jewish population. Some Christians
spread rumors that Jews were killing Christian children and using
their blood to make wine and bread for the Jewish holiday of Passover.
One such incident occurred in the French city of Blois in 1171. Fueled
by the false news of Jews killing Christian children, the authorities
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