The recent release by the Canadian Medical Association seems, on the surface, like a sensible response to growing misinformation.
However, it should never have to be written. We are living in a time when a national medical association imploring us to speak up against absolutely dangerous ideas is just another weekday event.
If a person is attacked with a knife or gun and ends up in hospital or dies, it is illegal and they will be prosecuted. If many children are hospitalized or killed by antivaccine propaganda or many cancer patients die because they eschew cancer medications, the people fomenting these ideas make money from the alternate treatments they offer with no chance of being prosecuted, while experts are left to beg people not to listen to them.
Harming or killing one person with a knife or gun is illegal. Harming or killing many people with inaccurate propaganda is a legal moneymaker.
For those of us who are sticklers for law and order, who long for a just society, who love it when the bad guys/gals are stopped in their tracks - the lovers of mystery stories and citizens of democracies - what are we to do when mass harm and murder is now another weekday event?
How many have been harmed by antivaxxers? In the United States, as of September 2025, 1454 have been infected with measles, 92% were unvaccinated or vaccine status unknown, 12% were hospitalized and there have been 3 deaths.
Before we Canadians tsk, tsk and point at Robert Kennedy Jr., Canada's numbers are worse: 4,849 measles cases have been reported in Canada, 88% were unvaccinated, 8% hospitalized and 1died.
In Canada, many communities are well below the 95% vaccination level needed to keep measles at bay for those children too young to be vaccinated or adults and children too ill to mount an immune response.
Given the reduction in childhood vaccination rates because of inane fears of 'vaccine injury', this is just the beginning. We're seeing a focus on measles because it is so infectious, but make no mistake, other vaccine preventable diseases are emerging. The World Health Organization has warned that not only measles, but meningitis, yellow fever and diphtheria are on the rise.
While naming and shaming diseases we should be rid of, let's not forget polio, a vaccine preventable disease with no treatment. “People think that polio is gone, but that virus is not gone.” says Paul Offit, director, Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. "It could be circulating in pockets of the U.S. right now, with cases being prevented only by high vaccination levels. But if those levels drop dramatically, we might not realize the dangers until it’s too late.
“If we stop vaccinating today, we probably wouldn’t have outbreaks tomorrow because it would take some time for susceptible people to accumulate.”
So, we were once here and we are heading back there again:
If this isn't all concerning enough, let's look at cancer and the pushback against evidence based treatments to sell ineffective, untested cancer treatments. The numbers of people who have died from refusing their cancer treatments are difficult to calculate because it differs with different cancers, their stages, age of patient etc. However, it is a fact that survival times without effective treatments is decreased. There are other costs as well. I've seen this up close.
Some of you may have read my article about my dearest childhood friend, Carol, and her death from breast cancer.What I didn't include in that article was how she was subjected to misinformation. Carol died nine months after diagnosis and, for someone so healthy and strong, that was like a fast, horrible ride down a rollercoaster. During that time, Carol was inundated with garbage advice. Anyone who has read the article knows that Carol had a spine of steel, was a science researcher and wouldn't be pushed into idiocy. However, some tried to push diets that cured cancer (she was one of the healthiest eaters I've known) exercise (she hiked and did yoga) and relaxation cures (her attitude was excellent). It was all about identifying a nonexistent problem and fixing it as a cure to cancer (of course, all these cures were grifts that cost money). A lesser woman may have succumbed to these 'cures' given how difficult chemo was and how increasingly scared she became. Instead, Carol limited her interactions to those she trusted and lived the best life she could for those short months.
The harms of misinformation aren't limited to vaccines and cancer - they are rampant for many diseases.
Just as the CMA shouldn't have needed to write their response, I shouldn't have to write mine. We need to do more than cataloguing the harms endlessly. We need action.
First, let's make childhood school vaccinations mandatory and effective by closing all loopholes antivaxxers are using to avoid vaccinating their children: no more 'conscience and religious' objections should be allowed. Only medical exemptions should be allowed. Mandatory childhood vaccinations are supported by 70% of Canadians; let's make it law.
Second, let's get some of our excellent legal minds around a table and figure out how to prosecute those who peddle dangerous medical misinformation. Harming and killing people must have consequences. Since I'm not an excellent legal mind (without legal training, I'm not even a mediocre legal mind) I can't say how the solution will look, but it's time we demand a solution. We cannot be in the position of watching harm and death and simply cataloguing it ad absurdum while begging them to stop. Going back to the statement by the Canadian Medical Association, "false health information is being normalized"; this normalization is largely because it can be done without consequences. Can you imagine if parents kept writing about how people were being paid to attack their children with baseball bats, often hospitalizing the children and all they could do was beg people to stop? It would be absurd. Yet here we are - harm with no consequences. With vaccines, it's often the tiniest of children who are too young to be vaccinated, who end up hospitalized. We are left resorting to begging for harm reduction.
This must end. Making money from harming and killing people must have consequences.
