#131: Barbara Loe Fisher

Barbara Loe Fisher is an anti-vaccination activist, founder of one of the oldest anti-vaccine websites in existence, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) (a cesspool if there ever was one) and the blogger behind the prominent anti-vaccine blog Vaccine Awakening.

She is especially famous for suing her opponents or trying to intimidate them into science (here, and here). She has no qualms about that, since obviously she is correct and that means that everyone who disagrees with her must be corrupt. Yes, the very foundation for confirmation bias (double standards) and all conspiracy theories (the case was dismissed, of course).

Naturally, after suing some major opponents and threatening others, Fisher wrote a grand screed entitled “2010 Needs a Fearless Conversation About Vaccination”. Touché. Under that title, she went on to connect “government regulated vaccine science” to 9/11 (fear-mongering and conspiracies).

In general, Fisher is one of the grand old ladies of the antivaxxers – her site was one of the first to go online, and she’s been enormously influential.

Diagnosis: Utterly confirmation biased loon; highly dangerous – what she runs is, in effect, a campaign against human well-being, and she may already have several detrimental consequences on her hands.