From the Ministry of Anti-Vaccine Propaganda and Misinformation – November 1-6 has been declared “Vaccine Awareness Week.” That is to say, Barbara Loe Fisher and Joe Mercola decided that it would be so. Fisher is a tireless anti-vaccine activist and head of the Orwellian-named National Vaccine Information Center. Joe Mercola runs a newsletter which seems to be just a marketing tool for all sorts of dubious “alternative” treatments.

Together they decided to have a fund-raising marketing event masquerading as a public service “awareness” week. (There already are vaccine awareness months in the US and Canada, making Ficher and Mercola’s scheme unnecessary for genuine vaccine awareness.)

However, my friend and colleague David Gorski had brilliant idea – if they want to have a vaccine awareness week, let them have it. We will teach them the meaning of the phrase, “be careful what you wish for.”

As far as we are concerned, November 1-6 is really vaccine awareness week, and we will be posting science-based information about vaccines, and countering anti-vaccine misinformation throughout the week. Look for these posts on Respectful Insolence (Orac has also announced the event), here at NeuroLogica, and on Science-Based Medicine.

In addition we will be spreading the word among our science blogging colleagues. We’ll list those who are on board and link to any science-based vaccine awareness posts during the week. We are working on developing an aggregator for such posts – we will announce the location soon.