Marco Arturo, a 12-year-old science fan from Mexico is giving a piece of his mind to anti-vaxxers — who believe vaccines can cause autism — in a Facebook video that has gone viral.
In the video, Arturo plays the role of a scientist and starts off by saying that everyone has been lied to about vaccines. He then holds up a damning folder of his findings.
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But when he opens the dossier with “Evidence that Vaccines cause autism” stamped across it, it is filled with blank pages.
“I think it might be because there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that vaccines are linked to autism in any way whatsoever,” he said in a jocular manner.
Marco laid out the case for why vaccines don’t cause autism and have saved countless people from diseases like meningitis, measles and polio.
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“Many studies were performed, proving wrong the idea of vaccines being related to autism, but the members of the anti-vaxxer community still refused to vaccinate their children,” Arturo told Global News.
“They were making decisions that risked their children’s lives and also other people’s. I wanted to make the video because I wanted to express my position on the issue and also make people smile while doing so.”
Any research that suggested there was a link between vaccines and autism has been repeatedly debunked and repudiated by the scientific community.
“The measles, mumps, rubella vaccine does not cause autism. There is no scientific evidence to support the theory of a link. Because signs of autism may appear around the same age that children receive the MMR vaccine, some parents believe the vaccine causes the condition,” the Canadian Paediatric Society said in a statement.
The video posted to Facebook a week ago has garnered five million views. People from around the world are mostly smitten by the young boy. Some are posting their anti-vaccination views.
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Nonetheless, Arturo said he hopes the video will continue to educate the world about the importance of vaccines. He hopes to make a real contribution to science when he grows up.
“I want to dedicate to scientific fields, living off my books and research, someone like Stephen Hawking. I would love to leave a mark and a path behind me, to do something important that could make my place sure in history.”