A satirical article, entitled “Anti-vaccine doctor has letter published in medical journal, wows colleagues,” fooled anti-vaccine doctor Suzanne Humphries who was convinced the article was real. The article, published on the inane website The Spudd, pointed out several core features of anti-vaccine doctors- namely that almost none of them have published anything in the peer-reviewed medical literature and that they are almost always unethical supplement-vendors.
In the ridiculous piece, Dr. Humphries was quoted as expressing envy at one of her colleagues, anti-vaccine doctor Toni Bark, who in real life, actually managed to get a single, measly letter published in a medical journal. The fake quote read, “We’ve all published in VacTruth and Greenmedinfo – that’s nothing. But for one of us to have written a letter about vaccines which appears in PubMed, that’s what we call a big deal.”
Upon reading this phony quote, the actual Dr. Humphries commented on the article,
“I never said that. This quote is not from me. There are plenty of doctors publishing the science against vaccines, and the toxicity of vaccination. What is a shame is that so few people actually read the medical literature and are thus naive to that fact.”
“I was floored,” the author of the article, Sheep #1, told The Spudd when he interviewed himself. “I mean, I do hope the article revealed some essential truths about these anti-vaccine ‘researchers,’ but I always try to make my articles ridiculous enough that no one takes them seriously. Perhaps what struck me the most was that Dr. Humphries found it completely plausible that her colleague Dr. Bark would use an interview opportunity to pitch her products.”
When the satirical nature of the article was revealed to Dr. Humphries, she angrily commented, “No, sorry, I don’t read humorless satire BECAUSE I spend my time in the actual medical literature, reading the research of real scientists, not hateful so-called satirists. So no I have never read this ridiculous rag. So you go on and influence your herd with so called satire and I will influence mine with reality and science.”
According to Sheep #1, “That statement is gold. I mean, she should consider becoming a writer for The Spudd. She says she reads, ‘real scientists’ and uses ‘reality and science’ to influence people. I mean that that is better than anything I could make up. And judging by other commentators on The Spudd and elsewhere, the whole situation is ‘humorless ‘only to Dr. Humphries.”
When interviewed by himself about how long he laughed when he realized Dr. Humphries had been fooled by his article, Sheep #1 declined to comment.
