A German biologist, vaccine denier, and all-around quack who claims that the HIV and measles viruses are a myth, has been ordered to pay a bet he made, offering anyone €100,000 ($106,300) if they could prove otherwise.
Even though he has been ordered to put his money where is mouth is, Stefan Lanka (pictured above) is refusing to pay up.
From the BBC:
The reward was later claimed by German doctor David Barden, who gathered evidence from various medical studies. Mr Lanka dismissed the findings.
But the court in the town of Ravensburg ruled that the proof was sufficient.
Reacting to the verdict by the court in the southern town, Mr Lanka said he would appeal.
“It is a psychosomatic illness,” Lanka told a local newspaper. “People become ill after traumatic separations.”
Berlin is in the middle of a measles outbreak, with 782 cases reported since October. After an 18-month-old child died from the virus, health officials have been considering making vaccinations mandatory. According to reports, close to 20 new cases of measles are being reported each day in the German capital.
A rise in parents who refuse to vaccinate their children is being blamed for a rash of measles outbreaks across Europe. The belief that vaccines cause autism (first disseminated by disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield) is the root cause for the hysteria, but adding another quack doctor for anti-vaxxer parents to latch onto and idolize will undoubtedly make health officials’ challenges even worse.
