Ethan Lindenberger never got vaccinated as a kid. So one day, he went on Reddit and asked a simple question: "Where do I go to get vaccinated?" The post went viral, landing Lindenberger in the middle of a heated debate about vaccination and, ultimately, in front of a US Senate committee. Less than a year later, the high school senior reports back on his unexpected time in the spotlight and a new movement he's leading to fight misinformation and advocate for scientific truth.
To start, I want to share with you guys something about my hometown of Norwalk, Ohio. Now, as this video stated, I am from Norwalk, which is an extremely small town, about 15,000 people. And really, in Norwalk, if you want to do something fun, you go to Walmart or drive half an hour to something more interesting. And for Norwalk, I've lived there for my entire life, I'm a senior at the local public high school, and you know, it's something to where I really enjoy my small town. And I'm just a normal kid, you know, I lead debate clubs, I volunteer at my church.
And back in November of 2018, I made a small Reddit post asking for advice on an issue that I was encountering that I needed some clarification on. And this issue, as was stated in the introduction, was something towards vaccinations and how I was not immunized against various diseases, including polio and measles, as well as influenza, HPV, hepatitis -- the standard vaccine someone my age would receive. Now, this question I asked was simple and pretty strange, because, you know, I wanted to get vaccinated. That's kind of weird, but it happened, and then this turned into a public story, because I wanted to get vaccinated. So that was kind of strange, and then it blew up more, and I was doing interviews and talking to more people, and again, I'm a normal kid, I'm not a scientist, I don't lead a non-profit, I am a pretty casual person, I'm wearing a hoodie.
Because of this question and this story, because I wanted to get vaccinated and this interesting situation I was in, I saw that I quickly was in this public setting of an extremely important controversy and discussion taking place. Now, I saw that the stories and headlines were pretty accurate for most part, you know, "After defying anti-vax mom, Ohio teen expresses why he got vaccinated." Pretty accurate, pretty true. And, as stated, I testified in front of a Senate committee, so there, they said, "This teen who self-vaccinated just ripped his mom's anti-vaxer beliefs in front of Congress." OK, I didn't really do that, but that's fine. And certain news outlets took it a little further. "'God knows how I'm still alive': Teenager, 18, finally gets vaccinated and attacks his anti-vax parents."
So I did not attack my parents, that's not accurate at all... (continues)
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
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