Do you realise that in Australia, the number of parents who filed a form with Medicare indicating a ‘personal, philosophical, religious or medical belief that immunisation should not occur’ has risen by 68 percent in the past five years? Do you know that there have been five infant deaths from whooping cough (pertussis – a disease thought to be eradicated via vaccination) since the beginning of 2009? Do you know that in the Byron Shire, on the beautiful north coast of New South Wales, 21 percent of parents registered as ‘conscientious objectors’ to vaccination?

In The Panic Virus: Fear, Myth and the Vaccination Debate, Mnookin sets out a clear-eyed case against any causal relationship between the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine and autism and reveals the people, the organisations, and the media who participated in this ‘manufactured controversy’. He walks us through the scientific research; maps the legal, political and health policy changes across the USA, UK and Australia; and cites specific moments in media reporting, and the rise of the internet, that led to the notion that vaccination is linked to autism taking hold in the English speaking world. And, as a result, how the decline in vaccinations has become one of the major health issues for our societies today.

But alongside his fierce rational head is a compassionate man, who understands how desperate parents can be when faced with their child’s deterioration, and he pulls apart our human foibles – why we believe things we know are wrong, why our incorrect beliefs are reinforced by the very proving of their inaccuracies – with precision, but also tact.

The elements of Mnookin’s argument: the rise of individualism over community good; the flat-out denying of scientifically verifiable research; the chronic under-resourcing of science reporting; the lack of responsibility shown by the mainstream media; and the ‘community’ building of like-minded people networking via social media; serves as a direct warning to all of us. It is chillingly relevant to firecracker issues such as climate change in our wider contemporary society.

As Mnookin writes, ‘A lot of parenting decisions come down to our gut reactions… The problem … is that in many situations regarding risk perception and data processing, “commonsense” arguments are precisely the ones that lead us astray’. The Panic Virus is a vital and necessary book for anyone interested in how we live now.

Pip Newling is from Readings Port Melbourne. She is the author of Knockabout Girl.