Mystery virus EV-D68 exploding among vaccinated children; U.S. medical system clueless without a vaccine warns blogger Mike Adams, who calls himself a "Health Ranger" and seems to exist to undermine medicine.

This brand of folklore is nothing new for the health food contingent - their "science" conferences are headlined by Yogic flying instructors and people who tell you not to eat food they can't pronounce -  but looking over his online supplement sales site and asking around about him, it seems the things that set Adams apart from his naturalistic fallacy peers is (a) he is both a left-wing and right-wing conspiracy theorist, which debunks the common belief that anti-vaccine and anti-science cranks are all on the left, and (b) he likes to sue people that call him a crank. 

Believe it or not, that last part has to be a factor in independent freedom of the press. Unlike other large science media sites, Science 2.0 has no corporate overlord pulling the strings and shielding people from harm. And though anti-science activists insist all of science and science media has been bought off by Monsanto, they have never advertised here or even bought me a cup of coffee, so court costs would be my own problem. No one is shielding me from nuisance lawsuits brought by cranks.

My attorney has been hinting that he wants to buy a big trampoline for his office. Should that money come from me? No, it should not, but let's assume that truth is a valid defense and I won't need a lawyer.  The truth is, this Adams fellow doesn't know what he is talking about.

Despite hints in his title that he might have secret meaningful insight into what is going on, he offers nothing in the way of data or evidence.  Enterovirus D68 - EV-D68, one of many non-polio enteroviruses - is simply in the news, which means some people will try and exploit the concern of families to drum up pageviews for their weird beliefs and sell some magic potions. Over Labor Day weekend in the US, one hospital in the mid-west saw 70 cases that could have been EV-D68 and some cases required intensive care. That's a medical puzzle but not an epidemic.

What do cases of EV-D68  have to do with vaccines, the way Adams hints they do? No one with an even basic understanding of medicine would breathe in the fallacious concoction he whips up: (bold mine)

Children who have been vaccinated with MMR vaccines, influenza vaccines, polio vaccines and many others are the same children who are now being struck by EV-D68. 

I should hope they were vaccinated. The real anti-vaccine hotbeds are in coastal progressive states like California and Washington, Illinois still has 96% vaccination. So 96% of kids who may or may not have had EV-D68 probably also had vaccines. But if vaccines caused the infections, why didn't they get EV-D68 a year ago, or 5 years ago, and why didn't a lot more kids since 1962, when EV-D68 was first found to be a separate enterovirus? It's an epidemiological mystery to everyone but people in the business of selling alternatives to medicine.

He goes on:

Media doctors hopelessly clueless about what to suggest to parents. Because there is no vaccine for EV-D68, the media can't push vaccines as the solution for these infections.

It's our old friend The Myth Of The Oppressed Underdog. The Establishment is blocking out cures for cancer perpetual motion proof of alien visitations alternative medicine to line their coffers. Yet it's just a fantasy. The CDC lists over 100 enterovirus illnesses and they hit 15,000,000 people each year, and those are just what we know about. They have been with us for ages, we only learned about them recently in human existence, and they are spread much like the common cold and flu viruses are, through mucus. Like the flu, enteroviruses can sometimes be deadly. Compared to the other enteroviruses, EV-D68 remains quite rare. No one is hyping this up except people trying to sell something.

Why the vaccine link? It's unknown why he hates actual medicine. He offers no evidence, he just quote-mines media articles and fills in the blanks with his conspiracy theory. It's unclear who his target audience is and how little medicine they must know to fall for it. Does he believe colds and flu did not exist before vaccines either? A common tale perpetuated by the fringes of the pseudo-health community is that diseases were invented by pharmaceutical companies to give corporate salespeople something to cure. It's a fine just-so story for people who believe in alien abductions and that Colonel Sanders is secretly controlling the economy from a hidden fortress in the Antarctic, it just isn't based in reality.

What are the non-medical solutions Adams proposes to prevent getting this virus? Why, they just happen to be sold in row after row of supplements and untested miracle pills in his sidebar.

He may call himself a Ranger, but his ability to search for evidence to back up his opinions never seems to go farther than his basement Internet connection.