{"id":4551,"date":"2015-03-13T20:13:54","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T20:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=4551"},"modified":"2015-03-18T23:26:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T23:26:48","slug":"germany-court-orders-measles-skeptic-to-pay-100000-euros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2015\/03\/13\/germany-court-orders-measles-skeptic-to-pay-100000-euros\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany court orders measles skeptic to pay 100,000 euros"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Bad skeptics suck. The BBC <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-31864218\">reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">A German biologist who offered \u20ac100,000 (\u00a371,350; $106,300) to anyone who could prove that measles is a virus has been ordered by a court to pay up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Stefan Lanka, who believes the illness is psychosomatic, made the pledge four years ago on his website.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The reward was later claimed by German doctor David Barden, who gathered evidence from various medical studies. Mr Lanka dismissed the findings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But the court in the town of Ravensburg ruled that the proof was sufficient.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Reacting to the verdict by the court in the southern town, Mr Lanka said he would appeal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;It is a psychosomatic illness,&#8221; he told regional paper Suedkurier. &#8220;People become ill after traumatic separations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A recent outbreak of measles in Germany has sparked a debate about whether vaccinations against the disease should be compulsory.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">An 18-month-old boy in Berlin died last month of the disease.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The World Health Organization said it was &#8220;taken aback&#8221; by the 22,000 cases reported across Europe since 2014, urging to step up vaccinations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease characterised by a high fever, a rash and generally feeling unwell.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The most severe cases can be fatal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad skeptics suck. The BBC reports: A German biologist who offered \u20ac100,000 (\u00a371,350; $106,300) to anyone who could prove that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1054,20,23],"tags":[922,209],"class_list":["post-4551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-science","category-skepticism","tag-measles","tag-pseudoscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}