PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2017-01-11 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Was the Raggedy Ann Doll Modeled After a Child Killed by a Vaccine? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • In January 2017, Facebook pages The Truth About Vaccines and VacTruth.com shared memes promotion the notion that the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls were created as part of an anti-vaccination movement: Different versions of this claim had appeared as early as 2009, and the alternative health site RealFarmacy published a 2014 article that linked Raggedy Ann with a death caused (they said) by vaccination: This myth was hinted at by the Wall Street Journal in February 2015. In general, the memes and articles advanced the claim that Raggedy Ann dolls were created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915 as symbols of the dangers and deaths purportedly associated with vaccines. The rumor clearly had sticking power and regularly made the rounds on social media, and although aspects of it may be correct, the gist of the vaccination claim is easily disputed. Historians at doll enthusiast site DollKind.com noted that Gruelle's purported creation of a dead and lifeless tribute to his daughter with X marks over the doll's eyes were absurd: On the Raggedy Land web site, author Patricia Hall noted that the legend was one of many associated with Raggedy Ann, a brand popular with children for several decades: According to that site, plans for what would become an extremely popular rag doll were well underway when Marcella becae ill and died of an infection at the site of a previously administered vaccination: As both doll historians stated, Marcella died not because of a vaccination, but possibly because of an infection related to the vaccination. Advances in medical sterilization and clinical protocols suggest a death like Marcella's would be highly implausible under typical circumstances more than a century later. Antibiotics and sterilization changed dramatically between the 20th and the 21st centuries. No honest comparison could be drawn between medicine in 1915 and 2017, as illustrated by Centers for Disease Control statistics (unrelated to vaccines): Both Doll Kind and Hall's myths about Raggedy Ann's origins were well circulated, and Marcella's death is an integral part of the doll's apocrypha. However, Johnny Gruelle filed his patent for the dolls on 28 May 1915 and received it on 7 November 1915. Marcella coincidentally passed away on 8 November 1915, one day after her father's patent was granted. Given that Gruelle filed the patent several months before his daughter died, it is impossible that he created the dolls as a response to his daughter's death. Raggedy Ann was in the works long before Marcella received any vaccinations, became ill, or died. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url