QuackeryWatch — Canadian quackbusting, health fraud exposed, since 1998
Canadian Quackbusting · Health Fraud Exposed · Since 1998
← QuackeryWatch Home
← Back to Vaccines & the Anti-Vax Movement
🍁 Editorial Cartoons · Vaccines

Anti-Vax Cartoons: Choice, Chain Mail and the Triumph of Measles

14 editorial cartoons on the anti-vaccine movement in Canada and beyond: what “vaccine choice” actually offers, a movement marching back to the Middle Ages, and four cartoons after Bruegel’s Triumph of Death. Each one links to the facts behind it.

Jump to: “Vaccine Choice” · Forward, to the Middle Ages · After Bruegel · The Cost

“Vaccine Choice”

What the word “choice” leaves out.

Today’s Choices

Cartoon: a grinning salesman at a booth labelled Vaccine Choice hands a mother a menu listing measles, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria and, as chef's special, SSPE, while her toddler peeks out looking worried. A sign reads No refunds. Caption: Some choices aren't on the menu for long.
“Vaccine choice” sounds like a menu. The real choices on it are measles, whooping cough, polio and diphtheria, and the chef’s special is SSPE, the always-fatal brain disease that can follow measles years later. See Measles “Cures”. Tap to open full size.

The Vaccine Choice Time Machine

Cartoon: a family steps out of a Vaccine Choice Time Machine set to 1952 into a hospital ward full of children in iron lungs. The father holds a Natural Immunity pamphlet; a nurse raises her hand in alarm. Caption: They wanted the good old days. They got them.
Before the Salk vaccine arrived in 1955, polio filled hospital wards with iron lungs, the machines that breathed for children whose chest muscles were paralysed. See Before the Vaccines: What I Saw. Tap to open full size.

391 Pages

Cartoon: in a Canadian courtroom with the maple leaf flag and royal coat of arms, a judge peers at a toppled stack of papers labelled 391 pages of evidence, beside an empty briefcase and a jar of Canadian banknotes labelled Legal Fund, Give Generously. A court officer sweeps pages into a bin marked Struck. Caption: The case was weak. The fundraising was strong.
In 2022 a B.C. Supreme Court justice struck Action4Canada’s 391-page COVID-measures lawsuit, filed by Rocco Galati, in its entirety, calling the pleading “bad beyond argument.” The B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on 23 February 2024, with costs against the plaintiffs. In 2025, four of Galati’s own former clients sued him over his handling of this and five other COVID cases. Read the rulings: 2022 BCSC 1507 · 2024 BCCA 59 (CanLII). The full story: Action4Canada & Vaccine Choice Canada. Tap to open full size.

The Quiet Exit

Cartoon: an empty Canadian courtroom with the royal coat of arms and a maple leaf flag. On the counsel table, a dusty, cobwebbed pile of papers labelled The Lawsuit, 2020 carries a sign reading Discontinued, 2024, while a man in a suit tiptoes out the door carrying a jar of Canadian banknotes labelled Legal Fund, Give Generously. Caption: Four years of fundraising. Zero days of trial.
Vaccine Choice Canada’s COVID-measures lawsuit, filed by Rocco Galati in the Ontario Superior Court in July 2020, never reached trial. In June 2024 the group’s board discontinued it, saying that going on “at this time is not advisable.” Read: CBC News on the 2020 filing. The full story: Action4Canada & Vaccine Choice Canada. Tap to open full size.

Forward, to the Middle Ages

The movement’s arguments, dressed in the armour they deserve.

Forward, to the Middle Ages!

Cartoon: a cheerful medieval army in chain mail marches out of a castle gate marked 1349 under banners reading Do Your Own Research, Natural Immunity and My Body, My Plague. Grinning measles, polio and whooping cough germs ride in the baggage cart. Caption: Forward, to the Middle Ages!
Banners reading “Do Your Own Research” and “Natural Immunity,” and in the baggage cart, the diseases that come along for the ride. Tap to open full size.

Torches at the Clinic

Cartoon: at night, a medieval mob with torches and pitchforks and banners reading Big Pharma Lies and I Saw It on Facebook shouts at a children's vaccine clinic, where a calm masked nurse holds a vaccine tray and a teddy bear. Caption: The Dark Ages called. They want their epidemics back.
Public health workers across Canada and the U.S. have faced protests, threats and harassment since 2020. Tap to open full size.

The Plague Doctor’s Emporium

Cartoon: a beaked plague doctor at a market stall called The Plague Doctor's Natural Health Emporium, Trusted Since 1347, sells vinegar, garlic, leeches, ivermectin and raw milk to a line of smiling modern shoppers. Caption: Same remedies. New customers.
Vinegar and garlic were sold against the Black Death. Today’s stall adds ivermectin and raw milk. See Ivermectin. Tap to open full size.

Arise, Sir Expert

Cartoon: a king labelled The Algorithm, on a throne of smartphones, knights a man in chain mail. Banners read Followers: 2.4 million and Medical training: 0 years; a courtier's scroll reads I dub thee Sir Expert, Knight of the Comment Section. Caption: Arise, Sir Expert.
On social media, followers count for more than training. See How the Platforms Stopped Policing Health Misinformation. Tap to open full size.

The Siege

Cartoon: a medieval army under an Anti-Vax Crusade banner, led by a plague doctor, catapults scrolls labelled Misinformation, False Claims and Conspiracy Theories at a castle-shaped children's hospital, where doctors and nurses catch them in nets labelled Evidence while children play safely inside. Caption: Every day, the siege goes on.
Misinformation comes over the walls every day; the evidence has to catch it. See The Misinformation Watchdogs. Tap to open full size.

After Bruegel

Four cartoons borrowed from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death (c. 1562), the great Flemish painting of Death’s army sweeping across the land. The original is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

The Triumph of Measles

Cartoon after Bruegel's Triumph of Death: an army of skeletons under banners reading Measles, Polio, Whooping Cough and Diphtheria sweeps across a Canadian landscape, herding crowds into a booth labelled Non-Medical Exemption Office, No Waiting. A skeleton rider's sign reads 1998: Eliminated, 2025: Back. In the corner, a young couple stares at their phones while a skeleton plays a lute. Caption: The Triumph of Measles (after Bruegel, 1562).
Canada declared measles eliminated in 1998, and lost that status in November 2025 after outbreaks in Ontario, Alberta and other provinces. See Vaccine Exemptions: Ontario vs Alberta. Tap to open full size.

Dinner Is Served

Cartoon after Bruegel: skeleton waiters serve covered platters labelled Measles, Polio and Tetanus to horrified guests at a Wellness Retreat banquet set with detox tea, colloidal silver, raw milk, ivermectin and immune booster gummies, while a jester labelled Influencer hides under the table livestreaming. Caption: Dinner is served.
In Bruegel’s painting, Death interrupts a feast. Here the guests are at a wellness retreat. See Colloidal Silver. Tap to open full size.

Time’s Up, Your Majesty

Cartoon after Bruegel: a crowned king on a throne beside ballot boxes, gold coins and a Donations sack, under a Personal Choice banner, covers his ears while a skeleton in a lab coat points to an hourglass labelled Vaccination Rate with a 95% needed mark. The Alberta Legislature is visible through the window. Caption: Time's up, Your Majesty.
Bruegel shows a king whose hourglass has run out. Alberta has no school vaccination requirement, wrote a right to refuse vaccination into law in 2024, and had about 2,000 measles cases in 2025. See Canada’s Own Rewrite: Alberta. Tap to open full size.

Back by Popular Demand

Cartoon after Bruegel: a skeleton driving a cart pulled by a skeletal horse tips his hat as he brings iron lungs, a steam tent and a 1950s polio leg brace back into town under a sign reading Back by Popular Demand. An old doctor holds his head in dismay. Caption: They're bringing back the classics.
Bruegel’s Death drives a cart of skulls. This one carries iron lungs, a steam tent and a 1950s polio leg brace. Tap to open full size.

The Cost

Where the newsletter ends and the hospital begins.

The Newsletter and the Emergency Room

Split cartoon: on the left, a smiling woman reads a newsletter headline calling measles a harmless childhood rite of passage, next to a Do Your Own Research mug. On the right, a feverish child covered in a measles rash lies in a hospital bed on oxygen while a nurse tends him and his father holds his head. Caption: Same disease. Different view.
Measles is not a harmless rite of passage. About one in five unvaccinated people who catch it in the U.S. are hospitalized. See What These Diseases Do. Tap to open full size.

Cartoons by QuackeryWatch, made with an AI image tool and checked for accuracy before publication. The people shown are invented; none depicts a real individual. You are welcome to share them with a link back to this page.

📚 Further reading on Amazon.ca

As an Amazon Associate, QuackeryWatch earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Related on QuackeryWatch

Support this work

QuackeryWatch is free, independent and reader-supported

No ads, no sponsors, no industry money. If these cartoons made you laugh or think, here are two ways to keep the work going.

📚 Dr. Polevoy recommends Books on Health Fraud Shop the reading list on Amazon.ca → 💛 One-time gift Make a Donation Secure payment by PayPal →

As an Amazon Associate, QuackeryWatch earns from qualifying purchases. It costs you nothing extra and never affects what we write.