Anti-vaccine activists have doctors 'terrorized into silence' with online harassment

Dr. Dana Corriel wrote on Facebook in September that the flu vaccine had arrived and encouraged patients to come to her office for a shot.

Within hours, the post was flooded with thousands of comments from people opposed to vaccines. Corriel initially decided to allow the postings to continue, hoping to use the moment to educate people about the importance of immunizations.

But then she began to feel threatened. People she had never treated gave her one-star ratings online. Commenters called her a "pharma vaccine whore" and a "child killer," according to screenshots shared with the Los Angeles Times. Someone looked up her office address in New York City and mailed her an anti-vaccine book.

"That was a little too close to home," said Corriel, an internal medicine physician. "I held