That's what they want us to think

Turns out that garlic attracts vampires rather than repelling them. I suspect a long-term disinformation campaign run by the vampires, in conjunction with their fellow-travelers in the media (and the Rand Corporation), as being behind the fallacy.

We're through the looking-glass here people.

"Does garlic protect against vampires? An experimental study." Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen, 1994.

"Vampires are feared everywhere, but the Balkan region has been especially haunted. Garlic has been regarded as an effective prophylactic against vampires. We wanted to explore this alleged effect experimentally. Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches instead. In strictly standardized research surroundings, the leeches were to attach themselves to either a hand smeared with garlic or to a clean hand. The garlic-smeared hand was preferred in two out of three cases (95% confidence interval 50.4% to 80.4%). When they preferred the garlic the leeches used only 14.9 seconds to attach themselves, compared with 44.9 seconds when going to the non-garlic hand (p < 0.05). The traditional belief that garlic has prophylactic properties is probably wrong. The reverse may in fact be true. This study indicates that garlic possibly attracts vampires. Therefore to avoid a Balkan-like development in Norway, restrictions on the use of garlic should be considered."

HT: NCBI ROFL