Don’t confuse them with the facts. Childhood vaccines cause autism, and no study, no peer-reviewed research, no force on earth is going to convince them otherwise.
The mothers against vaccine were out in force yesterday, all over the airwaves, proclaiming that regardless of the news about the research linking vaccine with autism being finally and totally repudiated as a complete fraud, they were NOT going to get their children vaccinated, and nothing was going to change their minds.
One of them even popped up on El Rushbo’s show, telling the windbag that she still has faith that the study done by this discredited Brit, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was valid and proves beyond a doubt the link between mercury in vaccines and autism.
Never mind the overwhelming proof that Wakefield’s “link” involved children who already had developmental disabilities before being vaccinated.
The man behind the golden EIB microphone asked the lady how she knew this. She told him she’d done her own research. And where did she find this research? On the internets. And how did she know this research she found on the internets was valid? Because it was very scientific.
I remember when this bogus study was discredited several years ago. I was still a news anchor at the time. On my way from the on-air studio to the commissary to purchase still another 20-ounce bottle of Diet Mt. Dew, I encountered a hallway discussion among a handful of young mothers who worked at the station.
One of them was particularly vociferous in denying the news and defending her belief that autism was linked to vaccines. And what made her believe there was a link? She’d heard it from a friend she trusted. And why would she trust the friend more than the doctors and scientists who were now saying the study was flawed and there was no link? Because her friend is very smart and is usually right.
Every time this vaccine-autism story comes around- and it will again- I think of that young woman, and wonder if her children will be the ones who contract chicken pox and spread it to the children of the other mothers who hold similar beliefs.
They do travel in packs, you know.
I think those unvaccinated children should be kept out of public schools. If parents want to make their kids disease vectors, let them pay for a private education (or home school them).
ReplyDeleteAstounding correlations to those who believe in "man-caused" global warming (or cooling, as the case may be.)
ReplyDeleteThe science on climate change (calling it "global warming" obscures what's happening and contributes to misunderstanding of it) is far more established, with more scientists and more studies in more places over a longer period of time, than the autism/vaccine research. No correlation at all, really.
ReplyDelete