The case for vaccines
I spend what I feel is an enormous amount of time pondering vaccination and the anti-vaccination movement. Maybe this time simple seems enormous because it’s a subject that has almost no direct bearing on me. I have no children, nor do I interact with any children with any regularity. I am not in medicine, nor do I desire to be (though the Red Cross is giving me track marks from all the blood I give them). I guess it’s my general interest in Why People Do Stupid that keeps my ear to the vaccination-ground (not to mention my nose to the vaccination-grindstone and my eye on the vaccination-ball. Do cliches become new again if you use enough of them? Can you lap around?).
Anyway, for those of you in the dark because you, like me, aren’t parents nor pediatricians, here’s the skinny: vaccines are given to adorable babies so they don’t die. Some people believe that, while the not-dead babies are still adorable post-vax (vax is vaccination-nerd slang for you, free of charge), they’re not exactly as autism-free as they were. That is, more clearly: vaccines apparently cause autism. This is patently untrue, of course. But no one is quite sure what does cause vaccines, and since we’re talking about children and scared parents, we’re talking emotions. And when the fight is Science+Facts v. Emotions+SickBabies, well, you can guess who wins.
Above is Joe Albietz, a pediatrician in Denver, CO, making the case for vaccines. His numbers are simple, few, and deliberately affecting. There are already too many easily-cured diseases out there killing people, we don’t need to bring back the old ones.
Hat tip to Phil.
