Individual rights vs Ebola Quarintines
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So, About the MSM’s Vaccination Obsession This Week
So, About the MSM’s Vaccination Obsession This Week
Why the 'Prius Driving, Composting' Set Fears Vaccines
Journalist Seth Mnookin's new book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, explores the public health scare over vaccines and autism. The 1998 paper in The Lancet by British physician Andrew Wakefield that sparked the panic has long since been debunked and retracted, and Wakefield himself has been barred from practicing medicine and accused of fraud. But that hasn't stopped thousands of people from refusing to vaccinate their children out of fear that they could become autistic.
Mnookin warns of grave consequences. Recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other preventable infections have sickened thousands of children and killed more than a dozen in the United States. Vaccine rates are falling below the level needed to prevent an outbreak in a growing number of communities, including ones with wealthy, educated populations.
Last week, Mnookin spoke with ScienceInsider about why.
Q: There's a perception that vaccine refusal is especially common among affluent, well-educated, politically liberal parents—is there any truth to that?
S.M.: It's dangerous to make broad generalizations about a group, but anecdotally and from the overall data that's been collected it seems to be people who are very actively involved in every possible decision regarding their children's lives. I think it relates to a desire to take uncertainty out of the equation. And autism represents such an unknown. We still don't know what causes it and we still don't have good answers for how to treat it. So I think that fear really resonates.
Also I think there's a fair amount of entitlement. Not vaccinating your child is basically saying I deserve to rely on the herd immunity that exists in a population. At the most basic level it's saying I believe vaccines are potentially harmful, and I want other people to vaccinate so I don't have to. And for people to hide under this and say, "Oh, it's just a personal decision," it's being dishonest. It's a personal decision in the way drunk driving is a personal decision. It has the potential to affect everyone around you.
So, About the MSM’s Vaccination Obsession This Week
Why the 'Prius Driving, Composting' Set Fears Vaccines
Journalist Seth Mnookin's new book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, explores the public health scare over vaccines and autism. The 1998 paper in The Lancet by British physician Andrew Wakefield that sparked the panic has long since been debunked and retracted, and Wakefield himself has been barred from practicing medicine and accused of fraud. But that hasn't stopped thousands of people from refusing to vaccinate their children out of fear that they could become autistic.
Mnookin warns of grave consequences. Recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and other preventable infections have sickened thousands of children and killed more than a dozen in the United States. Vaccine rates are falling below the level needed to prevent an outbreak in a growing number of communities, including ones with wealthy, educated populations.
Last week, Mnookin spoke with ScienceInsider about why.
Q: There's a perception that vaccine refusal is especially common among affluent, well-educated, politically liberal parents—is there any truth to that?
S.M.: It's dangerous to make broad generalizations about a group, but anecdotally and from the overall data that's been collected it seems to be people who are very actively involved in every possible decision regarding their children's lives. I think it relates to a desire to take uncertainty out of the equation. And autism represents such an unknown. We still don't know what causes it and we still don't have good answers for how to treat it. So I think that fear really resonates.
Also I think there's a fair amount of entitlement. Not vaccinating your child is basically saying I deserve to rely on the herd immunity that exists in a population. At the most basic level it's saying I believe vaccines are potentially harmful, and I want other people to vaccinate so I don't have to. And for people to hide under this and say, "Oh, it's just a personal decision," it's being dishonest. It's a personal decision in the way drunk driving is a personal decision. It has the potential to affect everyone around you.