This morning I am doing my normal morning routine. This includes getting my coffee, checking my email, booking appointments, checking sites that I regularly post to, reading
Fark Geek headlines and checking the three blogs that I look at multiple times during the day. One of these blogs, that I have mentioned frequently in my own blog, is that of
Dr. Phil Plait aka
@BadAstronomer. Two of his blogs for today deal yet again with the Antivaxx issue.
The first one,
Newsweek Slams Oprah, made me cheer. It is very nice to see that finally mainstream media is speaking out against media giant Oprah and her pseudo/pop science/heath crusade. It is Newsweek’s front page article and 6 wonderful pages
dedicated to the danger that is Oprah. Included in this article is a very well worded section that deals with Jenny McCarthy and her antivaxx crusade. As one commenter said in response to Phil’s blog:
” “McCarthy is arguing that the ingredients in some vaccines might be one of only many, many variables that contribute to autism; she’s not arguing they’re the sole cause or even a major cause.”
But she started out by claiming that she was an Indigo mom, or her son was an Indigo child, or whatever the new age terminology was. Then she shifted to saying that vaccines caused autism. Then that the thimerisol preservative IN the vaccines caused autism. THEN that the accelerated vaccine schedule caused autism. NOW it’s a combination of the accelearated schedule and some complicated combination of vaccine ingredients tossed in with possible environmental (and maybe genetic) factors.
The goal posts just keep shifting with her, and every time reputable medical institutions speak up against her, she fires back with the Big Pharma conspiracy charges.
The saddest thing about this to me (besides the resurgence of preventable diseases, of course!) is that the level of publicity that she’s getting has allowed her to turn many of the desperate parents of autistic children against the very medical researchers who are trying to solve the issue of autism.”
It is very scary that people are supporting McCarthy et al for a variety of reasons. I really do not think people know what McCarthy’s issue is, or that McCarthy even knows as she keeps changing her POV on the subject. The more data to the contrary of McCarthy et al’s issue with vaccination and autism, the more they shift the goal post and thus muddy it even more. For Oprah to give McCarthy such a huge platform (own TV show and blog), Oprah is helping condemn children all over the world to death and debilitating disease.
“I was asked in a recent interview if I thought parents should be mandated by law to vaccinate their children.
I hesitated, knowing this was a thorny topic. I said I wasn’t sure, which was true. But I may be leaning toward a more definite answer now: yes.“
He then goes on to explain why he is starting to lean that way.
Now my first instinct is to say yes as well. However, I also see many issues with legislation that makes vaccination mandatory. As I have said in previous blogs, I am a full supporter of vaccines. I have not been able to be vaccinated due to allergies. My youngest has not been able to be fully vaccinated either due to adverse reactions to vaccines. Living with Lupus, this puts me and my family and the general community as a whole, in danger. Now in some places, it is mandatory that your child is vaccinated if they are to attend a public daycare or public school (unless there is a valid medical reason as to why the child is not vaccinated). I fully agree with this. I would even go on to say that it should be mandated on a country wide level. If you want your child to be exposed to other children, you should have to protect your child and other children against the spread of very deadly infection disease. If you do not care about the welfare of your child or that of the greater community, then home-school your child. Do not put my family or other families at jeopardy because of your ignorance on the subject of vaccines and risks involved. If you want to risk infecting yourself, as an adult you can give informed consent to that. However, as parents it is our jobs to protect not only our children, but children across the globe. A child does not have the ability to give informed consent and unfortunately some parents are not rational enough to give informed consent, so maybe it should be left to the state. There is already some legislation in place that would allow for this, such as when parents refuse medical treatment due to religious/philosophical beliefs and the state has to step in and impose treatment due to life-threatening medical issues. Ah but here is the catch, vaccines are preventative. Even so your are placing your child at risk for a life-threatening disease, your child is not at immediate risk according the current laws.
So again, that leads me back to a few issues I have with making it mandatory. Here are a few of my thoughts that I have already made in the comment section off Phil’s blog:
I am on the fence here as well. Here in B.C. it is mandatory if your children are going to attend a public daycare that they are vaccinated (unless the child for medical reason cannot be vaccinated and they need a dr’s letter to that affect). And I think that is more than okay.
@proudhon made the argument about kids and McD’s and TV, well guess what. Here in B.C. it is now mandatory that your child until they graduate school MUST participate in at least 1 hour of physical activity a day. Some may think that is a great idea but wait. The schools will be responsible for 15 minutes of that if they are in elementary, 30 minutes of that if they are in Middle School or HS. The rest of the time falls on the parents. Again, it is not a choice. So what does these mean, if you cannot prove that your child participates in at least 1 hr of physical activity a day, the state can intervene and remove your child. Yes, this is to combat childhood obesity and the first step they did was removal of all junk foods from schools.
It becomes very scary when the government starts to make how your raise your children mandatory. Even so I agree with it, maybe a happy medium would be that if you want your child to go to daycare or public school, they need to be vaccinated unless they cannot for religious/medical reasons and the religious one poses a huge loophole but its a constitutional thing. If not they have to be home schooled, etc
There is no easy solution here.
Then someone made the following comment, “The government could take a WHO approach to vaccination: when a disease reaches pandemic level 6, vaccines are mandatory.” To which I responded:
If it reaches level 6, wouldn’t it be too late? You cannot be vaccinated if you are sick. At least that is the criteria here. If you have shown any sign of illness for a period of time before vaccination, you will not be vaccinated. The incubation period for these diseases vary, so how would one be able to tell who is already carrying the disease but not yet showing symptoms to those who are disease and vaccine free without carrying out a millions of blood tests that will cost millions of dollars where by the time the results come back, the disease is full blown?
How are they going to herd the people who have not been vaccinated into clinics? Logistically waiting until level 6 would be a nightmare.
In this case, it is so very difficult to find the line between respecting individual freedom and protecting the greater good. Unfortunately, like with many other things, you grant rights and freedoms to one group of people, it impedes the rights and freedoms of another group.
The antivaxx movements scares the living *beep* out of me. I have Lupus and am allergic to vaccines so have never been vaccinated. My youngest had adverse reactions to his first two vaccines, so he was never fully vaccinated. Any time there is an outbreak of the smallest thing, I am not allowed to leave my house. It is not a nice way to live. That being said, forcing this upon people I think is too extreme on the other end of the scale.
Thankfully he clarified is statement to this, “I guess my point with the pandemic level 6 bit was that at that point, the entire population, whether they are attending public schools or not, would need to be vaccinated, barring medical exceptions. In other words, at that point, philosophical and religious exemptions would go out the window.”
Now that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my thoughts on this subject. As I said, in theory it is so easy to say yes. However, in practice, there is so much that can go wrong and end up causing greater harm. Let’s just start with the logistics of carrying out such a program IF a law was drafted that would not leave it open for the government to start imposing all kinds of other medical treatment that some many feel does not fall under the life-threatening criteria and they feel it is their bodies, they should be able to choose which medical treatments they and their families should undergo.
How exactly are they going to keep record of all of this? For instance, where I live, you do not go to your family doctor or pediatrician to get vaccinated. The program is carried out by the local heath authority aka the government. Before your child is of school age, you take them to your local health unit where the heath nurse administers the vaccine. When the child is of school age, the health nurse goes to your child’s school and administers them there. Now in other parts of the country, you go to your doctor to be vaccinated. Here, the doctors do not keep record of your child’s vaccines the health authority via the government does. Other places, it is up the parent and doctors to keep records. Now if it were nationally mandated to vaccinate, there would have to be a huge overhaul on the health system so that there is a central record of who and who is not vaccinated and how vaccination procedures will take place. That in itself would cost billions of dollars and would be a nightmare. Now that is just one small logistical nightmare I see in regards to this IF the logistical nightmare of how this law would be drafted is solved.
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer here. The best thing people can do is continue to educate in a calm manner and try to counter the fear tactics used by McCarthy et al. Hopefully we can avoid a pandemic of these diseases. At that point, no one will have a say whether they are vaccinated or not.
julia sherred
