Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stirred up a hornet’s nest of anti-science sentiment…when he posted a photo on Facebook of himself with his daughter Max at the doctor’s office. Zuckerberg’s offense? Writing “Doctor’s visit — time for vaccines!”…. Whether Zuckerberg’s post was meant as a taunt or a simple reminder to get children vaccinated, the negative response was to be expected — or as Laura-Kathleen Redman commented, “patiently waits for anti-vaxxers to show up“…. And show up, they did…. Colleen Kennedy wrote, “Herd immunity is a myth. Btw: the woman who contracted the Measles at Disneyland was fully vaccinated. Vaccines are largely ineffective and even if they don’t result in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorder, as they did for 9 year old Hannah Poling: they are extremely unhealthy and filled with toxic levels of aluminum, human DNA (there are no studies about how our bodies react to foreign DNA)?! - they say that Thermimosal (another known neurotoxin was removed), but I can’t trust the pharmaceutical industry. I’m so thankful to have a healthy child, who has a naturally strong immune system that functions the way God created it to.”
Rarely do I fail to be astonished at the fury with which the anti-vaccine community rushes to condemn those who have the temerity to do the responsible thing and vaccinate their children. Despite more than a century’s worth of scientific evidence proving the effectiveness of vaccines (How many cases of diphtheria and whooping cough do we have these days? That’s no coincidence, sheeple.), there are still those who, for whatever reasons, don’t believe the science. There are those within my own family, mothers who love their children, who’ve convinced themselves that they can “manage” contagious childhood diseases and that vaccines are dangerous and cause autism (there’s no proof of that). I’m talking about normally lucid, intelligent people who love their children convinced of something patently and provable false. How can one have any hope of breaking through such a formidable wall of denial and astonishingly stupid?
It’s been said many a time, but just in case some of y’all might have slept through that part of the class, I’ll repeat it yet again: There are no- zero, zip, nada, none- studies linking vaccines to autism. Those who cling to one study- long since discredited and debunked- based on flawed and fabricated evidence ignore a mountain of truth in favor of one grain of intellectual and scientific dishonesty.
Vaccine denial made Jenny McCarthy into a star, even as she now says she never claimed a link between vaccines and autism. That her claim can be refuted by anyone with ten minutes and access to YouTube makes it silly enough. That so many continue to cling to rabid denial of science outstrips rational explanation and understanding.
I never cease to be amazed at the ever-expanding human capacity for self-delusion and denial of objective reality. The ability to believe in things that are patently, provably untrue doesn’t reflect well on bipeds as a species. Our ability to observe, formulate theories, and scientifically test those theories for accuracy is one of the things that (normally) sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have the tools to investigate and prove- or disprove- a theory, which you’d think would give us the ability to make sound, rational decisions. Then again, the anti-vaccine community is hardly renowned for intellectual rigor or making sound, rational decisions.
There’s over a century of research proving the effectiveness of vaccines. Why do you think we rarely see outbreaks of measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, diphtheria, and other communicable childhood diseases? It’s certainly not because of clean living, diet, and/ or exercise; it’s because of blanket vaccination programs that have created herd immunity, thus providing protection across the board.
Are vaccinations perfectly, 100% safe? Of course not; what in life is? If the small risks posed by vaccines concern you, how about the ravages visited upon vulnerable children by communicable (and preventable) diseases? Yet there are still parents clinging to one long-since discredited study that for one shining moment seemed to show a correlation between vaccines and autism. That the study was shown to have been formulated with falsified data seems to concern the anti-vaccine movement not at all. They have their study, and it PROVES (at least to them) that vaccines may cause autism. Nothing- not even a century of scientific evidence- is going to be sufficient to break through the collective wall of ignorance and self-delusion.
I’m not saying that parents who refuse to vaccinate their children don’t love their children. What I’m saying is that loving one’s children doesn’t excuse willful ignorance of scientific reality, nor does it justify needlessly exposing children and the larger community to preventable diseases.
Science doesn’t care what you think about it. Science only knows what’s true, and it knows that because scientific investigation has dispassionately arrived at the correct conclusion. You don’t get to deny science simply because it doesn’t mesh with your pet agenda or preconceived notions. If you’re willing to place your children in harm’s way because you deny the validity of a century of scientific evidence, I’d submit it may be time to rethink your fitness as a parent.
