What happens when know-nothing celebrities decide they know better than almost two centuries of medical knowledge that show vaccinations can prevent crippling or deadly diseases?
Those once rare diseases have made a comeback. Call it the Jenny McCarthy Effect.
In this case, deadly diseases like mumps, measles, rubella, and pertussis that we thought we would never see again have come back with a vengeance and they are once again killing people, mostly children. I figure it's only a matter of time before other once conquered diseases like polio reappear. We've already seen tuberculosis resurface, in many cases drug-resistant strains that do not respond to antibiotics that once cured it. (Some of the blame can be laid upon infected immigrants or foreign visitors bringing it in to Western Europe and North America, exposing others.)
If the people exposed aren't vaccinated they are at risk.
So why aren't parents vaccinating their children?
Fear.
In this case it is fear blown out of all proportion by those same know-nothing celebrities who tell you your children will get autism if they're vaccinated despite decades of clinical studies that say otherwise. However there is one failing on part of the government that might help resolve this issue one way or the other: Run an impartial study to prove one way or the other whether unvaccinated children become autistic at the same rate as vaccinated children. The same kinds of studies should be run to look at all of the other ills supposedly caused by vaccination.
There have been 'studies' performed by not-disinterested parties wanting to prove all kinds of harm is caused by vaccination. One has to look askance at such studies because they are not impartial and were performed with one thought in mind: prove vaccinations are the cause of all childhood ills.
Impartial studies are the only way to end the debate once and for all, otherwise the results will be suspect and the debate will go on. All the while people who might otherwise have been saved by proper vaccination will sicken and many will die. At that point the argument about vaccination becomes moot, doesn't it?
