Anti-vax crowd spreading a plague of ignorance
By Froma Harrop
Syndicated columnist
An outbreak of measles four years ago at Disneyland focused attention on a growing health menace — the refusal of parents to vaccinate their children. The threat has gone international. The World Health Organization has just named the anti-vaccination movement among the 10 biggest global health crises.
Italy is ground zero, thanks to a law pushed by the far-right 5-Star Movement that ended compulsory vaccinations for children in public schools. Matteo Salvini, leader of its coalition partner, the League party, called mandatory vaccinations “useless and in many cases dangerous.”
The anti-vaxxer crusade has a diverse membership. In addition to traditional right-wingers and radical libertarians who say the decision to not immunize their children should be a matter of personal liberty, it includes rich progressives who view vaccinations as unhealthy. (Far more students in California’s well-to-do Capistrano Unified School District were found to be unvaccinated than in Santa Ana, its poorer neighbor.)
The “vaccine-hesitant” — the WHO’s politer term — often wave ignorant junk-science claims that vaccines can cause autism. This dangerous lie gained traction in a 1998 article published in the prestigious British journal The Lancet. It turned out that lawyers suing vaccine-makers were funding the author, Andrew Wakefield. Britain subsequently stripped Wakefield of the right to practice medicine.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/harrop-anti-vax-crowd-spreading-a-plague-of-ignorance/
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's good for me that I don't see pediatric patients anymore. Because I don't know how much longer I could get away with telling anti-vaxxer parents: "Get your kids vaccinated, or get out!" without my superiors getting on my case.
But for my adult patients, it's pretty simple: "Get vaccinated or get out."
I mean, really! Why are anti-vaxxers showing up in my clinic anyway? If you hate science so much, don't make me waste my time with your illness. Jut go home, roll some chicken bones, recite an incantation or two, and see if that does the trick...
