Health ping...
Now you’ve done it! The anti-vaccine, anti-virus, whackos will be out in force.
OK, what is Sarah Palin accused of doing this time?
it’s almost pointless to bring it up. The Trail Lawyers created the argument and the conspiracy theorists on both sides take off with it because it ‘seems’ like it might be true.
Dalkon Shield. Breast Implants. Vaccines. Just add it to the list of multi-billion dollar deep pockets trial lawyers need to keep their industry flush.
I listened to the testimony given before congress, and while I cannot address the safety of vaccination, what I did note was a disturbing consensus: that even if there is a problem, vaccination is far better than not vaccinating.
That is, a willingness to play a numbers game. A acceptable risk to a minority, to protect the majority. And that I find disturbing.
This is because, by general agreement, if the Measles/Mumps/Rubella shot is given as three different injections, the odds of harm are thought to be much less than as a combined injection. This is because it is far less traumatic to the immune system, an astoundingly complex system, to have to respond to a single infection instead of three at the same time.
But in this testimony, it was admitted that it was extremely difficult to get even a single vaccination to all children, and the public health system cannot imagine how it could successfully administer three such injections, without missing a huge number of children.
Ironically, the end result may be a mirror image of our school systems. That is, like parents who home school or send their children to private schools, parents with concern about MMR vaccinations will arrange with their private doctor or as a group to have them given as separate vaccinations over a period of time. But the vast majority will still have their children in public school, and get the MMR.
I will leave whether MMR presents a tangible risk of autism to be discerned in the future, but I note that the Japanese have just discovered that by discontinuing a vaccination for tuberculosis, they reduced their high incidence of diabetes by 50%:
There is still a very great deal we do not know about the human immune system, and how even a lack of disease might be more harmful to us than the disease itself.