Posts Tagged ‘politicians’
Vaccination Nation Continues
File this under “things that shouldn’t be a debate but are.” With no medical or scientific evidence to support a link between vaccines and certain undesirable medical conditions such as autism, many parents insist that they know better. Or at least that someone else knows better. (Usually it’s someone on the Internet.)
The making of a DNA vaccine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Many parents are asking doctors to “spread out” the vaccines that their children receive, according to the L.A. Times.
Personally I don’t know if spreading out the vaccines is such a terrible thing, but according to the L.A. Times, citing an article in the journal Pediatrics, “87% of the doctors [surveyed] agreed that when parents delay some or all of these vaccines, they are putting their children at risk of being sickened by a preventable disease.”
In spite of their concerns, many doctors are doing it anyway.
So. To sum up. Most doctors (in a particular survey, at least) think that spreading out vaccines is dangerous. But if a parent is noodgy enough, they’ll do it anyway.
This is not good medicine. I’m not saying that doctors are always right. Far from it. (Oy, the stories I could tell you.) But if a doctor truly believes, based on all of the information available to them, that their patients, who in this case are children under 2 years old and therefore can’t decide for themselves, should be vaccinated in a particular way, they should not be swayed by a parent who complains loudly enough.
Other doctors are taking a hard line on the issue, refusing to treat children who have not been vaccinated.
Considering that measles is making a comeback (see the Related articles links below), and that Rand Paul and other politicians have made anti-vaccination a political issue as well as a medical one, I think it’s safe to say that this issue won’t be going away anytime soon. Which is annoying because, to the best of my knowledge, the entire anti-vaccine campaign (such as it is) dates to the Lancet study which was shown to be COMPLETELY WRONG in 2010. (More on that here if you’re interested.) And yet, five years later, we’re still talking about it.
Grrr.
As I said before — zero deaths. That’s the goal. And it’s an achievable one. How? Science! Cue music.
Doctors often delay vaccines for children to appease parents – LA Times.
Related articles (Note: Some of these are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
OMG Rand Paul – UPDATED
I hate politics. I hate writing about politics. It leads to nothing good… for me. But this CNBC Rand Paul interview hit me too hard for me to keep my mouth shut.
English: United States Senate candidate , at a town hall meeting in Louisville, . (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Wikipedia)
2/3/15 UPDATE: Vox.com points out that Dr. Paul’s statements regarding autism and vaccines are “even more bogus than you think.” Original post is below.
It started with this gif:
Gif of @SenRandPaul to @CNBC‘s @Kelly_Evans: “Shhh … Quiet — calm down a bit here, Kelly.” http://t.co/s5ljtYzsiN pic.twitter.com/ESj5sbvhrO
— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) February 2, 2015
Shush you silly woman! The man is talking!
Now for the interview itself.
Paul tries to have it both ways about vaccines. This is not atypical of politicians on either side of the aisle. In fact, he says something that as far as I know is perfectly reasonable, which is the idea of spreading out vaccines instead of giving them all at once. OK. Sure. Why not?
But then he perpetuates the notion that vaccines are the sole cause of “normal children” (his words) turning into, well, I guess not normal children, because of vaccines. That puts him into the excellent company of Jenny McCarthy, MD. (Note: Jenny McCarthy is not a doctor. Rand Paul is.)
Then there’s this gem, which I haven’t seen anyone bloviate about yet, so let me be the first.
“The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”
Excuse me? “OWN?” I OWN my children? Am I missing something? I’m responsible for my children. But they are not, to the best of my knowledge, a thing that I own, like my television.
This is the song that comes to mind. It is called Politicians by a band called The Exploited. I’ll skip to the chorus.
Defensive? Sen. Rand Paul on voluntary vaccines – CNBC (Video)
Related articles (Note: Some of these are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
Weiner Stuff Not About His Wife – There Is No Carlita Danger
Juliana Margulies was asked about the Weiner stuff, which makes sense because of the character she plays on “The Good Wife.” (For the record, I have nothing against Juliana Margulies. At all. Happen to really like her a lot.) My point is, when politicians do what Weiner did (and seriously, let’s hope that isn’t very often because WOW IS CARLOS DANGER CREEPY), nobody should make it about his wife.
Weiner’s wife isn’t running for office. She is not Carlita Danger. How is this about her? Seriously. She can do whatever she wants as far as I’m concerned. Do I wonder why she’d stay with him? Sure. But that’s between the two of them. It’s silly to blame or attack her in any way.
There’s also a doofy bit in the comments section of this story (which I should put in air quotes because it’s not really news, but whatever) knocking Hillary Clinton for “standing by her man” like Huma is. A commenter going by the moniker Beer Goggles (can’t make this stuff up) writes that he/she/it has “no empathy towards Power Hungry, TAMMY WYNETTE robot, Huma.” For our younger readers or those with poor memories, here is what Hillary actually said back in 1992.
Sorry, Beer Goggles. Not quite accurate. Good try though.
‘Good Wife’ star empathizes with Weiner’s spouse – WTOP.com.
