Vaccinations: why we don’t trust them, recap.

April 24, 2008

Obama recently said something about autism and vaccinations:

We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it. [ Washington Post ]

According to the Obama campaign, “this person” refers to someone in the crowd who asked a question about autism, not Obama himself. But regardless, we’ve had to endure another round of “people who doubt vaccines are irresponsible superstitious nutjobs” posts from people who ought to know better.

I say they ought to know better because they are liberal bloggers who have often written about the gross failures of this administration, particularly in health care and regulatory roles. Let’s go over the narrative again:

1. The FDA is underfunded, understaffed, mismanaged, and rushed.
2. The CDC is underfunded and rushed
3. The Bush administration often pressures government researchers to give the answers it wants
4. The Bush administration often suppresses research it deems damaging to its own interests and those of corporate friends.
5. Health care is primarily run for profit in this country.
6. Medical pregnancy care is rife with dangerous advice, contradictory advice, and procedures done for legal cover and physician convenience, not the best interests of the patient.
7. We’ve found lead and date-rape drugs in children’s toys, thanks to failing regulatory infrastructure.
8. There’s recently been a number of high profile, safe drugs pulled from the market which were approved, again, thanks to failing regulatory infrastructure and government pressure.

The upshot of all of this is when the government — especially this government — says they’ve studied something and it’s “absolutely safe, no worries, move along” some of us don’t think “well, to ignore this conclusion would be like being a flat earther.” No, what we really think is “pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

In short: we are suspicious of the conclusions of science because time and again the process has been demonstrably polluted by commercial and political interests, even at the cost of human life.

And this is our child we are talking about, thank you very much. We’re doing the best we can to balance threats in a world where we can’t trust the information we get because everybody we trust to advise us on these things — drug companies, government agencies, the experts on the TV machine — have all demonstrated that they’ll lie if it makes them a buck. Again, even at the cost of human life.

We trust our pediatrician, in part because he listened to our concerns about vaccines, did not treat us as though we were insane, and suggested an alternate course of vaccinations that would insure Cory got what he needed while limiting his exposure to the additional carrier chemicals. And that’s how Cory got his shots. And why he continues to go to this pediatrician, who does not patronize. Who answers questions as honestly as we can tell. And who treats us as thinking adults, not overgrown third-graders.

And we think it’s important that other children get vaccinated too. But we don’t think parents are irresponsible morons (necessarily) for being suspicious of or even refusing that treatment. After all, given the current environment suspicion of scientific results and government recommendations would seem to be the more responsible reaction.

Posted in Politics, Science