I find the dispute over whether or not children should be vaccinated against measles terrifying. There are parents who still believe that vaccines are poisonous or unnatural, while others fear that jabs will give their children autism, based on 1996 charges from a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield who has now been discredited there.
To get his charges published by The Lancet, Dr. Wakefield made up a “deceptive†and “improper†epidemiological study of 12 children who were said to have developed bowel and mental problems after their vaccination. He invented a disease called autistic enterocolitis which he said resulted from use of a triple jab (MMR, a combo of measles, mumps, and rubella or German measles).
This finding led to Dr. Wakefield being struck from the General Medical Council in Britain for “serious professional misconduct†and as a result he could no longer practice medicine. Later research by other British medical journals concluded that the Wakefield Lancet article was “fraudulent.â€
Since then in various countries, studies of the results of vaccination concluded that while there are risks, the benefits greatly outweigh them. And risks can be reduced by more careful design and reporting on MMR vaccination. But they found no linkage whatsoever between the jab and the child developing autism or colitis. (Crohn’s disease wasanother supposed result of vaccination ex-Dr. Wakefield had cited.)
Lawsuits by the parents of autistic children in Britain and the US failed to show any causal link with MMR shots.
Despite this, after 1996, vaccination rates fell in Britain and Ireland because of what doctors call “the most damaging medical hoax of the last hundred years.†There were increased incidence of measles and mumps resulting in some permanent injuries and deaths. German measles which harms their unborn babies is particularly dangerous for pregnant women who have not been vaccinated earlier and resulted in abortions. (Queen Juliana of the Netherlands in 1947 refused to terminate a pregnancy when infected with rubella in the hope of having a son. She bore a mildly retarded partly-blind 4th daughter, Marijke Christina.)
Measles, which can lead to meningitis, brain damage, deafness, and death is the most potentially deadly of the childhood diseases.
Now an outbreak of measles centered on Disneyworld in California and now spreading in this country raises uncomfortable ethical issues about parenting and social responsibility. In many areas, local rules require that kindergarten and school children be vaccinated, to protect other children. The success of vaccination program depends on most children being innoculated to protect those who cannot be given MMR. Infants less than a year old do not get vaccinated (because they still have some immunity from their mothers which means it will not “takeâ€.) Children and adults with immune deficiency should not be vaccinated. And a certain tiny number of vaccinations for childhood diseases fail to work also putting children at risk. MMR cannot be given to pregnant women because of the rubella risk.
Sen. Rand Paul MD called for “most vaccinations to be voluntaryâ€, essentially opposing any local governments enforcing rules requiring that children attending schools or nurseries have had their shots.
He made a weird comment: “children do not belong to the government; they belong to their parents.†Actually in my opinion, children do not belong to their parents either, especially if some silly fear of “profound mental disorders†resulting from measles shots (another remark by Dr Paul harkening back to Wakefield). Nor do parents who have a total hatred for government at every level (as some of his followers do) have the right to endanger their own children or those of others over “an issue of freedom†(another remark of Dr. Paul’s.) Like Bashar Assad, Rand Paul is an ophthomologist.
