Vaccinations

I think I have already written a blog post similar to this but I’m going to write another one because this topic is so big right now. And no, I am not talking about the War in Iraq or the economy; I am talking about the debate on whether vaccines cause autism. I have a very strong view point on this debate: vaccines DO NOT cause autism. It puzzles me where people even get this idea to begin with. As they always say, “Correlation does not imply causation.” And yet so many American parents assume just because the symptoms of autism occurred around the same time their baby got most of their vaccinations, one must be caused by the other. There is no scientific evidence to prove this though. All valid scientific evidence has shown no correlation whatsoever. The parents go even further as to blame the vaccine creators as greedy men who just want to make money.

Why then, do so many parents cling to vaccinations as the cause of their child’s autism? It is for one simple reason, parents love their children more than anything in the world and they want to come up with a reason as to why something is wrong with their child. It’s like this; every parent wants to brag about their children. Jane and Joe down the street want their little Bobby to be the best at everything. When their child is not meeting all the milestones they should be making they have to point the finger at somebody. “Well my little Bobby can’t have been born with any problems,” Jane might say, someone must have done this to my little baby. This might not be the case with all parents but this is what I think is likely.

I think parents need to stop blaming the pharmaceutical companies for their children’s problems. Parents who decide to not get their children vaccinated not only risk the lives of their children but also everyone who comes in contact with their child. And for the parents, who claim that these vaccines could give their children autism, let me ask you, would you rather take the risk of your child getting autism or risk your child getting Hib meningitis? Hib meningitis causes death or severe brain damage if you’re lucky. The list could go on and on of course because vaccines protect against so many different deadly diseases including polio and measles. The only reason these 2% of kids that don’t get vaccinated are healthy is because the rest of us take the “risk” and get the shots so outbreaks don’t occur. Paul Offit, vaccine creator who is constantly under scrutiny is quoted as saying, “I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die [from not being vaccinated]. Well, children have started to die. So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”

Here is the article that led me to write this blog post titled, "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endagers Us All."