Kudos to national and local health officials for their efforts in setting the record straight on immunization.
With influenza season upon us, a measles outbreak in Prince Albert and whooping cough making a comeback, public health practitioners have been out in the media trying to educate and curtail some of the misinformation about vaccines that still manages to linger in the public psyche.
Of course, they're all very professional and politically correct about it, which I understand. Their goal, it would seem, is to get the proper information into the hands of as many people as possible without being inflammatory.
For example, in one interview on a morning show, a public health nurse told a reporter that she still gets questions about vaccines causing autism. When asked why this misinformation exists, she said there had been a study by a British doctor that suggested a link, but that we have obtained better information in the interim.
Unfortunately, I don't think being so circumspect gives enough weight to the anti-vaccination problem.
Fortunately, I am not encumbered by the same tactful sensibilities as our health care officials.
It's time to call a quack a quack.
That doctor referred to above, or I should say former doctor, is one Andrew Wakefield. In 1998, Wakefield published a study in Britain's foremost medical journal, The Lancet, that indicated a causal link between childhood vaccinations-specifically the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine-and childhood-onset autism.
A subsequent investigation proved that it wasn't just bad science Wakefield was practicing, but intentional fraud. Why, one might and should ask, would a medical professional purposely endanger people by manufacturing a link that does not exist?
Brian Deer, an investigative journalist with the British Medical Journal, asked that question and, lo and behold, discovered Wakefield was associated with a company that had a patent on, and an intention to trial a new measles vaccine.
Thoroughly discredited, Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in the U.K. and forced to flee to the land of the free and the home of the quacks, specifically Texas, where he is currently trying to sue his way out of disgrace.
Of course, none of this stops the likes of Jenny McCarthy-the American model and anti-vaccination activist who is herself the mother of an autistic child-from continuing to spread fear and outright lies about the dangers of childhood immunization. When you're a true believer and conspiracy theorist, no amount of evidence will suffice.
For example, most anti-vaccination believers blamed the compound thimerosal, a preservative that used to be used in some vaccines, for an uptick in autism cases. When it was pointed out that no vaccine that has been licenced since 1999 (McCarthy's child was born in 2002) contains thimerosal and that the MMR never did, the anti-vaccination crowd simply moved the goal posts. In 2009, McCarthy angrily responded to this information saying that if it's not the thimerosal that causes autism, it is the vaccine itself.
"I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe," she said in Time Magazine. "If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's s___. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism."
As I said, no amount of evidence is going to change her mind. So, because of her high profile and persistent and passionate disregard for the facts, McCarthy has become a true menace to society.
The bottom line is, vaccinations do not cause autism, they work, they are safe and they benefit all of society.
Saskatchewan's rate of childhood immunization is atrocious at somewhere around 76 per cent. Health officials want it to be around 95 per cent.
