I will rephrase my comment, which turns out to have been wrong:
Carson believes that although autism and vaccines are not linked, we have to respect the freedom of those who don’t believe in using vaccines despite the risk.
He actually believes that vaccines are being given too close together. He cites pediatricians who believe that. However, he gave no scientific reason to space them out. So I think h
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/ben-carson-vaccine-criticism/
‘Washington (CNN)Medical experts are criticizing Ben Carson and Rand Paul for comments they made at the CNN GOP debate this week, when the two candidates appeared to validate the push to space out when vaccines are administered to children in order to prevent autism.
Carson dismissed the correlation between autism and vaccines at the debate, but affirmed the decision to have fewer of them so close together.
"It is true that we are probably giving way too many in too short a period of time," the retired neurosurgeon said at Wednesday's Republican presidential debate. "And a lot of pediatricians now recognize that and I think are cutting down on the numbers and the proximity in which those are done and I think that's appropriate.”’
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/ben-carson-vaccine-criticism/
‘ Ford Vox, a brain injury specialist at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, wrote in a CNN op-ed that the schedule was developed for a reason.
"Each of the 12 vaccines administered to children target common causes of crippling and deadly childhood diseases and represent the fruition of many years of hard-won medical research and careful analysis by scientists and clinicians," he said.
And he criticized Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist, for suggesting that it is okay to spread out the vaccine schedule.
Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist, told the debate audience he doesn't trust the recommended schedule.
"[E]ven if the science doesn't say bunching them up is a problem, I ought to have the right to spread out my vaccines a little bit at the very least," said Paul, who's "all for vaccines. But I'm also for freedom," Paul said Wednesday.
The Republicans seem to be using a slippery slope argument regarding vaccines. Many of them acknowledge that vaccines are currently safe and useful for preventing disease. They are afraid that if parents are forced to accept ‘good’ treatments they don’t believe in, then a government can in the future force them to accept ‘bad’ treatments.’
As an example of what could happen, suppose every child is forced to accept measles vaccines in order to prevent an epidemic of measles. Find. Now suppose a Congressman were to recommend a psychoactive drug to prevent mental illness. Instead of banning guns, he recommends that every child be prescribed a tranquilizer. Suppose statistically valid tests definitely prove that highly tranquillized children don’t grow up to be high school shooters, so all children are tranquillized. So we have a legal mandate that already ‘saved lives’. The vaccine mandate becomes a mandate for the ‘stoned child mandate’.
Or suppose marijuana not only becomes legal, it becomes required for children showing disruptive behavior!
Anyway, I think that Carson and Rand understand the value of vaccines. They are trying make their soften the perceptions of their stupid followers.
I partially accept the slippery slope argument. Although it sounds rather distant, I know that the amplitude of the social pendulum is huge. If one generation thinks rejects all scientific medicine, then the next generation will want to mandate medication for everything. One job of the law is to dampen the social pendulum.
However, I would put in all sorts of pressure short of a straight out mandate. For instance, I would allow people to sue the parents of unvaccinated children who can be shown to have spread measles. Plenty of studies show that vaccines prevents measles. Parents can leave their children unvaccinated if they think they can afford paying for the public health damage they cause. They can sue the government if they can prove that vaccines cause autism. Not many studies show a causal link between vaccines and autism.
I don't know if Obama has an educated layman's knowledge of science. I expect my leaders to delegate some of their decisions to experts having a better than layman's knowledge of science.
If a politician were to make a definite statement supporting the Big Bang, tried to ban the teaching of Inflation Theory, then I would vote against him.
I had that type of experience with La Roach, a right wing fanatic who was a third party candidate. He shows a better than average knowledge of some scientific topics. He came to the conclusion that fusion power was possible, supposedly based on some controversial scientific studies of fluid dynamics. Some of his campaign literature tries to explain his opinions on fluid mechanics, which he claims is irrefutable!
It may have been the former socialist in La Roach. He used to be far left wing. The idea that one could force a leader could force a scientific consensus is an idea many dictators try to use. Think of Stalin supporting Lysenko.
Although I don't particularly believe in these theories, I do believe it is possible. I really hope that fusion power is developed in the next few years, however unlikely it seems to me. However, the idea of a politician mandating one particular scientific theory out of all the theories available doesn't sit well with me.
They should give more money to research on both sides of the question. I think the answer is better organized research, not immediate mandates. How do we know for sure until we look carefully ? I don't see any politician who supports this platform.
