Dr H
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2004
- Messages
- 835
In general I am a pretty tolerant person when it comes to woo -- if it's not hurting anybody, then people are welcome to believe whatever wierdness trips their trigger. But there are certain areas in which woo beliefs do active harm and for these I have no pity. One of the most egregious of these areas, IMO, is medical quackery.
People who oppose vaccines form one of the most dangerous groups of quack apologists because their actions put the public health of entire communities at risk. It is bad enough that some public health departments allow religious exemptions from vaccination; it is worse when trumped-up psuedoscience baloney is trotted out in a manner that makes it look -- in the general media -- like there is serious controversy over an issue which research has already pretty definitively settled.
The unsubstantiated "theory" that thimerosal (a mercury-containing preservative formerly used in many vaccines) was somehow causing autism in otherwise healthy children first surfaced over a decade ago. Since that time more than a dozen extensive studies -- some of them involving tens of thousands of children -- have found NO connection between autism and the tiny amount of mercury children received from thimerosal-containing vaccines.
Nonetheless, thimerosal was voluntarily removed from virtually all of the standard early childhood vaccines in 2001 (only a few flu vaccines still contain thimerosal, and those only when prepared in multi-dose lots). Furthermore, a recent study found that the incidence of autism in one test population has actually increased since thimerosal was removed from the vaccines:
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20080107/thimerosal-down-but-autism-rising
Yet despite all the research and the overwhelming opinion of pediatricians, neurologists, and medical researchers that thimerosal does NOT cause autism, we see this happening:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/05/12/autism.case.ap/index.html?eref=time_health
I find this appalling. Have we really reached the point where we just arbitrarily ignore all of the scientific evidence and experts and allow the courts to determine what causes and does not cause a particular medical condition? Do people really believe that judges are better arbiters on public health issues than doctors?
It is a little ironic that this case is happening in Oregon, where just two months ago a couple were indicted on charges of medical child neglect for allowing their 15-month old to die of a medically treatable condition, when they chose to deny medical care and pray over her instead. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23882698/
One step forward; two steps back? The courts just hear whatever is brought before them and it's really the lawyers beating the dead horse?
Opinions?
People who oppose vaccines form one of the most dangerous groups of quack apologists because their actions put the public health of entire communities at risk. It is bad enough that some public health departments allow religious exemptions from vaccination; it is worse when trumped-up psuedoscience baloney is trotted out in a manner that makes it look -- in the general media -- like there is serious controversy over an issue which research has already pretty definitively settled.
The unsubstantiated "theory" that thimerosal (a mercury-containing preservative formerly used in many vaccines) was somehow causing autism in otherwise healthy children first surfaced over a decade ago. Since that time more than a dozen extensive studies -- some of them involving tens of thousands of children -- have found NO connection between autism and the tiny amount of mercury children received from thimerosal-containing vaccines.
Nonetheless, thimerosal was voluntarily removed from virtually all of the standard early childhood vaccines in 2001 (only a few flu vaccines still contain thimerosal, and those only when prepared in multi-dose lots). Furthermore, a recent study found that the incidence of autism in one test population has actually increased since thimerosal was removed from the vaccines:
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20080107/thimerosal-down-but-autism-rising
Yet despite all the research and the overwhelming opinion of pediatricians, neurologists, and medical researchers that thimerosal does NOT cause autism, we see this happening:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/05/12/autism.case.ap/index.html?eref=time_health
I find this appalling. Have we really reached the point where we just arbitrarily ignore all of the scientific evidence and experts and allow the courts to determine what causes and does not cause a particular medical condition? Do people really believe that judges are better arbiters on public health issues than doctors?
It is a little ironic that this case is happening in Oregon, where just two months ago a couple were indicted on charges of medical child neglect for allowing their 15-month old to die of a medically treatable condition, when they chose to deny medical care and pray over her instead. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23882698/
One step forward; two steps back? The courts just hear whatever is brought before them and it's really the lawyers beating the dead horse?
Opinions?
