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There are 14 comments on POV: It’s Time to Take the Controversy Out of Vaccination

  1. My birthright was that as a kid, I celebrated three Christmases in a row, with measles, mumps and chicken pox. I am one of the fortunate that suffered no lingering ill affects but have chosen to make sure my Asperger’s son is vaccinated. In no way do I believe any of his vaccinations have contributed to his condition. The supposed science linking thimerison with autism is long debunked, time to get over it folks..

    1. I admire your stick-to-id-ness even after having an Asperger’s child, unfortunately I can’t maintain the same belief after my husband was diagnosed with MS after the HEP B vaccine and my boss at work went legally blind in one eye after a flu injection given in the work place(yet he is still pro-vaccination!?).
      Research SV40 and the polio vaccination, you’ll see how we are the guineapigs, scientist don’t really know what they are doing.

  2. It is still my right to decide whether vaccines are right for me and my family. This should never be dictated in a free society. After all is there not a large school of thought that believes vaccines are linked to autism in children? Just because there is an outbreak does not allow my rights to be infringed upon and no, do not give me its for the greater good garbage.

    1. “After all is there not a large school of thought that believes vaccines are linked to autism in children?”

      There is also a large school of thought that the earth was created in 6 days.

    2. Hi Christopher, I completely agree with you that in a free society your choices and rights cannot be infringed upon. However in a truly free society (I’ll assume that you mean that government/others cannot dictate your decisions) this must then be applied to everyone else. Therefore people have the right to not do business with you, to not employ you, to not insure you (or to charge you a higher premium), as well as to not allow you to live in their buildings (presuming you do not own your own property). So I am perfectly ok with saying you have that right because you believe that is your “good” so long as I and everyone else have the right to exclude you from all of our dealings because that is “our” good.

    3. Christopher, please consider that your “rights” are trumped by another: the public’s absolute right to be free from the threat of dangerous but preventable diseases. CB’s suggestions do not go far enough; the public would still be at risk from your family.

      “is there not a large school of thought that believes vaccines are linked to autism in children?”

      No, there isn’t. There is one study, from 1998 in The Lancet, that misled many people. But it was thoroughly refuted, withdrawn from publication, & the author is so discredited that he has no professional standing to speak of. Beyond that, the most authoritative voice connecting vaccines to autism is Jenny McCarthy. That fact alone speaks volumes.

  3. My concerns will disappear when the grave concerns of these most highly-respected vaccine science researchers are addressed:

    “Why the Press Shouldn’t Dismiss Vaccine Skeptics”

    …This wholesale demeaning of vaccine skeptics defies explanation. Granted, kooks and quacks exist in the vaccination field, just as they exist elsewhere. But why taint the skeptics as a whole, and fail to respectfully report dissenting views? No journalist would have had any difficulty finding dozens of distinguished skeptical scientists for the very few “rogue” scientists that the press has vilified.

    How hard, for example, should it have been for the press to notice the views of Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of the National Institute of Health, the former head of the American Red Cross, and the former Chair of the White House Cabinet Group on Biotechnology, one of several White House positions she held in service to three U.S. presidents.

    Dr. Healy criticized the public health establishment for being “too quick to dismiss [vaccine concerns] as irrational…The more you delve into it, if you look at the basic science, if you look at the research that’s been done in animals, if you also look at some of these individual cases, and if you look at the evidence… what you come away with is that the question [of vaccine safety] has not been answered.”

    Dr. Healy’s views would have been particularly easy to find because they were actually aired by one of America’s leading journalists Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, in one of the rare instances in which the mainstream press fairly presented a skeptic’s perspective on the vaccine issue.

    Journalists should also have had no trouble finding Dr. Diane Harper, a lead developer of the controversial Gardasil vaccine and another interviewee of Attkisson’s. Dr. Harper believes this vaccine, which is being recommended for teens and pre-teens to combat cervical cancer, is less effective than the common Pap smear, and that it may harm more children than it helps. “Parents and women must know that deaths
    occurred,” she stated in arguing that parents need to know that they could be subjecting their children to needless risks.

    Journalists might have sought the views of skeptics among academics. At the University of British Columbia, for example, researchers Chris Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic in the Faculty of Medicine state that the cervical cancer vaccine may lead to death among susceptible members of the population.

    Their views have been quite public, as were those of Professor Walter
    Spitzer of McGill University, considered Canada’s “dean” of
    epidemiology. In 2002 testimony to a U.S. Congressional committee hearing into the safety of various childhood vaccines, he matter-of-factly stated that, based on the evidence to date involving one of the vaccine combinations under scrutiny, “I cannot recommend it … for my own grandchildren.”

    Finally, journalists who place special stock in the credibility of
    government scientists might have noticed the views of none other than Peter Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the UK’s Department of Health.

    Dr. Fletcher was also the Medical Assessor to the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and thus the very person who determined for the UK government whether vaccines were safe. Dr. Fletcher has several times gone public with his concerns over vaccines, and with his frustration
    that “no one in authority will even admit [a vaccine-related problem
    could be] happening, let alone try to investigate the causes.”

    Those who are labelled as anti-vaccination rogue scientists are hardly
    rogues — they are found at the pinnacle of the medical establishment.
    And they are hardly anti-vaccination. All of the scientists that I
    mention in this article value vaccines for the great good that they can do. Their opposition is to mass vaccination of the population, which discounts the risk that people with certain predispositions can react badly to various vaccines, just as people with certain predispositions can react badly to various prescription drugs.

    Identify the vulnerable populations, the skeptics say, so that all can be confident when vaccines are administered. For this, they deserve our appreciation, not our ridicule.

    (By Lawrence Solomon, research director at Toronto-based Consumer Policy Institute, columnist, Huffington Post, Posted 01/06/2014 12:41 pm EST Updated: 03/08/2014 5:59 am EST)

    1. I appreciate this article AND this comment, equally. In the medical world, I think, things aren’t so black and white. If we as parents knew what kind of factors are resulting in negative results, it may help- but ultimately may be at the genetic, unseen level and so vaccines will continue to be somewhat of a dice roll with generally higher positive outcomes.
      Doctors and scientists don’t know everything, and there will be errors. The fact that these errors and eras of learning (as better medicine continues to develop) exist is a fact of life and does not negate vaccination entirely.
      For my son, we are behind on shots… Specifically because I needed to be sure that the risk was not as great as the conversations seem to suggest. I want to know that statistics are favorable, at least. I don’t look for a clear cut answer, and if people researched many topics in the medical world, they would certainly live in constant fear of the many unanswered questions. We still must fight and prevent sickness if we think we have a chance, because disease certainly won’t wait for you to do research or agree or disagree with its imposition on your family.

      Great comments here.

  4. “No journalist would have had any difficulty finding dozens of distinguished skeptical scientists”

    Actually, no. There are almost no distinguished scientists who question the efficacy of vaccination & believe it poses a public health threat. The supposed lack of “balance” that Yell deplores is a smoke screen for anti-vaccine views. NOT vaccinating people is the real danger to public health.

  5. Childhood illnesses were one of God’s creations. We do our best to provide a good environment so our children will be healthy. If they get sick, it is wonderful to have medical treatments, and if a child dies, he died a natural death. If, on the other hand, we vaccinate a healthy child knowing that there is a risk however small and that child dies, we are guilty of murder. God did not make a mistake when he created us or disease. We make a mistake when we try to play God.

  6. There are good arguments on both sides of the fence regarding “vaccinations”. However, if anyone refuses to vaccinate a child just have them sign a “waiver” whereas should or when symptoms of any one of the numerous diseases the vaccine prevents, should appear, this waiver shall deny that unvaccinated individual access to any medical treatment that will directly contribute to the already crippling, costly, over burdened medical system” and permission for said individual to automatically sue parent for all related such medical costs and related fees.

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