Today's Brown Daily Herald has two skeptical pieces in it. The first is my own opinions column: Don't Hesitate to Vaccinate!. Due to length restrictions I decided to focus more on why people, especially college students, should get vaccines rather than the anti-vaccination movement. I did get to mention them but not in great detail:
But there is a growing problem of organized movements that campaign against vaccination. The anti-vaccination movement focuses on trying to link vaccines to autism. They claim that vaccines for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella and ingredients like thimerosal, a preservative in some vaccines, cause autism. The evidence says otherwise. Study after study has shown no link between vaccines and autism.
Originally, I had a bit more about them—although still very cursory. Ultimately, I decided more good would be done by advocating directly for vaccines instead of criticizing Jenny McCarthy (even if it might be fun).
This is how humans wiped smallpox off the face of the globe. We vaccinated and vaccinated until the virus was isolated from the remaining people it could infect. The last natural case was contracted in 1977. This is also how our species is trying to wipe out other diseases. Polio is the next on the list, and only remains endemic in four countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Other diseases like Measles have been eradicated from the United States.
But there is a growing problem of organized movements that campaign against vaccination. Efforts to eradicate polio have been hampered by clerics in Nigeria who claimed that the polio vaccine was an attempt by the West to spread HIV and sterilize children. The World Health Organization planned to eradicate polio five years ago but thanks in part to the efforts of those clerics and other anti-vaccination campaigns the remaining countries, polio still exists and infects children.
The West also has an anti-vaccination problem. Of course, in America these sorts of things are no longer organized by clerics, we prefer celebrities. Jenny McCarthy went from Playboy model to purveyor of medical advice. Instead of HIV and sterility, the anti-vaccination movement in the United States focuses on trying to link vaccines to autism. They claim that vaccines like for the MMR vaccines (for measles, mumps, and rubella) and components like thimerosal, a preservative in some vaccines, cause autism. The evidence says otherwise. Study after study has shown no link between vaccines and autism. Although there is no evidence that thimerosal can cause autism, it was removed from childhood vaccines to allay any fears. A decade later, autism rates have not been affected. The movement bills itself as promoting safety, but it really is just promoting disease and death. Due to a decrease in vaccination, cases of measles are on the rise after endemic measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000.
You can expect to see more skeptical columns this semester. I plan to write about the quack remedies that the bookstore sells, local food, organic food, creationists in the corporation, and whatever else I can think of that relates to Brown. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them to me. Thanks to our very own Michael who is my editor.
There is also an article today about Ken Miller and The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Prof. Miller has been elected a fellow of the center for his work defending biology from the efforts of creationists.
