Protecting the children from those scary vaccines

Measles is making a comeback:

[In 2008] There were 64 cases from January through April 25, more than in all of 2006 and the highest number during that four-month period since 2001. None have yet proved fatal, but officials said they expected the total to keep rising.

“We haven’t seen the end of this,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fourteen patients, or 22 percent, have been hospitalized, mostly for pneumonia.

If more parents stop vaccinating their children, here's a preview (postview) of what things might look like:

Before 1963, when the vaccine became available in this country, there were three million to four million cases of measles annually. The disease killed 400 to 500 children a year and put 48,000 in the hospital.

The vaccine wiped out transmission here by 2000, but the disease can easily be imported because there are so many cases overseas. Worldwide, measles still kills 242,000 children a year.

Pertussis is now killing, as best we can determine, something like a dozen infants a year. Polio is still not gone from the world, and seems to be making something of a comeback this year. The list goes on--American parents who have never seen an epidemic, because their parents vaccinated them, are putting everyone's children, and not a few adults, at risk.

I assume this is self limiting--if anti-vaccination goes far enough, a bunch of unvaccinated kids will die, and then their parents will be more scared of the disease than the vaccine. But it would be really nice if we could convince them in some other way than leaving them with a bunch of dead kids.

And it would really help if our politicians would take the first step by not encouraging their beliefs.

Comments

Could not agree more with Ms McArdle here.

There should be a clear legal window for a non-vaccinated child that becomes sick to be able to sue his/her parents/guardians (later in life) if he/she gets polio or a similar condition as a result.

I know I would.

Posted by Alex Santorini | May 2, 2008 11:04 AM

Sadly, the non-vaccinating parents are putting other kids at risk too, although you'll never get one of those parents to admit it. Some kids can't be vaccinated because they're allergic to eggs or because they're immune compromised. Tiny babies are most vulnerable to pertussis before the age at which they'd be vaccinated; the death rate for pertussis for infants is appallingly large.

Posted by Cardinal Fang | May 2, 2008 11:52 AM

There are a lot of people commenting on this issue but I think Megan has been by far the best throughout.

Posted by Freddie | May 2, 2008 12:17 PM

That tired old line about compromising the entire population by not vaccinating makes zero sense. If you're vaccinated, shouldn't you be covered and 'safe'? And if you're not, are vaccines all they are cracked up to be?

There are so many theories surrounding vaccines that just don't make sense-- I would encourage a confused Mom and Dad to start researching. Trust your instincts and your research.

My kids, my choice.

Posted by rita palma | May 2, 2008 12:58 PM

That tired old line about compromising the entire population by not vaccinating makes zero sense. If you're vaccinated, shouldn't you be covered and 'safe'? And if you're not, are vaccines all they are cracked up to be?

There are so many theories surrounding vaccines that just don't make sense-- I would encourage a confused Mom and Dad to start researching. Trust your instincts and your research.

My kids, my choice.

Posted by rita palma | May 2, 2008 12:59 PM

Rita - You aren't completely safe if you are vaccinated, just safer (usually, but not always, much safer). But if almost everyone is vaccinated, its hard for the disease to spread. Having most of the rest of the population vaccinated helps both those who are vaccinated, and those who are not, reduce their risk of contracting the disease in question.

Posted by Tim Fowler | May 2, 2008 1:35 PM

Wow, four comments to get to the psycopathic "my choice and if vaccines aren't perfect they're useless" post. Is that a record?

At any rate. I exhausted myself arguing with the willfully ignorant on this issue the last time Mlle McArdle brought it up, but kudos to her for fighting the good fight on this as on so many other issues in which idiocy either reigns or is gaining.

(PS, I went back and forth between "Ms McArdle", as the original poster used, and "Megan" before it occured to me that although I might feel I know her from daily visits here, I do not, so I should perhaps use the more formal apellation. I went French with it because I'm francophiliac like that. But I'm curious, Mlle McArdle, how do you prefer to have people make reference to you in the comments here? Assuming, of course, that such reference meets the guidlines for politness and decency.)

Posted by Bob | May 2, 2008 1:38 PM

It's thrilling to know that you view your kids as property, rita.

Let me start your research off right: look up "herd immunity".

Posted by Cain | May 2, 2008 1:41 PM

Rita,

Immunizations have a failure rate of about 5%. (It varies based on the disease). So a vaccination gives you about a 95% chance to become immune.

However, 5% of 300 million is still 15 million people who are not immune. We don't have 15 million measles infections in the US, however.

This is due to what is known as "herd immunity". If the disease cannont spread faser than people's immune systems kill it, then it will die out. If at least 5-10% of the population are susceptable, the disease survives. If less, it doesn't. (Again, the exact number varies by disease). With vaccinations, we can hold the vulnerable population below that threshhold, and thus erradicate the disease.

If enough parents don't vaccinate their children, then herd immunity will fail, and we will begin to have small outbreaks of diseases that haven't been seen in the US since the 60s. If we are very unlucky, or if too there are too many unvaccinated children, one of those outbreaks will explode into an epidemic, affecting not only the unvaccinated, but also those 15 million people who were vaccinated but did not achieve immunity.

If you fail to vaccinate, you not only compromise the safety of your children, you make a nationwide epidemic a little more likely.

Posted by heedless | May 2, 2008 1:47 PM

Ria, assuming that is an honest question, and not an ongoing attempt to justify why you secretly hate your children, here a simple analogy: a game of Chinese Checkers. In Chinese checkers, pieces may move forward only by advancing one space or jumping one other piece. If a piece becomes locked in with at least two other pieces blocking all exit paths, it may not move forward.

Vaccine immunity is not perfect, but it doesn't need to be, as long as an overwhelming majority are vaccinated. On the rare occasion that the disease does show up, it is quarantined just like a locked-in checker piece. Conversely, there may be plenty of empty spaces farther ahead, but the disease cannot get to them (and infect anyone whose immunity may have weakened or "didn't take").

Reduce the vaccination, and you are basically opening up a lot more positions on the board, and thus increasing the likelihood that when the disease does show up somewhere, it has another space it can move to, or it can jump to another location and find more options for spreading.

Does that make sense?

Posted by aMouseforallSeasons | May 2, 2008 1:55 PM

Trust your instincts ...

Intellect > instincts on substantive matters such as this.

Posted by Occam's Beard | May 2, 2008 2:03 PM

I'm curious for an explanation as to how in the 1950's (when all boomers got measles it seems) that less than 2% ended up in the hospital whereas today it is 22%.

Posted by creech | May 2, 2008 2:12 PM

Also, Rita, there are the kids who are too young to be vaccinated--that's why almost all the people who die from pertussis are infants. Infants infected by the children of someone else who said "My kids, my choice." What you're really saying is, "someone else's kids, my choice."

Posted by Megan McArdle | May 2, 2008 3:17 PM

Additionally, I know at least the smallpox vaccine does wear off after a certain period of time. These vaccines are principally meant to give the most protection when one is the most susceptible to getting the disease, childhood when we are in close contact with more people than we are at almost any other point in life.
This means that the elderly, the most vulnerable group, besides very young children, are put in danger by those parents who don't want to vaccinate their children.

Creech,

I think that has to do with who gets measles now and the lessened natural immunity of the population. Before there was a vaccine for measles all kins of children would get the disease, from the healthiest to the sickest. Now I think it pretty much the "sickly" children who get these diseases. The children who because of severe allergies or immune deficiency are unable to receive their vaccines.

Posted by jon | May 2, 2008 4:05 PM

Ah, open season on Rita and those who dare to question their government. It's folks like Bob, with their branding of parents who have legitimate suspicions as "willfully ignorant" people who enjoy "idiocy," who lower the level of debate in this country on an issue that's been shown, repeatedly, around the globe, to have a definite downside amid all the gains in terms of infection rates:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544592/Vaccine-officials-knew-about-MMR-risks.html

Vaccine officials knew about MMR risks
By Mark Watts and Christopher Hope
Last Updated: 2:01AM GMT 06/03/2007

Government officials were made aware of some problems with a version of the MMR vaccine in other countries but still introduced it in Britain in the late 1980s, newly released documents show.
The MMR vaccine with the Urabe strain of mumps was first used in Britain in October 1988. It was blamed for the deaths of several children after being withdrawn by the Department of Health in September 1992.

India recalls measles vaccine after child deaths
Fri Apr 25, 4:53 AM ET

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India has recalled over four million doses of a measles vaccine supplied by a south Indian drug manufacturer after four children died following inoculation with the drug, reports said Friday.
Govt, group ordered to pay in vaccine suit
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20030314wo25.htm

March 2003
Yomiuri Shimbun

The government and the Research Foundation for Microbial Diseases at Osaka University in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, were ordered Thursday to pay 34 million yen to the family of a boy who died after receiving the now-banned measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine in 1991.

They were also told to pay 121 million yen to the family of a girl who fell seriously ill after being given the vaccine.

--Thank goodness this sort of thing could never happen here in the good ol' U.S. of A. And even if it could, you better do what Bob and Megan want. You see, they're afraid they might DIE. What do you rubes who won't vaccinate your kids have to worry about? Your endangering THEM!

Posted by Discman | May 2, 2008 4:24 PM

It gets worse.

Recently, in Science News, it was reported that some men give false negative responses to tests for steroid-use, due to a genetic anomoly that allows their bodies to process the steroids being tested for so completely that the resultant end-products fall below the threshold level of the tests. Other variations (for false positives) exist.

We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the way unique genetic inheritances affect individual responses to medical tests and treatments. What this means for parents who have reason to believe their children might be at risk for autism, is that they cannot yet trust the reported evidence against a link between vaccines an autism.

Here's the problem: These parents could, quite responsibly, manage this risk, if pediatricians and health officials would let them. They could postpone vaccinations until the risky period has passed (age 2 - 3) and stagger them, taking vaccines individually and skipping ones like varicella that protect against extremely low risk diseases.

But instead of helping parents manage risk--their legitimate fears of what remains a mystery (science cannot tell them for certain that there is "no link" until a cause for autism is discovered--until then, they can only promise "probability"--and we're back to risk management.) they either, ignore, mock, or demonize them.

This is an issue that is being ill-served by nearly everyone, who would rather score rhetorical points than resolve it.

(Point of information: My daughter is fully vaccinated--but I was able to work with our pediatrician to stagger the shots, and to avoid those using Thimerisol--an ingredient to which I personally, am allergic--so I find the reports claiming that this preservative is completely harmless for everyone, unpersuasive.)

Posted by Carbonel | May 2, 2008 4:47 PM

I have an uncle who was unfortunate enough to contract pertussis as an adult (I guess the vaccines he had had wore off...I don't think he was getting the DaTP booster, just tetanus boosters).

He was sick - miserably sick - for months and months.

I also have relatives in their late 80s/early 90s who raised children during the polio epidemics. I'd like the anti-vaccine parents to go and talk to them and then consider if their child is really too special to be vaccinated after all.

Sadly, I think it will take the pendulum swinging back to more bad disease outbreaks before people wake up and realize that though there are small risks associated with vaccinating, the risks associated with not-vaccinating are greater.

If it were simply an issue of "I don't want to vaccinate my child and the only consequences I face is that he might die of a horrible illness" I wouldn't have a problem. But other people smarter than I have mentioned the "herd immunity" thing and the concept that there is a 5% or so rate of a vaccine "not taking."

So I'd hate, for example, to be one of those on whom MMR didn't "take" and wind up being exposed to measles from some kid whose parents chose not to vaccinate.

Posted by ricki | May 2, 2008 4:50 PM

Discman,

You sound like the people who oppose mandatory seat belt use because one could somehow get trapped by the seatbelt in the event of an accident. Yet forgetting that without the seatbelt that trapped you in the car you would likely be dead, or incapable of moving anyway.

If you really, really, really don't want your children vaccinated, just make sure they never go anywhere near any of my friends or relatives who have compromised immune systems or are net yet old enough to receive their vaccines.

Posted by jon | May 2, 2008 4:50 PM

Bob,

She'll also respond to "Jane", that being her alter ego in her previous non-professional blogs.

Posted by Rex | May 2, 2008 5:09 PM

Vaccine rejectionists don't seem to realize the moral implications of their choices. They are "free-riders", willing to take the benefits of vaccines, but letting others shoulder the burden of the risks. That's unethical.

There are some very basic points about vaccination that vaccine rejectionists fail to understand. In fact, vaccine rejectionists have so little understanding of immunology, basic science and statistics that they actually think that they have "discovered" new facts about vaccines. It is well known that vaccines are not 100% effective. No one ever claimed that they were. It is well known that vaccines have side effects up to and including death; that's why we have a compensation system in place.

Vaccination is like many other aspects of living in a society: it has benefits and risks. Free-riders are people who elect to take the benefits, but refuse to accept the risks. The classic case of the free rider is a conservation water ban. People in a town are told not to water their lawns more than twice a week in order to conserve water. Most people, understanding the importance of water conservation, comply. However, there are always a few people who insists on secretly violating the ban. They believe that they will be protected from a water shortage because everyone else is conserving, and they don't want to take the risk that their lawn will turn brown.

Vaccine rejectionism is similar, but far more serious. The greater the proportion of the population that is vaccinated, the greater the protection for all citizens. Vaccine rejectionists believe that they will be protected from contracting diseases because everyone else is getting vaccinated, and they don't want to take the risk that their child will suffer a real (or a fabricated) risk of vaccination.

The vaccine rejectionists' position is fundamentally unethical. They always and inevitably place more people at risk for disease than just the children who are not vaccinated. Indeed, those who are most at risk are the most vulnerable in the population, because they are too young or too sick to get vaccinated. It's just like the free-riders who water their lawn during the water ban. They always and inevitably place other people at risk of a water shortage, not just themselves.

Posted by Amy Tuteur, MD | May 2, 2008 5:56 PM

Wow, Discman, you're right. We should definitely be willing to go back to the days of thousands of child deaths per year because vaccines occasionally cause "several" or "four" child deaths.

They say that proper sanitation has also enormously improved our health but I'm sure some people are deathly allergic to soap, so perhaps we should go back to medieval standards of hygiene. Probably soap is actually causing all kinds of difficult to track health problems and we'd all be better off avoiding it.

Don't even get me started on refrigerated food. Do you know how dangerous refrigerators are to children? Spoiled food is a small price to pay for the safety of literally tens of children every few years. After all, I don't know anyone who ever died of food poisoning, so clearly that risk is wildly overblown.

jon, I was going to use the same example of those who feel that wearing a seatbelt is dangerous because of the minuscule chance of the seatbelt endangering your life and ignore the obvious dangers that seatbelts help prevent. In fact, though, that analogy doesn't go far enough. It would be as though not wearing your seatbelt not only endangered your life but also the lives of everyone who sensibly wears their seatbelt. Also it would have to be a world in which those who cannot wear a seatbelt still get most of the protection of seatbelts so long as everyone else wears one. And those people, too, are put at increased risk by these free-riders.

And then when you mock them for it they claim that you're lowering the level of the discourse. Yes, and when I mock holocaust deniers and those who claim that aliens have given them the secret to the 500-mile-per-gallon carberator, I'm prob. also lowering those dialogues. Guess I have issues.

If anything, I feel we need more, not less, social opprobrium for these folk. Though granted social opprobrium over the internet is prob. not particularly effective.

(Thanks for the answer, Rex. I suppose if she's okay with Jane, she's prob. okay with Megan and Ms McArdle too. Hopefully my french wasn't over the line.)

Posted by Bob | May 2, 2008 6:40 PM

Hey, if I want to use a taser to discipline my kids, why can't I? The pain inflicted has to be balanced by each parent against the serious threats to the life and health of a child that can result from the child failing to be mindful and obedient. What if not tasing the child means he ignores an order to not play in the street, and he gets hit by a car?

My kids, my choice.

Posted by Oildrilling Lunatic | May 2, 2008 8:47 PM

Bob: People die from vaccines. Yes, "several." But I've not gone into the number who are incapacitated permanently by vaccines. Death isn't the only downside. Try living raising a child whose body keeps growing but whose mind never grew beyond the age of 5 months, when he got his precious vaccine.

Have you ever met someone like that? Spoken with a family who's raising someone who is severely impaired because of vaccination? Oh, I forgot: Someone quaintly explained, "that's why we have compensation." Well, thank goodness for that. There's money to be paid out in exchange for hours upon hours of never-ending diapering and constant care of severely disabled kids.

But don't worry about it, Bob and Megan. Just know that you and your kids will be SAFE. That's all that matters. And console yourselves over how responsible those kids' grieving parents were to get their children vaccinated.

The return to your blogs, where you type out your directives with full assurance that the forces of Right and Good are on your side. They always have been, and always will be.

Posted by Discman | May 2, 2008 9:18 PM

Discman, you are being disingenuous. How many of the kids who are severely disabled are so because of vaccines? The answer is: extremely few.

You want to put lots of people at risk because of a microscopic chance that your child could be harmed.

Perhaps, when you age, and your immune system will no longer work with vaccines (such as flu vaccine after age 60), you will become seriously ill or die because someone's kid didn't get vaccinated. Or perhaps it will happen to someone you love. Looking forward to that?

Guess what! As a member of humanity and as a citizen, you have a responsibility to not go your selfish way when it endangers others. Your attitude is that of a classic free-rider. If your country was at war, you would presumably dodge the draft or refuse to allow your child to serve, on the same grounds. Someone else's kid will take care of it!

Shame on you.

Posted by John Moore | May 2, 2008 10:06 PM

1. My father had whooping cough when young. My late father in law's sister died from polio in her youth. In my youth, I knew a lady who was on crutches due to polio, and later knew a lady my own age who had troubles walking due to it.

2. The risk of vaccination appears trifling. Air bags maim people, too, because they are imperfect. But the odds of being helped beat the odds of being hurt. Life is like that.

3. I think we all have a duty to combat a common enemy, particularly if doing so incurs only a minor risk. There is no such thing as risk-free life. We all wind up in a cemetery someday.

4. They already had a measles outbreak here in Tucson, not exactly NYC or DC. Foreign traveller returned here.

5. Hospitalization in the 1950s was probably less because few could afford it. My father weathered several scorpion stings without medical aid for that reason (and I've weathered two or three as well). In his teens he weathered a rattlesnake bite as well. You went to a doctor if you really had to, and to a hospital if life was on the line.

Posted by Dave Hardy | May 2, 2008 10:38 PM

Thanks, Megan, for pointing out that infants can't receive immunizations before a certain age, and therefore, are susceptible, too.

I am concerned these days about taking airplane flights with my infant (to visit family too old to visit him) because he hasn't yet been vaccinated according to the schedule. What if I expose him to pertussis? or measles? or diptheria?

It's unconscionable that they will hurt their own kids, but it should definitely be wrongful and legally liable for them to do so to me.

Posted by Mouse | May 2, 2008 10:52 PM

Discman,
Can't we all just get along?
Tell you what, you get together a group of your friends and their kids who refuse to take vaccinations, and I'll bring along some people from Pakistan and India who have also refused to be vaccinated. The people I'll bring will be from villages which have had recent outbreaks of measles and polio.
Let's see how well that goes, shall we?

Posted by j.pickens | May 2, 2008 11:05 PM

The answer that the smallpox vaccine becomes ineffective after a long period of time is not entirely accurate. The real answer is we don't know how effective the vaccine remains - hence, the concern.

But I will say this knowing what I've learned about immunology during med school.

Any parent thinking they're doing right by refusing most prescribed immunizations for a child must also think their chances good of winning powerball. Bad at math and very foolish...

I know of no doctor who hasn't immunized their own children - mine included. That should tell you something.

Posted by Brent Taylor | May 2, 2008 11:07 PM

Sadly, the non-vaccinating parents are putting other kids at risk too, although you'll never get one of those parents to admit it.

Maybe that is because the only kids who are being put at risk are other non-vaccinated kids. If vaccines are effective as advertised, then the health of the vaccinated is not affected by others' diseases.

Posted by MikeT | May 2, 2008 11:13 PM

Jeez, MikeT, did you even bother to read any of the comments before weighing in with your idiocy? Let me spell it out for you.

NO VACCINE is 100% effective. Therefore, some who get vaccinated are still vulnerable. Some (lunatic) parents deliberately choose not to vaccinate their children, making them (effectively) 100% vulnerable to the diseases not vaccinated for. IF any of these deliberately vulnerable children catch the disease, there is a non-zero chance they will pass the disease along to those whose (loving) parents tried to protect them (and everyone else) by getting them vaccinated. THEREFORE, those who deliberately don't get their kids vaccinated are putting in danger both their own kids AND all those who got vaccinated BUT are still vulnerable due to failure of the vaccination. QED.

It's really too bad so many have zero understanding of even basic statistics and cost-benefit ratios.

Posted by JorgXMcKie | May 2, 2008 11:32 PM

CNN did an incredible dis-service to society by having their Autism week about a month ago. Any useful information about the condition was rendered moot when Jenny McCarthy became hysterical at doctors who insisted parents vaccinate their children.

Posted by Mike | May 3, 2008 12:03 AM

"It is well known that vaccines are not 100% effective. No one ever claimed that they were. It is well known that vaccines have side effects up to and including death; that's why we have a compensation system in place."

Thank you so much for saying that my child is worth compensation if she dies or is injured due to a vaccination.

Infants get their first vaccination before they even leave the hospital - for hepatitis B. A disease that is typically passed by either sexual contact, the exchange of bodily fluids, or through a needle. Forgive me if I find that unreasonable. And there are a number of other vaccines that are given beginning at 2 months.

Now, for people who have had experience with a child who had a severe reaction to a vaccine - we're supposed to just assume that our other kids will not have an adverse reaction?? It's very easy for people who haven't had experience with adverse vaccine reactions to be judgmental to those who have and don't want to repeat the experience. Or to those who have had friends go through the experience. We've had it both ways.

Oh, and for the record, my husband IS a doctor. We decided to put off vaccinations until after our baby passed the age where most of the adverse reactions are recorded - around two or three. Since she is not in daycare or exposed to many other children this should not present an issue.

Posted by ElvenPhoenix | May 3, 2008 12:17 AM

Hmmmmmm.

"Maybe that is because the only kids who are being put at risk are other non-vaccinated kids. If vaccines are effective as advertised, then the health of the vaccinated is not affected by others' diseases."

Haven't you been reading the previous responses?

Vaccination isn't 100% guaranteed effective. So your kid could've gotten the vaccination, but never acquired the necessary number of anti-bodies to have a level of immunity.

Posted by memomachine | May 3, 2008 12:26 AM

Megan, do you know what percentage of those contracting the diseases are among the deliberately unvaccinated? The argument that there really is a free-rider problem is probably very strong, but you can NOT make it empirically without discounting this subset of the cases. It's really not that hard to understand, and it has nothing to do with vaccine conspiracy theories.

Posted by ArtD0dger | May 3, 2008 12:29 AM

I think every American should be put on a mandatory trip to West Africa at age 21 so they can be vaccinated against ignorance. Once you've seen what a society without universal vaccinations looks like, you'll vaccinate your damn kids.

One thing that does interest me is how much failure to vaccinate is due simply to the complexity of the vaccination schedule. I'm completely pro-vaccination but I wouldn't be shocked if you told me right now I'd allowed one of my kids' vaccinations to lapse -- there are over a dozen of them, on different schedules, and some of them have to be boosted after 3 years or so. Personally I'd pay to have my kids enrolled at a clinic where they would phone me to tell me when I have to bring the kids in for booster shots. And as a national public health issue, it'd be great if public clinics would keep track of that and get people to come in for their kids' shots.

I mean, if we have a public interest in getting everyone vaccinated, then leaving it up to parents to fulfill their public responsibility seems to me to be a confused strategy.

Posted by brooksfoe | May 3, 2008 12:31 AM

Hmmmm.

"Oh, and for the record, my husband IS a doctor. "

So what? I've been dealing with all manner of doctors for the past 8 years. Some are smart, some not so smart. Most are average. And just because someone is doctor doesn't mean that person necessarily knows what the hell they're talking about.

It's an assumption that many people make but it's wrong. All you have to do is watch a bunch of doctors totally screw up a diagnosis to realize that.

Posted by memomachine | May 3, 2008 12:38 AM

If measels, tuberculosis, mumps, polio, etc, etc are such a worry, then why are we allowing carriers to cross our southern border? The CDC sure isn't worried; Bush isn't worried; what, me worry?

For health reasons we delayed the vaccinations of our first born until he was 4.5 years old. Right after his shots, he became allergic to everything under the sun. Great. Thanks.

My cousin has what is called Gulf War Syndrome. Gee, what caused that?

I love it when a MD comes to my dental clinic and shuns 'mercury fillings' because they are 'toxic', yet won't bat an eye when s/he injects that preservative into a child's body. But hey, it is for the common good-- you know, the same argument brownshirts and commies used to justify the slaughter of millions. 'Vacca macht frei'.

Here is the quandry: intelligent people know the value of vaccines, but also know there are risks, albeit low, but risks nonetheless. A parent won't play russian roulette with their kids, even if the odds are 1000:1-- or less. Most of the fascist pro-vaccination hyperbole written above must be by people that don't have children: an adult that never had kids, you know, is the biggest expert on children there is.

I've had four children in my practice become autistic-- and the families all said it was right after they were vaccinated. Well, small price to pay to boost the herd's immunity...

Posted by jeff | May 3, 2008 12:38 AM

I wonder how many commenters are old enough to have had measles? I was by far the sickest I have ever been when I had measles. I wish the vaccine had been available when I was a child.

Posted by William Hamblen | May 3, 2008 12:46 AM

I love it when a MD comes to my dental clinic and shuns 'mercury fillings' because they are 'toxic', yet won't bat an eye when s/he injects that preservative into a child's body

Jeff: mercury has not been used as a preservative in vaccines since I believe 1999. There is no more thimerosol in vaccines. Nevertheless, the autism rate has failed to drop.

You need to actually know what the facts are in order to form an opinion.

But hey, it is for the common good-- you know, the same argument brownshirts and commies used to justify the slaughter of millions.

Actually, I believe the Nazis slaughtered millions because they believed Jews, gypsies and homosexuals were evil parasites and not fully human, while the Communists sent millions to die in labor camps alleging they were enemy spies and capitalist saboteurs. The general recommendations for infants to be vaccinated do not stem from a government theory that American children are subhuman enemies of the people. Rather the contrary.

Posted by brooksfoe | May 3, 2008 12:54 AM

Jeez, MikeT, did you even bother to read any of the comments before weighing in with your idiocy? Let me spell it out for you. NO VACCINE is 100% effective. Therefore, some who get vaccinated are still vulnerable. Some (lunatic) parents deliberately choose not to vaccinate their children, making them (effectively) 100% vulnerable to the diseases not vaccinated for. IF any of these deliberately vulnerable children catch the disease, there is a non-zero chance they will pass the disease along to those whose (loving) parents tried to protect them (and everyone else) by getting them vaccinated. THEREFORE, those who deliberately don't get their kids vaccinated are putting in danger both their own kids AND all those who got vaccinated BUT are still vulnerable due to failure of the vaccination. QED. It's really too bad so many have zero understanding of even basic statistics and cost-benefit ratios.

If they are as effective as they are claimed to be, then the overwhelming majority of children will be safe. A statistically insignificant number will be at risk, and I for one, am quite willing to coldly state that they are an acceptable casualty to ensure that the state does not gain more grain to regulate what we can do with our own bodies.

Posted by MikeT | May 3, 2008 1:03 AM

When I worked in Zimbabwe, the death rate for measles among the malnourished kids was 50%...usually from post measles related pneumonia.
We could treat the kids for bacterial pneumonia, but often it was viral pneumonia (from measles, or from adenovirus etc) that killed the kids.

But even a couple weeks later, they weren't out of the woods:
You see, you not only can die of measles, but for a couple weeks afterward, you're immune system goes to hell. TB can become reactivated, and other infections can kill you. And there was nothing we could do.

In one poor family, we lost four of the five kids in one week, despite everything. The father belonged to a cult that didn't believe in modern medical care...so no one got vaccinated.

Back the, the vaccine was divided into three because it was so expensive. We had a higher rate of "break through" measles cases, but none of the kids died. Ditto for giving it to kids very young: it gave them some immunity, but later about 10 percent came down with measles, but none died.

Another problem is measles encephalitis, which can cause retardeation and death. Haven't seen a case since the 1960's when I was in medical school, but believe me, if you see one case, you'll get the shot for your kid.

Posted by Boinkie | May 3, 2008 1:23 AM

Vaccinations protect people against disease. Vaccines do not cause autism. Children who are vaccinated have a vastly lower chance of contracting serious and sometimes fatal or crippling infections.

These facts are undisputed and readily available to anyone with the time and inclination to review the scientific literature.

Posted by Heathen | May 3, 2008 6:30 AM

William, I had measles and remember it quite vividly. Three weeks in bed. So feverish for part of the time that I was delirious and objects in the room -- toys, pictures on the walls -- would shatter into fragments before my eyes and then put themselves together again (which was even scarier) and then shatter again, all over the room. Desperately itchy all day and all night and the constant reminder, "Don't scratch or you might have scars all your life!

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that the room was kept dark, on the instructions of my doctor-grandfather who was worried about complications in my eyes. So, for all that time alone in bed, I COULD NOT READ. For a bookworm kid, this was sheer torment.

Only parents who have never been ill in this fashion and have never seen anyone ill in this fashion could be so flip and silly about placing their children and others at such unnecessary risk. Rita, your choice is NOT just for your kids, and your selfishness is staggering.

Posted by beatrix | May 3, 2008 6:54 AM

Mike, try to learn something about epidemiology. Your theory might work if only a tiny handful of people chose not to vaccinate. But what's happening now is that it is becoming a fad among a growing swathe of parents not to vaccinate, so the numbers of unvaccinated kids are swelling. Read about the recent California measles epidemic if you want to see how this works. Some of the kids had fashion-conscious parents who had made the "hip" decision not to vaccinate them. Others, including at least one 12-month-old baby, were not old enough yet to have had the shots. I doubt that the parents of the 12-month old consider their child to be "statistically insignificant."

Posted by beatrix | May 3, 2008 7:01 AM

I do not believe you can force people to vaccinate their kids. Saying that, I did have measles as a child and for the week or so that I was bedridden it was a living hell. I would not wish that on any child. The problem is eventually the diseases we do vaccinate against may evolve just enough within the endemic population that they will elude our present vaccines. So eventually everyone is at risk...even if you have been vaccinated.

Posted by Budahmon | May 3, 2008 8:56 AM

Jeff: I've had four children in my practice become autistic-- and the families all said it was right after they were vaccinated. Well, small price to pay to boost the herd's immunity...

Some homework for you, Jeff:

1. Look up the phrase "correlation does not equal causation" on the web. Most first-year statistics classes teach the concept. Once you understand it, you might want to explain it to those parents who ignored any previous warning signs of autism but latched upon the vaccine explanation because it was easy to remember.
2. Think about the fact that autism diagnoses are often made right around the age point where children are receiving some vaccines, and then revisit issue # 1, above.
3. Add up the number of children in your practice who are not autistic, yet received vaccines. Compare that number to the four you cite. Think about what that means for your "causation" theory.
4. Look up the number of children in the world who die from the diseases we vaccinate against, and reconsider your snide "small price" comment.

The anti-vaccination hysteria is, if you ask me, a natural outgrowth of the recent fascination for conspiracy theories (the government is determined to poison all our kids!), the recent decline in scientific education and understanding, and the growing tendency of parents to focus on what they perceive to be their own child's needs at the expense of everyone else's.

Posted by Kimberly | May 3, 2008 8:57 AM

Megan, do you know what percentage of those contracting the diseases are among the deliberately unvaccinated?

She may not, but I have a handle on it. I just finished writing an article about it.

Short version: Measles outbreak in San Diego.

Unvaccinated child goes to Switzerland comes back with measles. Parents don't recognize it, send child to school.

Of 376 children at the infected child’s school, 36 lacked immunization. Five of these – over 13% – caught measles. It should be added that this was mitigated because 20 of the children received vaccinations (for some reason, it didn't seem as scary) after parents became aware of the outbreak. None of the 340 immunized children got measles.

The infected child went to a doctor. In the waiting room were four unvaccinated children. All four got measles.

The infected child had two siblings, both unvaccinated. One got measles.

Seems pretty high to me.

Posted by Mark L | May 3, 2008 9:09 AM

A variant of measles encephalitis affects just the optic nerve. That's what happened to me when I had measles -- 55 years ago. My vision is permanently impaired.

I have spent my career as a researcher in vaccine development.

Failing to vaccinate your children is child abuse.

Posted by Helen | May 3, 2008 9:22 AM

MikeT: if you have a child, and do not vaccinate the child, and that child develops the disease and passes it on, then would you consider yourself legally liable for the consequences to the subsequent victims? If not, it seems to be you want to have your freedom without accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

Public health is one of those areas that torpedoes the facile theorizing of armchair libertarians.

Posted by Paul F. Dietz | May 3, 2008 10:08 AM

Elven Phoenix:

"Thank you so much for saying that my child is worth compensation if she dies or is injured due to a vaccination."

You seem to have missed the point entirely. Injuries and death are rare, but KNOWN, complications of vaccination. That is the risk of vaccination that comes along with the benefit of otherwise almost total protection from the disease. You want to take the benefits of vaccination while foisting the risk on everybody else. That's is unethical.

Posted by Amy Tuteur, MD | May 3, 2008 10:16 AM

Elven Phoenix:

"Thank you so much for saying that my child is worth compensation if she dies or is injured due to a vaccination."

You seem to have missed the point entirely. Injuries and death are rare, but KNOWN, complications of vaccination. That is the risk of vaccination that comes along with the benefit of otherwise almost total protection from the disease. You want to take the benefits of vaccination while foisting the risk on everybody else. That's unethical.

Posted by Amy Tuteur, MD | May 3, 2008 10:16 AM

Mark L: how do the infected child's parents talk now about their decision not to vaccinate? Are they horrified at their error, or have they retreated further into obstinate insistence that they made the right decision?

Posted by brooksfoe | May 3, 2008 10:53 AM

I know someone who decided to refuse vaccinations for their child. Their toddler eventually caught rubella. Thankfully the child suffered through it without any lasting complications. Amazingly enough, this (clearly) intelligent person, mused to our to our group afterwards "Do you think I should have gotten her vaccinated? I feel so bad about it, but I stood up to my doctor and stuck with my principles!" I'm sure her daughter really appreciated that her mom felt her principles were more important than her pain and misery.

If it weren't for the fact that these idiots put the rest of us at risk I would be all for this. People who are this overwhelmingly stupid and selfish, and who manage to maim and kill their own children by refusing vaccines are helping to clean up the gene pool. Sadly they are also putting the rest of us at risk at the same time.

Posted by amy | May 3, 2008 12:31 PM

I have a friend who is studying to be a nurse (sporadically; she has three small children and a fourth on the way.) She brought up that she was shown a chart of vaccination as a percentage of population and epidemics related to that disease. Guess what? This anti-vaccine hysteria is nothing new. It happens every other decade or so. Vaccinations go down, an epidemic of some kind occurs, then the vaccinations surge as people realize that maybe it's a bad idea to be unvaccinated.

The scary part is that the swings get worse in every cycle. A bigger downturn in vaccination, then a bigger epidemic.

I have some friends with a son who is allergic to eggs. He still gets his yearly flu shot, but in tiny stages. I assume the rest of his vaccines are delivered the same way, in manageable bits.

And anecdotally, my husband got pertussis as a child, despite being vaccinated. He's also an asthmatic, so it must have been very scary for his parents. (There is a known long-term anti-vaccine group near where he caught the disease, and an international airport, so it is reasonable to assume that he caught it from someone who was unvaccinated.)

Posted by B. Durbin | May 3, 2008 12:36 PM

What bothers me is that the vaccination "requirement" for attendance at schools & day cares (at least in Wisconsin) isn't really a requirement because it allows for a "religious or personal conviction" opt-out. I say fine, if we allow people to make that choice, then the names of those opted-out kids need to be posted on the bulletin board next to the school's licensing info. I want to know who's putting my kid at risk so I can make my own choices about who she plays with outside of school. If those "convictions" are sincerely held, the parents should have no objection to making their names public. If they'd be embarrassed to have their identities known, that should give them pause about being vaccination idiots.

Posted by Bob C | May 3, 2008 12:47 PM

Unlike the smallpox vacine, these vacines are not 99% effective, they are not 90% effective, they are not 85% effective, they are not even 80% effective in preventing the recipient from ever getting the disease.

What these vacines are gauranteed to do is cause the virus or baterium that causes these disease to mutate into a super pathogen that is immune to vacines.

The "herd" approach has created a disaster with antibiotics. Why must we create another disaster that will detroy the effectiveness of all vacines?

Posted by sol vason | May 3, 2008 12:58 PM

Sol Vason: The differences in between vaccination and antibiotic usage are too many to count. You may start your research by assessing the number of people with smallpox before and after the vaccine was used. And please be prepared to produce a morally and/or practically sound argument for when you get to face a victim of the policy you implicitly endorse.

Posted by judge natty dread | May 3, 2008 1:09 PM

sol vason, I must have missed the 20 percent or more of American children who are still getting mumps, measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, smallpox, and the rest. You are talking about one person out of five for every one of those diseases. Where the heck are you hiding all those sick kids?

Posted by beatrix | May 3, 2008 1:13 PM

That is the risk of vaccination that comes along with the benefit of otherwise almost total protection from the disease. You want to take the benefits of vaccination while foisting the risk on everybody else. That's unethical.

Dr. Tuteur, if the vaccine provides total protection, then the herd immunity is irrelevant to the vaccinated. And while the unvaccinated may benefit, they do no harm to the former group in this idealized case. So they are not "foisting risk on everybody else,", and if there is any ethical dimension to the decision not to vaccinate it does not arise from free-riding. The collective action problem arises only to the extent that the vaccines can fail (or similarly, in 'failure' cases when an infant is too young to be vaccinated, as Megan points out). It is imperative to distinguish these situations if you want to make the argument that there is a free-rider problem.

Posted by ArtD0dger | May 3, 2008 1:14 PM

The vaccine wiped out transmission here by 2000, but the disease can easily be imported because there are so many cases overseas.

We could also reduce the incidence of such diseases by controlling our borders.

Posted by Tom | May 3, 2008 2:20 PM

Ya know, the thing that I never hear mentioned is the risk that those who contract measles pose to women who are pregnant and their unborn babies. There's a reason that every woman who becomes pregnant is tested to see the level of measles titers (immunity to measles) she still has. They do it because, if a woman is no longer immune enough to measles, she may be in danger of contracting the disease while pregnant, as it would be too late for her to receive a booster shot.

Why is this a problem, you may ask?

Here is a list of the devastating effects the baby faces, should the mother be exposed to measles and contract the disease early in her pregnancy: Miscarriage, still birth, or multiple birth defects and developmental problems, aka "CSR" - Congenital Rubella Syndrome. "CRS" includes such problems as malformation of the heart, brain, or eyes, blindness, deafness, mental retardation, problems with the liver, spleen or bone marrow, microcephaly (small head size), low birth weight, micrognathism (undersized jaw), growth retardation, schizophrenia, diabetes, glaucoma, development delays, thyroid dysfunction, and neurological disorders. And these problems don't just occur when the child is young. They can progress further throughout the rest of the child's life. Just think of measles as a "gift" that keeps on giving.

So when Jenny McCarthy gets on Larry King and shouts about how she'd rather be given measles than autism, I can only surmise that she either A.) has not done her research into exactly what rubella is or what it can do, and has no idea what she is talking about or B.) would rather use her celebrity in a way that would see untold millions of pregnant women around the world put at increased risk of measles from unvaccinated children and, consequently, their unborn babies condemned to the miseries of multiple and horrific birth defects.

Here's hoping she was simply caught up in a very emotional and hyperbolic moment and is not so tragically short-sighted.

Yes, autism is a terrible thing. I have known more than one autistic child in my life, including in my extended family, and it is not an easy thing to deal with. But I don't think the solution should include demonizing childhood vaccinations to the point where we frighten parents away from having their children properly immunized against disease. That is a road to ruin.

Perhaps Jenny should consider for a moment that the trade-off she proposes is not simply one of her having a happy, healthy child with a few pustules to deal with for a couple weeks versus her child ending up autistic. The reality of that trade-off is her unproven theory that her child might have otherwise been born happy and healthy versus the proven fact that, by increasing the incidence of measles due to the lack of immunization, her child - and yours - could just as easily have ended up being one of the unlucky ones whose mothers contracted rubella/measles while pregnant. And as a result, her child - and yours - could have been born blind, deaf, mentally retarded, microcephalic, or simply not born at all.

Hysteria and emotion on this issue should not trump science and history. It benefits no one if any of these diseases make a comeback. The best solution is not risking more CRS babies in order to conduct an experiment to see if there will be any fewer autistic ones. We have to come up with a better plan than that!

Posted by Mars | May 3, 2008 2:30 PM

My observation is that people who go on about the terrible risk of vaccines act as if the choice is between vaccine complications and nothing. The truth is, our kids are NEVER 100% safe no matter what we do. If we let them play outside they could be struck by lightning or drown in a puddle, but if we keep them inside they could die of Vitamin D deficiency or drown in the tub. Our choice as a parent is always between letting our kids play Russian roulette with a six-shooter or with an eight-shooter; we never have the choice of having them put the gun down and walk away. It is the illusion of magical thinking that If We Do X Our Kids Will Be Safe Always And Forever that, in my opinion, drives a lot of anti-vaccine rhetoric.

I'm also noticing that delayed-vax types seem to be lumping themselves in with the no-vax types. I don't understand why, as those who vax on a delayed schedule seem to agree on the benefits of vaccinations. I agree that vaccination schedules could be a lot easier to manage. I know that I vaxed my kids on schedule when they handed out a little schedule card with the vax record, but they fell behind when they quit handing one out for my younger kids. So I think a simple schedule card or reminder postcard would help immensely.

Posted by Wacky Hermit | May 3, 2008 2:57 PM

You don't want to get your kids vaccinated, that's fine, but then keep them out of public schools and out of public life.

And above all, keep your disease ridden little snot monsters away from my family.

Posted by Russ | May 3, 2008 3:41 PM

Brooksfoe,

I think every American should be put on a mandatory trip to West Africa at age 21 so they can be vaccinated against ignorance.

Please, please, we can't go on agreeing like this!

Seriously, did you get to do something like this? For myself, I spent about 6 months in Mexico as a young adult, followed by 5 years in Central Africa. If there's anything in human psychology that's impossible, experiencing such a sojourn w/o it changing your views on many things has to be high on the list!

Posted by Kirk Parker | May 3, 2008 5:24 PM

ArtD0ger:

"Dr. Tuteur, if the vaccine provides total protection"

It doesn't provide total protection. No one ever claimed that it did. It does not work by protecting individual vaccinated patients 100%. It protects ENTIRE populations by dramatically decreasing the risk that the disease can be passed from one person to another.

Before you complain about the deficiencies of vaccination, at least learn something about the way that vaccines are actually KNOWN to work. It is difficult to take vaccine rejectionists seriously when they proudly act as if they just "discovered" a fact about vaccines that has been known all along.

Posted by Amy Tuteur, MD | May 3, 2008 5:44 PM

Mars is exactly right. I had an adult pt. last week, profoundly retarded, deaf and blind since birth. Her unvaccinated mother contracted rubella while pregnant.

If the medical risks of vaccines outweigh the individual benefit, why has every doctor with children I know (including me) had their kids vaccinated?

Posted by Heathen | May 3, 2008 6:03 PM

It is amazing to me the amount of scientific ignorance, emotional string-pulling and conspiraacy-think surrounding the anti-vaccination rationales. You would think we were no better than the Third Worlders who refuse vaccination because of irrational fears due to their lack of education. We claim to be an educated people but we still refuse treatments for our children that are of proven benefit, not only to our own children but of all children.

There is no connection/causation between thimerosal and autism in the medical literature - none. Vaccines also do not result in the creation of "superbugs" (only someone ignorant of the way vaccines work would suggest such a thing). Herd immunity, the benefit of vaccination, falls apart when a certain threshold (dependent on the disease) of unvaccinated individuals is reached. Emotionally satisfying ignorance - "I'm fighting The Evil Medical/Public School Cabal so I can be Superior Supermom" - is no substitute for knowing the facts.

I was in the first group of kids to get measles vaccinations and ended up with measles anyway in high school. I spent three feverish, uncomfortable weeks in a darkened room unable to even read or watch TV (my dad read books to me, which was rather touching). As many commenters have emphasized, vaccines are not 100% effective so maintaining herd immunity is very important.

Posted by inmypajamas | May 3, 2008 6:09 PM

... the risk of vaccination that comes along with the benefit of otherwise almost total protection from the disease. You want to take the benefits of vaccination while foisting the risk on everybody else. That's unethical.

Dr. Tuteur, you yourself evoked the limiting case of “almost total protection” as a benefit of vaccination, and proceeded to link that to reaping benefits at the expense of those assuming risks. My point is that in this limiting case there is no expense to the vaccinated, and therefore no free-rider problem. I think I was quite clear that this applies to the limiting case and not necessarily to the real case. However, a simplified model often helps us to develop an understanding of the real situation.
Let me try to be specific in case we are clashing over definitions. A “free-rider problem” occurs in an n-prisoners’ dilemma, which is a generalization of the classic (two) prisoners’ dilemma in game theory. In the prisoners’ dilemma, a prisoner who opts not to cooperate can benefit himself while harming the other party -- if the other party does opt to cooperate. This does not apply to the perfect vaccination case since the “non-cooperating” parties do no harm to the “cooperating” parties. Therefore, I claim there is no free-rider problem. In. The. Limiting. Case.

Before you complain about the deficiencies of vaccination, at least learn something about the way that vaccines are actually KNOWN to work. It is difficult to take vaccine rejectionists seriously when they proudly act as if they just "discovered" a fact about vaccines that has been known all along.

You are making an assumption that cannot be justified based on anything I wrote, so let me again be very specific. I have my shots. I get occasional boosters shots, and travel vaccinations when they are recommended. Any child in my charge will get her shots, and anyone who takes my advice will get theirs also. I think that the collective AND selfish benefits of vaccination are enormous, and that the vaccine conspiracy theories are completely overblown. But I also think that people who make the case for vaccines in terms of a “free-rider problem” without acknowledging this point are not making the strongest case they could be making.

It is obvious from your response that I did not make myself clear. I hope this helps.

Posted by ArtD0dger | May 3, 2008 9:10 PM

Also remember reading an article somewhere (probably the Economist) reporting it's not that autism is occurring more often, it's that autistic kids are now being correctly diagnosed.

Posted by grumpy realist | May 3, 2008 9:26 PM

grumpy realist - hey! stop with that pesky common sense and knowledge of reality! it's so much more fun to pretend that Asperger's and autism spectrum disorders were always around. it makes autism seem so much more scary and overwhelming and vaccines just seem piddly in comparison! it's much too difficult to remember that just a few decades ago, children that were not 'normal' were shuffled off to sanitariums never to be seen again, let alone diagnosed and treated. yes. let's pretend, it's ever so much more fun.

Posted by amy | May 3, 2008 10:25 PM

It would be useful to spend some time thinking about root causes and how we ended up with the anti vaccine hysteria we see.

The anti vaccine hysteria did not develop by itself it is an unfortunate side effect of the anti-technology activities of groups like greenpeace and NRDC.

It has been pushed along by celebrity activists like Robert F. Kennedy.

The war on science has two fronts. The republican / conservative front gets a lot of attention. The democrat / liberal front is mostly ignored. Which is unfortunate because the anti-vaccine hysteria shows how much damage the ignored front is doing.

Posted by TJIT | May 3, 2008 11:12 PM

TJIT,

What Republican/conservative front?

Posted by Kirk Parker | May 4, 2008 12:56 AM

TJIT:

again, we are on very dangerous ground here in that you, me, and Kirk Parker appear to share considerable common perspectives on this issue. So we'd better bring this thread to a halt ASAP before we get into real trouble.

I think you are correct that there is a left-wing element to the war on science. But I think, to make a point that may sound like quibbling but isn't, that it is not the liberal segment of the left wing. Liberalism is classically dedicated to transparency and free debate based on publicly demonstrable evidence. The scientific spirit and liberalism go hand in hand. The leftist attack on science and expertise in the US began in the late '60s, and was part of what split the left between radicalism and liberalism.

I think there has always been a legitimate element to critiques of scientific positivism from both a conservative Burkean perspective and a progressive Dewey or Adorno perspective. You have to be sensitive to the ways that knowledge is produced and used in the service of power. Nevertheless, much as the solution to the problems of democracy is usually more and better democracy, the solution to the problems of science is usually more and better science. The baseless and incoherent reflexive hostility towards doctors, science, and the government which one hears coming from anti-vaccine activists in America is a contemporary version of a kind of righteous ignorance that has always plagued this country, that survives because it has political potency, and that needs to be shunned and repudiated by responsible people on both the right and the left.

Posted by brooksfoe | May 4, 2008 2:47 AM

Also, I think it's extremely important to think about the contexts in which hostility to science and expertise emerges. Leftist anger at science and expertise in the US was initially driven in large measure by the Vietnam War, a war based on statistics and run by computer nerds like Robert McNamara and (before his defection to the anti-war crowd) Daniel Ellsberg. The contempt for "whiz kids" and "Best and Brightest" that arose in that war had a lot to do with the overweening confidence with which experts at the time employed terms and conceits which turned out to have very little relationship to what was actually happening, and which often deliberately masked human suffering in order to justify the war. That experience led leftists in the US to adopt critiques of science and expertise, like Marcuse's, that initially grew out of the Frankfurt School's horror at the political use of science (bad science, of course, but presenting itself as science) by the Nazis.

This leftist antipathy towards science and expertise then spilled over in all kinds of inappropriate ways, and it began to make the liberal project of rationality and the open society impossible. But it would be a mistake to think that it was combatted by any enthusiasm for science or expertise on the right. The right-wing Nixonian and Reaganite responses to leftist radicalism in the '70s were every bit as hostile to scientific expertise, "pointy-headed intellectuals" and the spirit of rationalism as were Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies.

Posted by brooksfoe | May 4, 2008 3:03 AM

Damn, brooksfoe, you are smokin' tonight! Yes, indeedy, nitwittery is depressingly bipartisan.

I'm curious for an explanation as to how in the 1950's (when all boomers got measles it seems) that less than 2% ended up in the hospital whereas today it is 22%.

Well, creech, let me explain that for you.

I'm old enough to have attended elementary school just as polio vaccine was rolled out. No such magic bullet for other childhood dreadfuls, though. I had measles, rubel