A Lesson from History

There are many reasons people are opposed to vaccines. They may have some fear of needles, oppose them for ideological or political reasons, confused a coincidental change in health with a vaccine reaction or simply read and believed propaganda put out by anti-vaccine organizations like the National Vaccine Information Center, Age of Autism, SANEVax and so on. Whatever the reasons for their dislike of vaccines, a frequent question that they ask is, "If your kid is vaccinated, then what does it matter whether or not my kid gets his shots? If vaccines work, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about."

This is a very naive and simplistic question. I addressed this question a while ago and reposted it recently. After presenting some numbers showing what happens when people refuse immunizations, I briefly talked about some people from my own life who could be negatively affected, as well as some hypothetical talk about others that could be harmed.

Recently, a comment at Respectful Insolence brought up a story that I felt should be presented more fully. This is a story of a parent whose child could not be vaccinated and how declines in immunization rates affected the family. Due to the harassing nature of some anti-vaccine activists, identifying details have been altered.

Happy Brave Maverick Day!

In the United States, today, the second Monday in October, is Columbus Day, a holiday recognizing the landing of Christopher Columbus on the shores of the New World. On October 12, 1492, Columbus arrived landed on the island now known as San Salvador, in the Bahamas. Many celebrate the day as the discovery of America. A popular, though erroneous, belief is that Columbus flaunted common thought that Earth was flat, venturing out across the western waves to prove that the planet was, in fact round, and he is often held up as a model of how one man with conviction can prove not just popular opinion, but science itself, wrong.

Portrait of a "brave maverick".

In fact, cranks of all stripes tend to bring up Columbus to support their fringe ideas, secure in the belief that they will be vindicated. Perhaps if they knew a little more about Columbus, they might not be quite so eager to compare themselves to him.

Bin Laden is Dead - Thoughts and Musings

This morning, the local news informed me that Osama bin Laden is dead. The first announcement came late last night, when the president told the world that, in a target operation, a small unit of U.S. Navy SEALs raided bin Laden's holdout in Pakistan. The leader of Al Qaeda was shot and killed, and his body, taken into custody by the U.S. military, was buried at sea.

When I heard the news, the first thought that occurred to me was, "Good." But my mind did not stop there.

Michael Willrich's Look Back at Smallpox and the Fight Over Vaccines

Antivaccinationism was an international phenomenon, but everywhere it reflected the social divisions and political tensions of its time and place.

These words pop up earlier in Michael Willrich's new book Pox: An American History. Despite the past-tense used, that statement could easily apply to anti-vaccine sentiments today. I just finished reading this book the other day, and thought I would share some thoughts.

Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Part 2 - A History of Medical Research Ethics

In my last post, I provided a basic overview of what a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study would look like. The general form would be a prospective, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. The big question that I asked in my previous post was what is stopping someone from conducting a trial like this in children, and my short answer was ethics.

Within the context of scientific research involving humans, ethical protections of subjects is a relatively recent thing. For most of human history, the systematic investigation of some question involving humans has taken the attitude that the answer being sought was of the utmost importance. The well-being of the people being experimented upon was secondary, if it was thought of at all. Compounding matters was the dehumanizing view that certain populations were viewed in the same way that we tend to view animals: chattel to be exploited. Criminals, the mentally incompetent, even women and children in some cases, were viewed as a means to an end.

So, what changed?

Toward an Historical Understanding of Autism

After researching a bit for my last post on a statement by Dan Olmsted that autism didn't exist before 1931, my curiosity was piqued regarding DeSanctis' and Heller's descriptions of progressive dementia in children, which they termed dementia praecocissima and dementia infantilis, respectively. They came up with these terms in 1906 (DeSanctis) and 1908 (Heller), well before the development of Merthiolate (a.k.a. thimerosal or thiomersal) by Eli Lilly around 1927 and its later use in vaccines in 1931.

Why the interest in these disorders?

Dan Olmsted: No Autism Before 1931...Historical Illiteracy in Action at AoA

Dan Olmsted, at Age of Autism, is apparently upset that his book isn't selling too well or that rationally minded individuals who lean left on the political spectrum don't buy the "vaccines cause autism" myth. Why do I say this? Because he has a verbose spewage of blather over at AoA titled "Why Progressives Don't Get Autism" in which he complains about how it's only the conservatives (e.g., those found at Fox News) who buy the lie. Apparently, he hasn't read the Huffington Post and seen their anti-vaccine articles. Or maybe he doesn't think they're progressives.

Whatever. My interest isn't really in his political maunderings. Rather, it is in a brief statement he makes a bit over halfway through: