Much ink has been spilled railing against vaccine skeptics—you know, those people who don't get their kids immunized against catastrophic childhood diseases because they believe the shots can cause autism and other serious problems.In a recent Parade magazine piece, reporter Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, pointed out that vaccine resisters tend to cluster in places "where parents are often focused on being environmentally conscious and paying close attention to every aspect of their children's development."
there seems to be no mystery where this kinda of underinformed rhetoric comes from, remember death squads and throwing grandma under the bus? sounds awfully similar to me.
Journalist Megan McArdle, in a 2011 post for The Atlantic, opined: "We spent most of the last century trying to stamp out the infectious diseases that used to cripple and kill hundreds and thousands of people every year. Sometimes it seems like the bobo elites plan to spend the 21st century bringing them all back."
if they can't win you over on merits then they'll scare hell out of you trying to nail your vote with doom and more gloom.
These "bobo elites" are fair targets, especially if you live somewhere like Marin County, California, whose schools granted "personal belief exemptions" to 7 percent of kindergartners in 2010—enough to compromise what epidemiologists call herd immunity. Some of these vaccine resisters refuse shots outright, while others opt for alternative vaccination schedules that delay and stagger shots. This increasingly popular system minimizes kids' exposure to supposedly harmful vaccine ingredients—but it also leaves them more vulnerable to outbreaks.
how do they know they don't believe in science or do they, selective spun right wing science?
Yet the vaccine resisters and delayers are not the only parents whose kids miss out on shots. Far more children are undervaccinated for reasons unrelated to personal beliefs, according to a January 2013 study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The study found that an astonishing 49 percent of toddlers born from 2004 through 2008 hadn't had all their shots by their second birthday, but only about 2 percent had parents who refused to have them vaccinated.
