You Can't Fix Stupid- a History of Vaccination
We have been treated to incredible public displays of
ignorance, superstition and downright stupidity over the past several “plague
years.” There are probably several
“reasons” for this, other than simply obstinate refusal to believe or do what
anyone else tells one to do. By that last, I lump those folks with Flat
Earthers, Sasquatch hunters and alien anal probe recipients.
In the modern, reason number
one, and the hardest to grasp, is the initial minimalization of the
implications and severity of Covid by the former President of the United States.
By minimalizing the possible impact of the plague, even though he had been told
differently by competent medical personnel, he took advantage of a horde of
true believers who were stupid enough to believe him. He was abetted in this
(and still is) by a horde of complicit, and more fanatic if that’s possible,
media talking heads, (Rogan, Hannity, Carlson, et al) who continue to stoke the
flames of resistance for their own ratings.
Add to this, a
significant number of far-right Evangelical pastors who assured their
congregants (some of whom are dead as a result of believing them) that Covid
was either a hoax, or a common cold, and/or could be “prayed away”.
Reason number
two (my list, my order) is that some of us have relatively short memories.
Today’s absence of the litany of communicable plagues of the past has lulled
significant number of Americans into a sort of blissful “It can’t happen here”
alternate universe. They are either unmindful of or, more likely, not
historically cognizant of what was once a menu of killer communicable diseases,
some viral, some bacterial, all deadly and stalking Europe and America less
than 250 years ago. I say unmindful or ignorant because it was immunization by
vaccination which has made these diseases almost unheard of today. The story of
medically induced immunity by vaccination is really the story of Smallpox, first
and foremost. A partial account would include:
Smallpox was
sporadically epidemic in much of the world from very early times, especially so
where humans were living in close proximity to one another. About the only
preventive, if it worked, was self-isolation. This same sort of vague
understanding that one could “catch” a disease from another ill individual led
to self-imposed isolation, if or when possible, during the several bubonic
plague pandemics which swept western Europe. The most deadly, in 1437,
killed an estimated 35% of all humans in Europe! The idea that fleas from an infected rat
could bite and kill by transmitting the deadly bacterium, Yersinia pestis, was several
centuries away.
In 1636, A
smallpox epidemic hit Massachusetts, affecting settlers and Native Americans, Among
the casualties were 20 settlers from the Mayflower, including their only
physician. A year later it happened again, but this time, John Winthrop,
governor of the colony of Massachusetts, wrote that “the natives, they are
neere all dead of the small Poxe, so as the Lord hathe cleared our title
to what we possess.” (In other
words,” God killed the Indians so we could take their land”) The sole effective
measure against Smallpox in Europe or North America was social distancing, as
no one knew what caused it or how to treat it. Note that God got the credit in the
description above for killing the Indians.
However, not every advance in medicine comes
from white Northern Europeans. Several written
accounts from the 1500s describe smallpox inoculation as practiced in China and
India. In The Life and Death of
Smallpox, (Glynn and Glynn) it is noted that, in the late 1600s,
Emperor K'ang Hsi, who had survived smallpox as a child, had his children
inoculated. That method involved grinding up smallpox scabs and blowing
the matter into the nostrils(!!). Inoculation may also have been
practiced by scratching matter from a smallpox sore into the skin. It is
difficult to pinpoint when the practice began, as some sources claim dates as
early as 200 BCE.
The use of the
word inoculation in the modern implies injection with a needle. What was practiced
for years prior as “inoculation” was properly called “variolation” and involved
opening the skin in some manner and introducing something from an infected scab
(pus, scrapings, etc.) into the wound. Until “vaccination” the two were used
almost interchangeably although technically inoculation could be the
introduction of any substance while variolation refers only to smallpox
material
In 1661,
Chinese Emperor Fu-lin died of smallpox and his third son became Emperor K’ang.
Having already survived a case of smallpox before he became Emperor, he
eventually supported inoculation and wrote about it in a letter to his
descendants:
“The method of
inoculation having been brought to light during my reign, I had it used upon
you, my sons and daughters, and my descendants, and you all passed through the
smallpox in the happiest possible manner…. In the beginning, when I had it
tested on one or two people, some old women taxed me with extravagance, and
spoke very strongly against inoculation. The courage which I summoned up to
insist on its practice has saved the lives and health of millions of men. This
is an extremely important thing, of which I am very proud.” Sound familiar? National mandate, Resistance,
scientific proof, acceptance.
Meanwhile on
England in the 17th century, things weren’t so simple or rational. I
only include the following because it shows how superstition and ignorance can
lead to ludicrous treatments. (Drinking
one’s urine, Ivermectin, inhaling bleach, prayer anyone?)
Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), a noted
English doctor, had observed that the rich seemed to have a higher mortality
rate from smallpox than the poor. This led him to conclude that contemporary
medical treatments, largely inaccessible to the poor, might be more harmful
than helpful in mild smallpox cases. Thomas Dover, a future doctor and a
patient of Sydenham, however, documented his treatment at Sydenham’s hands for
a more serious case of smallpox. This is Dover’s description: “Whilst I lived
in Dr Sydenham’s house, I had myself the Small Pox, and fell ill on the Twelfth
Day. In the beginning I “lost” twenty-two Ounces of Blood [from
bloodletting!]. He gave me a Vomit (a purgative), but I find by experience
purging much better. I went abroad, by his Direction, till I was blind, and
then took to my Bed. I had no fire allowed in my Room, my windows were
constantly open, my bed-clothes were ordered to be laid no higher than my
Waste. He made me take twelve Bottles of Small Beer (low alcohol
and infiltered), acidulated with Spirit of Vitriol (diluted sulfuric acid),
every twenty-four hours. I had of this Anomalous Kind [of smallpox] to a very
great Degree, yet never lost my Senses one Moment.”
Note that all
these treatments would tend to weaken an already compromised patient! It is
also noteworthy that neither bacteria or viruses had been discovered, so
treatment had to address symptoms, not the cause. That said, observation had
shown that the disease was transmissible by contact with another infected
patient. This would be repeated with the other great plagues, Bubonic, Cholera,
Typhoid, Diphtheria, Rubella. While there were, all too frequently, serious
Yellow Fever outbreaks in America, that disease needed “help” to spread. A
mosquito becomes infected when it bites a person who has yellow fever in his or
her blood. Direct spread of yellow fever from one person to another does not
occur, but a mosquito who dines on the blood of an infected individual can
carry that infection to its next meal. Ignorance of this means of transmission
made Yellow Fever just as much a plague, especially along the Gulf Coast.
What follows
next uses the term “inoculation” but was in effect variolation. This was
amplified in danger to recipients and resistance by some, because it used
actual smallpox from live cases initially.
In 1721, Lady
Mary Montagu brought the practice of variolation to England, where she had Dr.
Charles Maitland variolate her two-year-old daughter. In the 18th century,
Europeans began an experiment known as inoculation or variolation to prevent,
not cure the smallpox. Lady Montagu defied convention by introducing smallpox
inoculation to Western medicine after witnessing it during her travels and stay
in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, today), where her husband had been posted as
ambassador. Her brother had died of
smallpox in 1713, and although she, herself, recovered from the disease in
1715, it left her with a disfigured face. While in the Ottoman Empire, she
visited the women in their segregated zenanas, a house for Muslims and Hindus,
making friends and learning about Turkish customs. There in March of 1717, she
witnessed the practice of inoculation against smallpox – variolation – which
she called “engrafting” and wrote home about it in a number of letters. Variolation
used live smallpox virus in the pus taken from a mild smallpox blister and
introduced it into scratched skin of the arm or leg (the most usual spots) of a
previously uninfected person to promote immunity to the disease. Consequently,
the inoculate would develop a (usually) milder case of smallpox than the one
he/she might have contracted. Note: this
was making the patient a little sick to avoid being a lot dead!
Because of her
own experience, Lady Mary was eager to spare her children, so she had her
nearly five-year-old son, Edward, inoculated there (Turkey) with the help of
Embassy surgeon Charles Maitland. Afterwards, she updated the status of Edward
to her husband: "The Boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time
singing and playing, and very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may
give as good an account of him." On her return to London, she publicly promoted
the procedure, but encountered a great deal of resistance from the
medical establishment, because it was a “folk treatment.” Again, reasoning need not be applied.
In April 1721,
when a smallpox epidemic struck England, she had her daughter inoculated by
Maitland, the same physician who had inoculated her son at the Embassy in Turkey
and publicized the event. This was the first such operation done in Britain.
She also persuaded the Princess of Wales to test the treatment. In August 1721,
seven prisoners at Newgate Prison awaiting execution were offered the chance to
undergo variolation instead of execution. They all survived and
were released. Despite this, controversy
over smallpox inoculation intensified. However, Caroline, Princess of Wales,
was also convinced of its value. The Princess's two daughters Amelia and
Caroline were successfully inoculated in April 1722 by French-born surgeon
Claudius Amyand. In response to the general fear of inoculation, Lady Mary,
under a pseudonym, wrote and published an article describing and advocating in
favor of inoculation in September 1722. Later, other royal families soon followed
Montagu's act. For instance, in 1768, Catherine the Great of Russia had herself
and her son, the future Tsar Paul, inoculated.
Lady Montagu would come under considerable criticism for advocating
variolation, a practice that slowly began to spread, as its ability to protect
against smallpox became apparent. The results, however, were sometimes fatal
(live smallpox viruses remember!) two to three percent of those variolated died
of smallpox (in contrast to 20-30% who died after contracting smallpox naturally).
What’s more, variolated individuals could pass the disease on to others. But
change was near.
Benjamin
Franklin’s four-year-old son, Francis, died of smallpox on November 21, 1736.
Rumors began to circulate claiming that the boy had been inoculated. Franklin
published a denial and then advocated inoculation. “In 1736 I lost one of my
Sons, a fine Boy of 4 Years old, taken by the Small Pox in the common way. I
long regretted that I had not given it to him by Inoculation, which I mention
for the Sake of Parents, who omit that Operation on the Supposition that they
should never forgive themselves if a Child died under it; my Example showing
that the Regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should
be chosen.” (more random capitalization).
A later smallpox
epidemic struck Charleston, South Carolina. Of the 441 people who were
variolated, almost 4% died, while eighteen percent of people who were naturally
infected died. The results encouraged advocates of variolation. Meanwhile, the
same epidemic reportedly killed half of the Cherokee Indian population in the
vicinity. This still showed that variolation with smallpox serum could be deadly
but was a life saver on a percentage basis.
English
physician William Heberden was the first to give a detailed description that
distinguished chickenpox from smallpox. He wrote: “These pocks break out on
many without any illness or previous sign: in others they are preceded by a
little degree of chillness, lassitude, cough, broken sleep, wandering pains,
loss of appetite and feverishness for three days… Most of them are of the
common size of the smallpox but some harmless. I never saw them confluent nor
very numerous. The greatest number which I ever observed was about twelve in
the face, and two hundred over the rest of the body. Heberden also noted that
those who had previously had chickenpox “were not capable of having it again.”
He was redescribing acquired immunity. He was also unknowingly describing a
disease cause by a similar but separate and far less lethal virus, that term
unknown at the time.
Edward Jenner (1749-1823), an English doctor,
became interested in the idea that previous illness with a disease called
cowpox could protect a person from later becoming ill with smallpox. Cowpox is
an uncommon illness in cattle, usually mild, that can be spread from a cow to
humans via sores on the cow. During an infection, dairy workers (generally
milkmaids) would have pustules on their hands. Sufferers could spread the infection
to other parts of the body. We know now that the cowpox virus belongs to the
Orthopox family of viruses. Orthopox viruses also include horsepox virus,
monkeypox virus and variola viruses, which cause smallpox. Jenner’s
breakthrough, which he could not have scientifically articulated, was to guess
(correctly) that a virus of a similar kind (family) can produce resistance to
other of the same type even though potentially far more deadly.
Independently,
in 1774, Benjamin Jesty, an English farmer and cattle breeder, inoculated his
wife and two sons with matter from a cowpox lesion on one of his cows. Having
already contracted cowpox, Jesty (correctly, as it happens!) believed himself
protected from smallpox infection. When a serious smallpox epidemic hit his
Dorset village, he took it upon himself to do what he considered essential to protect
his family. His wife and children survived, and the boys, when challenged with
smallpox inoculation in 1789, showed no symptoms. As a farmer, not a medical
man, Jesty had no interest in systematically testing his methods or publishing
his results, and so his finding was largely forgotten. Upon his death, Jesty’s
wife had his tombstone inscribed, “the first person (known) who introduced the
cow-pox inoculation.” Had he told someone, he might occupy the seat given to
Jenner. Conversely, he also might have been ignored as “not a doctor, so
irrelevant”
In 1776, George
Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, based at his
headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, ordered mandatory inoculation for
troops if they had not survived a smallpox infection earlier in life—possibly
in reaction to the inability of Benedict Arnold’s troops to capture Quebec from
Britain the year before, when more than half of the colonial troops had
smallpox. Yes, Virginia, mandatory vaccination almost 250 years ago!
Jenner's Breakthrough
In
1796, twenty years after the idea first occurred to him, Edward Jenner tested
his hypothesis that infection with cowpox could protect a person from smallpox
infection. On May 14, 1796, Jenner inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps with
matter from a cowpox sore on the hand of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes. Phipps suffered
a local skin reaction and felt poorly for several days but made a full recovery. In
July 1796, Jenner inoculated Phipps with matter taken from a fresh human
smallpox sore, as if he were variolating the boy, in an attempt to challenge
the protection from cowpox. Phipps remained healthy. Jenner next demonstrated
that cowpox matter transferred in a human chain, from one person to the next,
provided protection from smallpox. At the first meeting of the Royal Jennerian
Society, Edward Jenner insisted that the origin of the term vaccination, from
the Latin for cow (“vacca”), be credited to his friend and fellow physician,
Richard Dunning. This was also to distinguish “vaccination” with cowpox virus)
from “variolation” (smallpox virus) in the minds of a still skeptical public.
The United
Kingdom Vaccination Act of 1853 made smallpox vaccination mandatory in the
first three months of an infant's life. A parent's penalty for not
complying was a fine or imprisonment. Two years later, Massachusetts
passed the first U.S. law mandating vaccination for schoolchildren.
As success
against smallpox continued, other equally communicable diseases continued
ravaging persons in urban or equally close conditions. Measles sickened troops
on both sides of the American Civil War. In fact, the Civil War was the last
large-scale military conflict fought before the germ theory of disease was
developed. Two-thirds of soldiers
who died in that war, 660,000 in all, were killed by uncontrolled infectious
diseases. Of these, in the Union Army over 67,000 had measles and more
than 4,000 died.”
In the late 19th
century a compulsory smallpox vaccination and revaccination law went into in
effect in Germany. Over the next decades, smallpox deaths there dropped
rapidly. After the law of 1874 went into effect the annual mortality in Prussia
fell so that between 1875 and 1886 the average yearly mortality per 100,000 of
population was only 1.91. On the other hand, in Austria, where the lax
vaccination and revaccination requirements remained unchanged, the mortality of
smallpox during about the same period (1872-1884) increased, varying between
39.28 and 94.79 per 100,000 of population. Smallpox vaccination had proven
itself safe and effective well before the turn of the century, and yet….
The
Anti-Vaccination League of America held its first meeting in New York. Among
the assertions made by the speakers at the meeting was the idea that smallpox
was spread not by contagion, but by filth. This became a popular, though
incorrect, argument of anti-vaccinationists. Though smallpox disease
rates dropped throughout the 19th century due to vaccination, suspicion about
vaccination remained among some populations. This led to devastating epidemics
when the disease reappeared.
French
Canadians were among those whose mistrust of vaccination would end up costing
them dearly. In 1885, poor policies regarding hospital patients resulted in an
epidemic in Montreal. For several years
there had been no smallpox in the city, and a large, complacent unprotected
population grew up among the French-Canadians, many of whom were opposed to
vaccination. The disease spread rapidly and, in nine months, 3,164 persons died in the city of smallpox.
By the
late1800s, and to great extent, due to Louis Pasteur’s brilliance in both
theoretical and physical research which led to the germ theory of disease,
research was at work on several other previous diseases which had sometimes assumed
plague proportions. In Pasteur’s case, this also led to development of the
first post-infection vaccination. In March of 1886, he (Pasteur) presented a
paper describing results of using his new rabies vaccine in 350 people. He
recorded just one fatality and reasoned that this was the result of vaccination
begun too late to prevent the disease.
About the same
time, and into the 1890s, several different researchers were working on the
idea of protection against typhoid fever. In Germany, in 1896, Richard Pfeiffer
and Wilhelm Kolle demonstrated that inoculation with killed typhoid bacteria
resulted in human immunity against typhoid fever, the “killed bacteria” concept
proved a major breakthrough as it reduced the danger from vaccination to
essentially zero and forwarded understanding of disease vector microbiology by
leaps and bounds.
After a series
of polio epidemics in Sweden, Ivar Wickman (1872-1914) published two important
findings about polio. First, he suggested that polio was a contagious disease
that could be spread from person to person. Second, he recognized that polio
could be present in people who did not appear to have a severe form of the
disease. These cases are known as abortive cases. Both assumptions would prove
correct.
In 1905 the
U.S. Supreme Court addressed vaccination.
In the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, The U.S. Supreme Court upheld
the constitutionality of mandatory smallpox vaccination programs to preserve
the public health. (Which should, in my estimation, been recalled in
2021, end of story!)
The beat goes on:
Measles killed
nearly 12,000 people in the United States in 1916, 75% of them younger than
five years old. Estimates of the percentage of measles patients who suffer
complications from the disease have ranged from 15% to as high as 30%. Serious
complications included pneumonia, encephalitis, and corneal ulceration. Also in
1916, health officials announced a polio epidemic centered in Brooklyn, New
York. As was typical with polio outbreaks, infections surfaced in the summer
months. More than 2000 people died in New York City alone. Across the United
States in 1916, polio took the lives of about 6,000 people, leaving thousands
more paralyzed. Summer epidemics would come to be common in this era and would
lead to widespread closures of pools, amusement parks, and other places where children
gathered. This pattern continued into the late 1950s. I recall my mother’s
concerns about polio whenever a case was reported locally. Public swimming
pools were closed and we stayed home,
But:
By this time,
many United States schools required smallpox vaccination before children could
attend. Some students and their families, however, sought the help of the
courts to avoid the requirement. One such case was considered by the U.S.
Supreme Court, when Rosalyn Zucht, a student from San Antonio, Texas, was
excluded from a public school for failure to present proof of vaccination. The court dismissed the writ of error that
brought the case to them, stating that the constitutional question presented
was not substantial in character, and citing previous cases which had
determined that a city ordinance was a law of the state—and that it was “within
the police power of a state to provide for compulsory vaccination.”
Despite
vaccination’s successes against smallpox, and the short memories of those saved
from it, opposition to vaccination continued through the 1920s, particularly
against compulsory vaccination. In 1926, a group of health officers visited
Georgetown, Delaware, to vaccinate the townspeople. A retired Army lieutenant
and a city councilman led an armed mob to force them out, successfully
preventing the vaccination attempt. Stupidity remained alive and well.
In March of
1947, Smallpox appeared for the final time in New York City. Eugene Le Bar, a
merchant traveling from Mexico City to Maine with his wife, arrived in the city
by bus, bringing the disease with him. Feeling ill, Le Bar went to Bellevue
Hospital. He died there, two days later. Le Bar’s death was not immediately
attributed to smallpox, but when the disease appeared in two other patients who
had been at the contagious disease facility at the same time, the hospital
staff notified the health department. Eugene Le Bar’s case of smallpox launched
a massive vaccination program in the city. Health commissioner Israel Weinstein
personally visited New York City Mayor William O’Dwyer to request $500,000 for
the purchase of additional vaccine and to hire additional staff. O’Dwyer held a
press conference in which he asked all residents who had not been recently
vaccinated to be vaccinated against the disease. In the next month, 80% of the
city’s residents were vaccinated—some 6.35 million people. In the end, the
effort was judged a success: the total number of smallpox cases reached only
12, and the final death count was limited to two. In the modern era no
individual who has been vaccinated in the previous five years for smallpox has
died from the disease.
57,628 polio
cases were reported in the United States in 1952, more than 21,000 of them
paralytic cases. This epidemic heightened parents’ fears of the disease and
focused public awareness on the need for a vaccine. In May of 1953 Doctor and
researcher, Jonas Salk, gave his newly developed and experimental vaccine to his
family. Salk injected himself, his wife, and their three sons with his experimental
poliovirus vaccine. In 1954, a massive polio vaccine trial began in U.S. In
all, over 1.3 million children participated in the trial. The trial was a
randomized, double-blinded test, meaning that children were randomly assigned
to either the control group or the vaccine group. In a press conference at the
University of Michigan, Thomas Francis Jr., MD (a scientist with extensive
experience with influenza vaccines), and colleagues announced the results of
the Salk poliovirus vaccine trial. The vaccine, 90% effective against paralytic
polio.
In 1963, After
demonstrating its safety and efficacy, first in monkeys and then humans, John
Enders and colleagues declared their measles vaccine capable of preventing
infection. Their Edmonston-B strain of measles virus was transformed into a
vaccine licensed in the United States in 1963, and nearly 19 million doses
would be administered over the next 12 years.
In 1964, the US
saw the tragic result of popular media wading in waters whose depths they
couldn’t comprehend. That should resonate as familiar! In that year, a Rubella (aka
“German Measles”) outbreak infected millions. This outbreak in the United
States initially failed to draw serious attention. A Time magazine article encouraged
“rubella parties”, even recommending strategies so that “especially all the
little girls get the infection.” Unfortunately, and despite public
warnings about keeping infected children away from pregnant women,
nearly 50,000 women in vulnerable stages of their pregnancies were infected
with rubella during the outbreak, leading to thousands of miscarriages and even
more children being born with severe damage. At least 8,000 were born deaf,
3,500 deaf and blind; the total number of congenital rubella syndrome cases
reached 20,000. Over the course of the outbreak. the country tallied
approximately 12.5 million cases of rubella and more than 2,000 deaths.
Resulting medical costs reached the billions.
A slow learning curve:
Over the period
1989-1991, measles outbreaks sickened a reported 55,622 Americans, killing 123.
Of all of the cities that suffered from the outbreaks, Philadelphia was hit
hardest: 1,500 children fell ill and 9, most of whom had not been vaccinated,
died. Many outbreaks were centered in areas where immunization levels were low.
In fact, the CDC reported, "Surveys in areas experiencing outbreaks among
preschool-aged children indicated that as few as 50% of children had been
vaccinated against measles by their second birthday, and that black and
Hispanic children were less likely to be age-appropriately vaccinated than were
white children" Of all fatalities, 90% occurred in individuals who had
never been vaccinated.
But: On August 20,
1994, the Pan American Health Organization had reported that three years had
passed since the last case of wild polio in the Americas, following smallpox as
declared dead in the western hemisphere. By this time the validity of
widespread immunization was so scientifically and incontrovertibly validated
that it seems impossible that any rational individual should dispute it. But
wait: What follows is one of the gravest public health disservices in history.
1n 1998, British
researcher Andrew Wakefield, along with 12 co-authors, published a paper in the
Lancet claiming evidence of measles virus in the digestive systems of autistic
children. In press conferences after the paper was published, Wakefield suggested
a relationship between the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine and autism.
Wakefield then recommended that the combination MMR vaccine be suspended in
favor of single-disease vaccinations given separately over time. However, vaccination
rates in England dropped in response, from more than 90% to 80% or lower—well
below the level required for “herd immunity” to measles. Measles cases,
meanwhile, began to rise. While only 56 cases were confirmed in Wales and
England in 1998, 1,348 were confirmed by 2008. All these cases are on
Wakefield’s head.
In 2004, it was
reported that some of the subjects of Wakefield’s paper had been
recruited by a lawyer involved in a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers;
in response to this and numerous other problems with the paper, 10 of the 12 co-authors
eventually retracted their concurrence of the interpretation regarding a link between the vaccine
and autism. Numerous epidemiological studies performed since have also provided
additional evidence that no such link exists. In 2010, Britain’s
General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had engaged in misconduct during
the course of conducting and publishing the study. Subsequently, the Lancet
formally retracted the paper; in May 2010, Wakefield was banned from
practicing medicine in Britain.
Despite this
and the lack of any evidence to support a link between vaccines and autism,
some groups remain convinced, without evidence in corroboration, of the allegations first raised by Wakefield in
1998. What follows here is my opinion.
Autism is a
sliding scale of symptoms some of which were simply regarded as “unusual” in
prior decades. As “the spectrum” became more defined and unlike other, earlier
identified, behavioral differences from what might be called “normal,” (if that
term is even meaningful) there were no concrete physical markers which could be
definitively linked to it as causative agents. Parents of children with
hereditary and identifiable genetic differences which affect behavior are left
to deal with that as they can. In the absence of any other markers, it is
possible (likely) that many parents of autistic kids want nothing quite so much
as an explanation. In the absence of such categorical proof, here comes Mr. (no
longer “Doctor”) Wakefield with, “voila,” an explanation. “It’s not your
genetics, it’s those damned MMR shots.”
I doubt you could ever get a Jenny McCarthy to
admit this, but sadly, you also couldn’t get her to shut the f**k up about this
debunked tripe for a long while. In a recent court decision, parents were
awarded compensation for their autistic child even though her disorder is
judged as related to a mitochondrial abnormality for which her mom is a
carrier. In any case Autism is a terrible burden for the sufferers and their
families, but pointing the finger at a preservative (no longer used in any
“under 6” vaccines in the US, all of which are lifesavers when compared to the diseases
they protect against) in an attempt to find anything to blame, has fed the idle
and porous brains of those simply too stubborn, unable to think critically, stupid,
or negligent to protect other children from their own (or vice versa). These
are probably unmasked and unvaccinated parents.
For 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
received reports of 134 cases of measles in the United States, the most cases
in a year since 1996. Of these cases, more than 90% had not been
vaccinated.
And so it goes!
