By Elaine Magliaro
Award-winning political cartoonist Mark Fiore said that he had wanted to do a cartoon on vaccinations and the anti-vaxxers for a while. Once politicians like Rand Paul and Chris Christie began “stumbling over themselves following the measles outbreak,” Fiore knew the time was right.
Fiore:
It’s incredible that the anti-vaccination crew has gotten so much traction, given the completely fraudulent and truly shady origins of the vaccine-autism “connection.” Autism and developmental disabilities are not something to be taken lightly and we’ll all do everything we can to make sure our kids have the best possible life, but if you just barely scratch the surface of the anti-vaccine claims, they fall apart quickly.
Let’s hope vaccination doesn’t become a partisan, political issue like sadly global warming has become. This is science, folks, let’s listen to the scientists, researchers and founding fathers for that matter. Jenny McCarthy may have a very moving personal story, but let’s let science be our guide.
Vaccines: How to Avoid Killing and Maiming Children
SOURCE
HOW TO AVOID KILLING AND MAIMING CHILDREN (Mark Fiore)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
At one point I believe that vaccines were a problem since the amount of mercury used as a preservative was three times the safe level for humans. From what I have read, the mercury has been taken out, and so I doubt that they have any bad components now.
randyjet,
Most medical types agree that the level of mercury in vaccines was never unsafe for humans. But as you said, thimerosal has been mostly removed, due to an abundance of caution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_controversy
I gotta get one of those Gadsden flags.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/religious-exemptions-vaccine-skeptics “Religious waivers have been widely exploited by vaccine skeptics throughout the U.S. because applicants aren’t actually required to show evidence of faith-based objections to vaccinating their children. Anti-vaccine groups even go as far as to teach parents how to game the religious exemptions.
Vaccine waivers have come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks, as a major measles outbreak that began in California’s Disneyland park spread to 17 states. California is among 20 states that have laws that go beyond religious exemptions and allow parents to cite a “personal belief” or philosophical objection to vaccines.
There’s little difference between those exemptions in practice. In the case of religious waivers, the process for parents to obtain an exemption boils down to little more than stating in writing that it would violate the parent’s religious tenets to vaccinate his or her child. State officials must trust that the parent is acting on a sincere or truly held belief.
That leaves plenty of room for parents who do not want to vaccinate their children for a number of personal reasons, be it a belief that a certain vaccine is unsafe or a desire to stay away from vaccine “toxins,” to game the system where a personal belief option is not available to them.”
In the immortal words of Alfred E. Neumann, Tea Party Founder, “What, me worry?”
I heard some one say that this anti-vax stuff was first started in CA by progressives. I guess the right wingnuts jumped on it as a good idea. Well, I have certainly heard that before.
In Ithaca, New York, a bastion of liberalism which some call “ten square miles surrounded by reality,” vaccination rates at elementary schools are well below state averages. Some local schools, both public and private, have measles vaccination rates below 90%, whereas the state average is 95%.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/02/ithaca-10-square-miles-of-liberal-anti-vaxxers-surrounded-by-reality/
In sum, one can surmise that the parents sending their kids to places like the Ithaca Waldorf School are a cross-section of the city’s wealthier residents and the city’s “neo-hippies and independent thinkers” as the D&C likes them.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/23/texas-measles-outbreak/2693945/ “The latest measles outbreak is in Texas, where the virus has sickened 25 people, most of whom are members or visitors of a church led by the daughter of televangelist Kenneth Copeland.
Fifteen of the measles cases are centered around Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas, whose senior pastor, Terri Pearsons, has previously been critical of measles vaccinations.
The USA article about Texas supports my theory that tragedy becomes comedy if no one dies.
OK, bron,
Now you’ve told us what the faux-insurrectionist poseurs think of liberals.
What do sane folks think about them?
For the purposes of the argument here, what anyone thinks about climate change isn’t the issue. There was a point in this combustible debate, though, when I began to think that science and the people who do the work of science beyond climate were allowing the credibility of their profession to be put at risk with the broader population.
That turning point was when the cause changed its name from global warming to climate change. When the warming-only argument became scientifically difficult and the subject became the irrefutable “climate change,” it was clear that politics, not science, was running the show.
The people doing basic science should learn a well-proven truth about basic politics: Any cause taken up by politicians today by definition will be doubted or opposed by nearly half the population. When an Al Gore, John Kerry or Europe’s Green parties become spokesmen for your ideas, and are willing to accuse fellow scientists of bad faith or willful ignorance, then science has made a Faustian bargain. The price paid, inevitably, will be the institutional credibility of all scientists.
Many scientists believe their authority is already on thin ice. An issue raging now through biomedical research, arguably our most important scientific enterprise, is whether the system that ensures the reproducibility of research experiments is failing. That’s right, the foundation of science itself. The reason for the rise of irreproducible science is that showy results produce grants, tenure and, ironically, public belief in “breakthroughs” that in fact are merely conjecture or hypothesis. . . . Scientists ought to get back to the business of taming fire, not playing with it.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-vaccines-and-politicized-science-1423700743
“That turning point was when the cause changed its name from global warming to climate change. When the warming-only argument became scientifically difficult and the subject became the irrefutable “climate change,” it was clear that politics, not science”
Bron,
You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. The first discussions of climate change came in the 50’s and the question of what nuclear warfare might do to the planet and nuclear winters. There was a mistake made, not of the science, but by the use of the term global warming by those trying to alert people to what was going on. The mistake wasn’t one of understanding the phenomenon, but of relating it to non-scientists. Climate change was always about the Earth becoming warmer, but along with that was the reality that out winters would also be colder and our weather systems (hurricanes, blizzards, etc.) would be more turbulent. All that has come to pass, yet you play with words as you superficially try to discuss something, you’ve never tried to investigate on your own, but instead listened to people to whom their wealth is more than the planet.