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I’m a proponent of vaccination, simply because of decades and decades of demonstration that it works. So I approve of the State of California’s mandate on vaccination. This article on NaturalNews.com is using the Merck scandal as an argument against vaccination. While I read the entire article, it’s first sentence gives-away the author’s bias:

One of the reasons vaccine propagandists are so cognitively impaired is because they’ve all been partially brain damaged by the very same vaccines they keep pushing on everyone else

Essentially this is an elongated way of saying “being pro-vaccine is stupid” – not a good way to get me to listen to whatever their argument might be.

Now, is Merck culpable as far as its mumps vaccine goes? Probably. Does that invalidate vaccination? No, no more than the stuff that goes on on Wall Street invalidates the idea  of investing, or the crimes committed by politicians invalidate the idea of democracy.

Vaccination works. Period. Scientific fact. If you want to believe otherwise, go ahead. But if you don’t get your kids vaccinated I would be the first to approve of jail time for you for endangering the health of the community. Vaccination was mandatory when I was a kid in California schools. No one died from it. But unlike the generation before mine, no one contracted polio, either. No, I’m not a scientist. I don’t need to be one, anymore than I need to be an engineer to know if I don’t put oil in my car it will burn-up.

The fact that vaccination works is not subjective nor is it absolute. No one said “works in all cases” or “works without side effects”. Car accidents kill far more people every year than negative vaccine reactions do. Is there a group lead by celebrities advocating we stop moving from one place to another because it’s “safer”?

There are reasons why certain people shouldn’t be vaccinated: medical reasons, not just because mommy and daddy listen to fear-mongering conspiracy theorists. Not because of religious beliefs. Not because of “individual liberty”. It’s a public health issue, and vaccination is demonstrated to be effective.

Are the high profile anti-vaccination advocates scientists? Is Jenny McCarthy a scientist? Or does she just want there to be a reason for her child’s disability, when it’s probably her genes that caused it. That’s what it’s like being a human being: some are born into what appears to be a raw deal, yet that no one caused. It happens to a small percentage of people, just like negative vaccine reactions happen to a small percentage of people.

I remember polio. I remember rubella (had it), and dozens of other serious diseases that now only happen to a small percentage of people (in the U.S., anyway). Nothing is 100% effective, just like disease is not 100% fatal.

We have to live in the real world, where real bad stuff happens if we don’t do something to prevent it. The attitude that other people don’t actually matter is part of the anti-vaccine hysteria. Only those with that opinion seem to matter. But their kids are just as likely to end-up paralyzed if they contract polio.

I’m pleased and proud to live a state where vaccination is required – it’s evidence that reason still triumphs over superstition.