Opinion: Science vs. Show Biz
By Tim Neagle
It is thought at UCSF and other health/science institutions of learning that a long and rigorous education is necessary before one can assume the position of a health-care professional.
But in Hollywood, they’d rather wing it.
In one of those only-in-America moments, we currently see comedian Bill Maher advising people not to take flu shots for the H1N1 virus. Actors Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey urge parents not to get their children vaccinated against measles and other diseases, because, they claim, the vaccines cause autism. Currently, the web page of my Yahoo email account features an ad that proclaims: Hugh Downs says throw away your blood pressure medication.
Funny, I must have missed the day all these people graduated from medical school.
Except it’s not funny at all. McCarthy has written a best-selling book warning parents away from vaccinations from childhood diseases. She and her mate, Carrey, are given high-profile platforms on national television to proclaim their agenda of ignorance. Maher uses his popular comedy show on HBO to rail against flu vaccines, professing to find some sort of government plot in the distribution of vaccines.
Wired magazine has a cover story (available online at http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience ) on the dangers that these entertainers are perpetuating. Increasing number of parents are listening to them, and not their doctors, and are opting not to have their children vaccinated. And we’re not talking about just the Bible Belt here; Wired notes that affluent, educated Marin County has a non-vaccination rate approaching 6%.
Measles epidemic, anyone?
The Wired article focuses on Philadelphia pediatrician Paul Offitt, co-inventor of a rotovirus vaccine that, the article notes, “could save tens of thousands of lives every year.” For his pains, Offitt has become the face of evil to the anti-vaccine crowd, and routinely receives an avalanche of hate mail, often containing death threats.
McCarthy has an autistic child, for which she deserves sympathy. She has concluded on her own that vaccines caused the autism. Scientists note that the symptoms of autism often emerge when an infant is 18 months-to-two years old, about the same time that vaccines are administered. Despite study after study finding no link between autism and vaccines, McCarthy and her legions of followers are completely convinced that the link is there.
The H1N1 flu has the potential to make millions of people seriously ill. Maher has advanced no scientific reasons or cited any medical research to back up his contention that people should not take the vaccine. Like McCarthy and Carey, he just “knows.”
Well, they don’t know, any more than the wingnuts who are convinced that global warming is a hoax know what they are talking about.
It seems hard to believe that it is necessary to point out that reading a couple of articles on the Internet does not suddenly qualify you as a scientific expert, that commenting on a story on a website does not trump years of scientific education.
The absurdity of the non-vaccination movement defies rational belief. It wasn’t all that long ago that smallpox was a scourge of the Earth; polio was so widespread that a president of the United States was confined to a wheelchair because of it. Vaccines ended those threats to humanity. But humanity, at least the lunatic fringe of humanity, seems intent on bringing these and other diseases back from the dead.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of the Wired story isn’t in the article itself. Read the comments that follow the article in the online version. Commenter after commenter derides Offitt’s work, pours scorn over Wired’s story and proudly proclaim their intention not to vaccinate their children, despite the obvious threat this poses to all children.
I’ll close with this sad quote from Offitt from the article:
“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”
When your child comes down with the measles (or worse) because he’s been sitting next to a non-vaccinated kid at school, remember the entertainers who made it all possible. You’ll be able to find them on Oprah, spewing dangerous nonsense.
This article appeared in the November 5, 2009 issue of Synapse.
