Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A shot in the arm

My wife recently showed me an anti-vaccination ad. It's pretty bold, with visuals making a strong link between vaccinations and autism even though they admit there's currently no evidence proving such a thing. My wife thought the ad was great, claiming that if pro-vaccination groups can use unproven emotional statements like, "outbreaks still occur each year because some babies are not immunized" then we can fight fire with fire.

To me, this is just adding fuel to the fire. We don't know what causes autism, and even though pumping toxins into an infant's bloodstream may be a pretty likely contributor we shouldn't go making false accusations. Instead, how about doing something crazy like demanding that vaccinations be put through the same kind of rigorous tests that any other medicine goes through? How about both sides agree on some case studies and put money into doing them right? Call me crazy, but I'd love to get a few more actual facts.

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