{"id":1309919,"date":"2019-05-04T23:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/polman-column-anti-science-ignorance-stokes-public-health-crisis\/"},"modified":"2019-05-04T23:00:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T05:00:01","slug":"polman-column-anti-science-ignorance-stokes-public-health-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/polman-column-anti-science-ignorance-stokes-public-health-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Polman column: Anti-science ignorance stokes public health crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you happen to watch \u201cVeep,\u201d the HBO show that satirizes politics, you\u2019re surely familiar with Jonah, the notorious foot-in-mouth presidential candidate. On last week\u2019s episode, while attempting to woo anti-vaccination voters, he boldly declared, \u201cWhy go to a doctor and get a shot for something you don\u2019t even have?\u201d<\/p>\n

If only this were a laughing matter. You\u2019ve probably heard that measles, a disease that was officially eradicated in 2000 thanks to the measles vaccine, is now making a dramatic comeback \u2013 with at least 700 documented cases \u2013 thanks to the willfully ignorant \u201canti-vaxxers\u201d whose opinion of science brings to mind the foes of Galileo who refused to believe that the earth circles the sun.<\/p>\n

We Americans don\u2019t agree about much anymore, but at minimum, there should be a consensus that science in the decades since World War II has been a boon to public health. As Steve Salzberg, a biomedical engineering expert at Johns Hopkins University, points out, the measles vaccine alone has been \u201ca miracle of modern medicine,\u201d foiling a disease that typically produced 500,000 cases a year prior to the vaccine\u2019s introduction in 1963.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we\u2019re now plagued by \u201cthe highly vocal, supremely confident, and utterly misinformed anti-vaccine movement\u201d that amplifies its lies daily on social media. Indeed, one think tank study concluded last year that the anti-vaxxers have mastered the art of \u201crepetitive messaging reinforcement.\u201d The study says: \u201cGoogle and Facebook algorithms inadvertently create the illusion of fact and truth out of mere ubiquity; if you can make it trend, you can make it true.\u201d<\/p>\n

In theory, everyone in America should be free to believe whatever they want \u2013 but not to the point when disbelief imperils the broader community and creates a public health crisis. Healthy un-vaccinated kids are not the only ones put at risk. Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, says: \u201cThe anti-vaxxers are putting at risk populations that cannot be vaccinated due to health conditions or allergic reactions. Mostly children and the elderly, these people are dependent on the rest of us being vaccinated so that they can benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The anti-vaxxers keep saying \u2013 without a shred of scientific evidence \u2013 that vaccines cause everything from autism to mental retardation. They\u2019ve been so successful, especially at the state level, where it\u2019s legal (as in Pennsylvania) for parents to opt out for \u201cphilosophical\u201d or \u201creligious\u201d beliefs, that the World Health Organization is listing what\u2019s euphemistically called \u201cvaccine hesitancy\u201d as one of the top 10 global threats in 2019.<\/p>\n

And take a wild guess which political party has been friendlier to the anti-vaxxers, giving them safe harbor. I had the burden of watching a Republican presidential primary debate on Sept. 17, 2015. The front-runner, Donald Trump, decided to share his medical expertise:<\/p>\n

\u201cAutism has become an epidemic. Twenty-five years ago, 35 years ago, you look at the statistics, not even close. It has gotten totally out of control\u2026 You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump \u2013 I mean, it looks just like it\u2019s meant for a horse, not for a child, and we\u2019ve had so many instances, people that work for me. Just the other day, two years old, two and a half years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump wasn\u2019t the first Republican to bow at that altar of ignorance.<\/p>\n

Back in 2011, ill-fated presidential candidate Michele Bachmann declared that the popular HPV vaccine, which had inoculated millions of young girls against a cancer-causing virus, was actually a public menace that triggered mental retardation. Early in 2015, candidate Rand Paul said he had \u201cheard of\u201d cases where vaccinated kids \u201cwound up with profound mental disorders.\u201d (There have been no such cases.) And candidate Chris Christie briefly toyed with an anti-science stance, suggesting that parents should have the freedom of \u201cchoice\u201d on whether to vaccinate, before partly walking it back.<\/p>\n

And yet, last week, when Trump was confronted with the reality of an actual measles outbreak, he suddenly riffed a rational message: \u201cThey have to get the shots. The vaccines are so important. This is really going around now. They have to get their shots.\u201d Does he not remember what he said in 2015? Or what he tweeted about vaccines in 2014? (\u201cAUTISM. Many such cases!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Our best hope is that sanity will ultimately prevail. Congress is actually planning to conduct hearings about the measles outbreak, in recognition that public health is a priority concern. As Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander warned the other day, \u201cIf vaccine hesitancy persists \u2013 or even expands \u2013 it could seriously undermine these important (scientific) advances.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bipartisan moment in 2019! That\u2019s nearly as miraculous as a life-saving vaccine.<\/p>\n

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a \u201cWriter in Residence\u201d at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you happen to watch \u201cVeep,\u201d the HBO show that satirizes politics, you\u2019re surely familiar with Jonah, the notorious foot-in-mouth presidential candidate. On last week\u2019s episode, while attempting to woo anti-vaccination voters, he boldly declared, \u201cWhy go to a doctor and get a shot for something you don\u2019t even have?\u201d If only this were a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1309919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 16:05:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1309919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1309919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1309919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1309919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}