Just in case you missed it, here it is:
Yesterday, I heard from the editor at Columbia University Press that Paul's book, Autism's False Prophets, is now their number one selling title. If you are a parent, your children may be exposed to dangerous viruses because other parents are not vaccinating their children (heck, you may be exposed). Thus reading this book and understanding the subject matter are important for any parent, as well as anyone interested in medicine, history, and autism. You scan scroll down to prior blog entries for the links to buy the book.
Z
I really liked the end of this segment, when she kept repeating, "Not controversial, it's not controversial." Too often I think, the media takes "be objective" to mean "present every viewpoint as having equal validity", even when one viewpoint is patently false. It's rare that you see a journalist reporting a story stand up and say, "These people have no credible argument whatsoever"--rare enough that Matt Lauer clearly didn't quite know how to handle it.
ReplyDeleteAs the parent of a two-year-old (who we've never hesitated and never will hesitate to give whatever vaccines our pediatrician recommends), I think a big part of the attraction of the vaccination theory is that it allows parents to feel like they have some control over the situation--so much of a parent's experience is being worried that somehow, through some unforeseen circumstance, something terrible is going to happen to your child and there's nothing you can do about it.
We also seem to live increasingly in a society where scientific, statistical evidence, like these sixteen studies, is viewed with distrust and outright denial if it doesn't jive with the conclusions we've already reached ourselves. There's no way, for instance, the USA could have such a strong movement for the teaching of intelligent design in science class without a lot of people not really understanding the basis of evidence and observation on which all science rests.
Ian
Washington, DC