“The lesson of all this is that vaccination is not an individual choice to be made by a parent for his or her own offspring. It's a public health issue, because the diseases contracted by unvaccinated children are a threat to the community.”
- “The Toll of the anti-vaccination movement, in one devastating graphic”, Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-20
“The old line about a lie traveling halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on certainly applies to the supposed link between autism and the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine -- in spades.”
- “More on the unsavory history of the vaccine-autism ‘link’", Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-22
I wonder how much social media like Facebook give lies the wings to go around the world. I see so many postings about cute stuff, clever stuff, and outright nonsense that ask readers to pass them on. I don’t because I don’t want to bother, I don’t think all my friends don’t need to know those things, or I don’t think they are posted with any critical examination by the poster.
Serendipity strikes again! Clearing up some Firefox tabs, I wound up finding:
“The charter school textbooks breezily dismiss evolution as “an unproved theory.” Here’s where inadequate science education and fundamental science ignorance show themselves. Science uses the word “theory” the way the rest of us might use “conclusion.” A scientific theory sums up hypotheses that are themselves backed up by testing and observation.”
and
“Ignorance is curable by education, but willfully ignoring the facts can be contagious — and even fatal.”
- “What creationists and anti-vaxxers have in common”, Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-23
