The Scene staff
I’m no expert on health care.
I’m not a doctor, a nurse or a physician’s assistant. My only medical training is a first aid and CPR class or two. Oh, and watching reruns of “House.”
For that reason, I don’t hand out health advice, and I wouldn’t want people to listen to it, anyway. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Know who else isn’t a doctor? Jenny McCarthy. Yet, for some reason, people across the country are still listening to her when it comes to vaccinations.
McCarthy’s credits include 1993’s “Playboy” Playmate of the Year, the MTV dating show “Singled Out,” the slapstick comedy “BASEketball” and, most recently, “The View.” I don’t think she has enough star power to get invited to the Oscars.
But McCarthy’s opinions on vaccinations and their mythical link to autism have been taken seriously in some circles. Her time in the spotlight concerning this “issue” came when she promoted a British study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, after her “research” into potential causes for her own son’s autism.
The 1998 study linked autism to the vaccinations routinely given to young children to prevent diseases like mumps, flu, measles, diphtheria, chickenpox and hepatitis. It panicked hundreds of thousands of parents around the world, prompting many of them to not vaccinate their children at all.
The study could have changed medical science forever. It could have affected everything we know about diseases. Unfortunately, it was a complete and utter fraud.
When other researchers couldn’t reproduce Wakefield’s results, the legitimacy of his study came under question. It wasn’t that it merely had some errors; many aspects, from the medical records of children to Wakefield’s analysis of chemicals in vaccines, were fabricated.
Most of Wakefield’s partners took their names off the study when they found out in 2004 that he was paid to conduct it — by law firms intending to sue vaccine manufacturers.
I thought that would be the end of the debate. Study debunked, Jenny McCarthy’s a nobody and parents will all start getting their kids vaccinated again.
I was wrong.
Measles are back. The disease, thought in 2000 to be eradicated in the United States, has been popping up more and more frequently since 2008. It’s not the only disease to resurface, but it’s been the most common.
And most of the cases should have never happened.
Among the victims are a few adults who were vaccinated against measles as children (it’s rare, but it can happen); unvaccinated adults and children, and children who are too young to be vaccinated.
It’s the situation regarding the last group getting measles that makes me really angry.
When parents don’t get their kids vaccinated, they’re not only putting them in danger, they’re putting other kids in danger, too.
Children too young to be vaccinated have very little defense against diseases like the measles. So when they come across a child or adult with it, the results can be deadly.
When a drunk driver hurts or kills a child, that person is rightfully punished for the crime. When a parent’s unfounded distrust of vaccines leads to a child, whether his or hers or someone else’s, being hospitalized or killed, there’s no justice.
I recently overheard a young woman say she thinks vaccines are bunk because she was never vaccinated and she’s fine. She doesn’t realize that the reason she stayed healthy is that most other people were vaccinated.
This same woman explained, in the manner of revealing a conspiracy, that vaccines actually have the diseases in them.
Fortunately, she wasn’t revealing a big secret — it’s common knowledge. Vaccinations work because they have dead or weakened viruses and antigens in them. That triggers an immune response, leading to the development of antibodies against disease.
Vaccines have eradicated many diseases in the United States and around the world, and the scientists and doctors who develop them have the best interests of patients in mind. Don’t believe me?
Ask your parents what that dime-sized mark is on their upper arm, and why you never had to get one.
You’ll learn it’s from a smallpox vaccination, and we younger people don’t have those marks because the vaccine worked so well for our parents and grandparents.
For parents considering whether or not to get their kids vaccinated, all I ask is that you get the facts. Don’t ask your friends or neighbors; ask your doctor.
Don’t base your decision on a former Playboy model’s tweets or a college newspaper column; base it on information in legitimate medical journals. Don’t base it on a blog; base it on credible research by scientists.
Don’t be surprised when you find the right answer is to vaccinate.