By Jane C. Timm
There was a moment at a Congressional committee hearing on Tuesday where the entire conversation about health risks and vaccines was laid bare. Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked a top Centers for Disease Control immunization expert whether vaccines are safe – eight different ways.
“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism?”
“No,” Dr. Anne Schuchat said.
“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause profound mental disorders?” Warren asks.
“No, but some of the disease we vaccinate against can,” Schuchat answers.
“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines have contributed to the rise of allergies or autoimmune disorders among kids?” Warren asks.
“No,” she said.
The exchange continues, with Warren asking an additional five times about the dangers of vaccines, hearing the same answers: no, no, no, no, and no again.
“Vaccines are safe,” Schuchat said.
“The increase in measles cases should be seen as a wake-up call,” Schuchat testified.
But the outbreak has become more than a public health crisis, it’s also become a political lightning rod as conservatives struggle to reconcile their personal views with an ongoing emergency. Last week, Gov. Chris Christie stumbled, saying while he’d vaccinated his own kids, he wanted parents to have a choice on the matter.
Sen. Rand Paul, who has a background as a physician, went farther and said he’d seen vaccines cause “profound mental problems.” The pair of potential 2016 candidates were hit with significant political blowback; Paul recanted and and got a booster vaccine to emphasize it. (Paul’s a member of the committee that held today’s hearing, but he wasn’t present. A spokesman said he was a classified Foreign Relations committee hearing at the exact same time.)
Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, however, didn’t sympathize with the anti-vaccination movement, instead pinpointing parental exemptions as a health risk.
“What is standing between healthy children and deadly disease? It ought to be vaccinations, but too many parents are turning away from science,” he said at the start of the hearing.
Experts on the panel agreed. “It’s this philosophical exemption that’s causing problems,” Dr. Sawyer said.
Asked by Louisiana’s Sen. Bill Cassidy if immigrants were bringing measles into the country, Schuchat noted that these children were being vaccinated (or had already been vaccinated), saying “it’s just these new communities where parents are opting out that we’re quite worried about.”
This is not REALLY a vaccine issue. These are parents who are excessively paranoid of most ALL things government. Especially Federal government. Their poor kids (and the rest of the country) are just victims of these paranoid parents. You cannot rationalize with a crazy person.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/congressional-hearing-real-talk-sen-warren-vaccines
