Vaccines: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

One of the few things I despise worse
than Donald Trump, Montreal Canadien fans and pickles(i felt a gag in my
mouth just typing the word) is anti-vaccine people. I may never been
that concerned about it until after I learned my youngest son had
Autism. Even though no actually link between Autism and vaccinations has
ever been found the fear it may happen still exists because of one
debunked study by a quack of a doctor(former doctor actually) many years
ago. 

What
drives me bonkers is the lack of common sense and the danger that can
be life threatening. One of the problems is that we as a society seem to
forget how horrific some of these childhood diseases really were. One
of the reasons our ancestors had more children(besides sex being fun and
there was no TV or Internet for distraction) was that many children
died before reaching adulthood. If you think of it you are here reading
this because your ancestor from 200 yars ago had 9 kids and at least one
of the survived long enough to become a great-great-great-great
grandparent of yours.

Another
problem is the Internet. I love the Internet as much as anyone but it
does have it's downfalls. One of which ironically is too much
information with very little to filter it out. False or bad information
is alongside credible and established publications like New England
Journal of Medicine. If you search on any issue you can almost always
find and opposite viewpoint. What many have gotten poor at is filtering
out those that are junk and full of crap. As the old saying goes just
because it's on the Internet doesn't make it true. What is needed is
more education in is the ability to research sources of information and
to evaluate their credibility. That doesn't mean cherry-picking from
sources that just back up your own belief's. 

Lastly
I like I said earlier I have a young son with Autism who had all all
his shots. If I had to do it all over again I'd still have him get his
vaccinations on schedule. As much as being an Autism parent is a
challenge I would much rather have him around to love and hear his
laughter than watch him being lowered into the ground because I was
afraid him getting a vaccination.