Vaccinate!

We've had so many amazing technological advances over the last century, from sending a man to the moon to digitizing the world's information so it can be accessed in an object that fits in your pocket. One of the most important was the development of vaccines that have eradicated many of the dangerous diseases that ravaged the population for centuries. This is a good thing.

But, as we spin into the maelstrom of the lunatic fringe gaining power, this miracle of science is now suspect. I'm not sure when it started--is a third-tier TV personality and former nude model, Jenny McCarthy, really the person that started this? Whoever did, they have certainly caused the loss of many lives

Anti-vaxxers, as I believe they are called, base the supposition that vaccinations cause autism on a completely debunked paper that was written by a man who later lost his medical license. There are others in the tin-foil hat brigade that think the government is implanting chips of some kind into our children. My response to these kind of conspiracy theories is that the government can't do anything right, let alone pull off a secret operation like that.

Meanwhile, diseases that had been almost completely wiped off the planet are back, measles especially. Here in Las Vegas there has been an outbreak, and there was an outbreak of whooping cough, or pertussis, in an area high school. There was an outbreak in Disneyland. And yet, politicians who are weak-kneed are ignoring common sense and saying that parents should be able to "opt out" of vaccinations (one, North Carolina Thom Tillis, even thinks that restaurants shouldn't require employees to wash their hands. I wouldn't shake hands with him). Chris Christie, one of the most venal politicians on the scene, waffled like an Eggo by not coming out for mandatory vaccinations.

Much of this, as most controversies in America boil down to, comes from religion. I'm not sure why. A pastor in a Texas mega-church came out against vaccinations, and now his congregation, in perfect poetic justice, has had an outbreak of measles. There has even been a book written called Melanie's Marvelous Measles, which indicates that measles are just a part of childhood, like acne or growing pains. Dumbkopf Laura Ingraham has said that measles aren't so bad. Just ask the parents of those who have died, or those who were deafened or otherwise permanently harmed. Measles is a killer, and if everyone was vaccinated it was cease to exist, because humans are the only animals that get it.

This is not a political or religious issue. It is an issue of public health. If you are so stupid as to not want to protect your child from a major disease, then don't enroll that kid in school, don't take him Disneyland, don't take him out of the house. Just as we don't want drunks driving cars, we don't little germ factories roaming the streets. Fortunately, Nevada is a state that requires enrolled students to have the major vaccinations. All states should.

Talk to someone old enough to remember the polio nightmare, when every summer parents fretted about their children going outside and catching a horrible disease. When Jonas Salk invented the vaccine he was hailed, rightly, as a hero. I guess the crackpot contingent would suspect his motives.

The U.S.A. is getting stupider by the day.

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