As, the dark cloud that hovered over vaccines mostly from damage done by fraudster Andrew Wakefield slowly lifts, the last thing we need is to have actual doctors jumping back on the anti-vaccine bandwagon.
Yet, the always (oops, make that never) reliable Mother Jones (March 30th) somehow managed to dig up a group of pediatricians from California (big surprise) who are not quite following the recommended CDC vaccination schedules.
The group, called Pediatric Alternatives (and if you can find a bigger red flag than this, let us know) seems to think that they know better.
The title, My Interview With a Pediatrician Who Thinks Vaccines Are Messing With Nature, by Kiera Butler, pretty much says it all.
A disgusted Dr. Josh Bloom says, Here are some other things that mess with nature : Antibiotics, AIDS medications, insulin, general anaesthesia, and birth control. Why not stop using these as well and go back to a time when, if you were lucky, you lived for 30 years, and then something ate you.
Yet, according to the article, in this group, A little less than 20 percent of the families the practice treats choose not to vaccinate at all. The rest use a modified vaccine schedule.
Since Stacia Kenet Lansman, the founder and head of Pediatric Alternatives, was influenced by the work of Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil, their decision to modify the approved vaccine schedule is anything but surprising.
On the other hand, the sole voice of reason (and ACSH advisor) Dr. Paul Offit, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Children s Hospital of Philadelphia notes, [I] often encounter parents who are afraid that too many vaccines will overwhelm their child's immune systems. But the contents of the vaccine are nothing compared to all the germs one encounters daily. The shots are a drop in the ocean of what your body does every single day.
To her credit, Butler does point out that Kindergartners here have one of the nation's lowest vaccination rates, so it's probably no coincidence that the county also has the second-highest rate of pertussis (whooping cough) in California. Probably?
Let s not forget the worst outbreak of measles in decades in California. Or the number of completely preventable pertussis outbreaks in the state (ranging from 1,000 to 9,000 since 2010). Coincidence? We think not.
ACSH s Dr. Gil Ross says, As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, children who are treated at this practice will come down with otherwise-preventable (and serious) diseases. Who am I going to listen to? Paul Offit or Andrew Weil? Take a wild guess.
