my ironic mustache

i am so sick of all these bullshit parents that refuse to vaccinate their kids due to some half-baked theory that vaccines, or the traces of mercury found in preservatives in vaccines, cause autism.  there’s been numerous cases here and abroad of children dying of diseases thought to be largely extinct because of this pseudo-science.  slate has an excellent write-up (not something i say that often) regarding a recent court case that will hopefully dispel this harmful myth once and for all.  from the article:

At one point in testimony, a University of Virginia pediatric neurologist named Robert Rust tried to explain the dogged persistence of the vaccines-cause-autism theory. The believers have many data points at their fingertips, thanks to the Internet. Rust compared them to Tycho Brahe, the 16^th-century astronomer who convinced his contemporaries that the sun revolved around the Earth. Frustrated parents and scientists who have long rejected the vaccine-autism connection frequently return to that analogy. Alison Singer quit her leadership position in the charity Autism Speaks because she tired of its demand for more vaccine studies. “The question has been asked and answered and it’s time to move on,” she told Newsweek last month. “We need to be able to say, ‘Yes, we are now satisfied that the earth is round.’ “

look, i feel for parents of autistic children, i really do.  but to put thousands, or even millions, of other children at risk based on a theory that has NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS is just plain, for lack of a better word, retarded.  sorry, that was in bad taste, but i couldn’t help myself.

in summation: vaccinate your damn kids, dumbasses.

-srd