I’m not religious or spiritual, I don’t believe in psychics or conspiracy theories, but a handful of superstitions have wormed their way into my day to day life. I don’t use petroleum-based lip balm, because once in the mid-90s, Oprah said you could get addicted to it, and who am I to naysay Oprah? I subconsciously avoid standing in front of the microwave when it’s on, because of “rays” (my high school teacher had a sign taped to hers that read, “Stand here if you ENJOY CANCER”). I made a valiant effort to abandon antiperspirant because of the “unknown dangers” of aluminium absorption, but that didn’t last long (you’re welcome). I buy organic fruits and vegetables and milk and meat, even though I can’t quantify, exactly, how much of that designation benefits my health and how much is just marketing. I do it because I feel like it’s a more natural way to be and, for some reason, that feels right. I understand that impulse – to strive for the natural, whatever that means – and the only adverse effect is on my wallet. (Also, keep those hormones and antibiotic-resistant bacteria a minimum 10 miles away from my mouth.)
So, generally, I think it’s stellar for people to hold on to the routines, the rituals, the hunches – even the magic spells – that help life make sense, that might fend off mortality for an extra day, a month, a year. Objectively, I don’t believe that rays or armpit aluminium or a non-organic orange is going to be the end of me – or, at least, not any sooner than stress or car travel or choking on a peach pit or falling down the stairs will be – but those little rules make me feel safer. And, most importantly, unlike the potential repercussions of the current pro-“natural” anti-vaccination movement, none of my armchair opinions about lip balm has ever caused a person with Aids to pointlessly die of an entirely preventable disease.
Disneyland measles outbreak leaves many anti-vaccination parents unmoved
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Perhaps you have not caught up on the anti-vaccination movement currently whipping up a brand new measles epidemic for America’s young and immunocompromised. It stems from Andrew Wakefield’s now-discredited 1998 Lancet report, which suggested a link between vaccines and autism, and created a similar panic in the UK more than 10 years ago. This New York Times paragraph handily sums it up:
“Today, the waves of parents who shun vaccines include some who still believe in the link and some, like the Amish, who have religious objections to vaccines. Then there is a particular subculture of largely wealthy and well-educated families, many living in palmy enclaves around Los Angeles and San Francisco, who are trying to carve out ‘all-natural’ lives for their children.”
I believe that it is good to be sceptical of massive, opaque government agencies and the way that they exploit people’s innate fears in order to funnel profits to pharmaceutical giants (and the diet industry, and defence contractors, and banks, and oil companies, and on and on and on). However, I have never been so doggedly suspicious of the government’s canoodling with big business that it seemed worth letting an infant baby go blind, develop seizures and mental degeneration, and die of measles-induced panencephalitis.
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I honestly can’t believe that there’s still ground to tread in this ludicrous non-debate, but apparently it needs to be repeated: anti-vaxxers, please do not give measles to my tiny, helpless future baby. Your bodily autonomy does not extend to my family. Denying science is not innovative or progressive. Even if your worries about vaccines were true, it is not better to be dead than to be autistic.
But you do, actually, have one unassailable point here: babies dying of measles is “natural”. The child mortality rate among hunter-gatherer communities is estimated at around 30 to 40%. Is that the “natural” you had in mind?
If anyone needed more evidence that opposing vaccination is an antiquated, bad idea, look no further than the fact that several US Republicans – the ultimate talent scouts for antiquated, bad ideas – have recently come down on the anti-vaxxer side. Just this week, Kentucky senator (and disingenuous, prattling fool) Rand Paul said, vaguely, that he’d heard of “many tragic cases” of kids developing “profound mental disorders” after being vaccinated. New Jersey governor Chris Christie argued that “parents need to have some measure of choice” because “not every vaccine is created equal”. Neither politician offered any specifics about which “tragic cases” and which disproportionately dangerous vaccines they were referring to, but if citations mattered, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. (Great to hear you conservatives are all about bodily autonomy now, though. I assume you’re going to apply that to women’s bodies, too? … Hello? Guys?)
Andrew Wakefield: autism inc
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Most importantly, vaccination is a class issue. If I stopped being able to afford to shop at the organic hippy co-op, I could just go back to scrubbing the pesticides off my own goddamn leeks, just as we did when I was a kid. But when it comes to vaccines, the stakes are so much higher. If anti-vaxx activist Jenny McCarthy’s voluntarily unvaccinated baby transmits vanity-measles to the involuntarily unvaccinated baby of an impoverished single mother, whose baby is more likely to receive adequate medical care? Whose baby is more likely to die?
And that’s the whole point. Herd immunity isn’t about my individual hypothetical baby, or yours, or Jenny McCarthy’s – it’s about public health, investing in a collective. It’s a testament to the idea that we can care about human life independent of self-interest. That empathy extends beyond our own children. If that’s “unnatural”, I’ll take it.