A few good vaccine links.

I'm not going to write a whole big blog post about vaccines. I'll just say that my kids are both fully vaccinated, and will continue to be. I saw a recent facebook post that linked to an article with the title "Court quietly confirms MMR vaccine causes autism." I'm not going to link to it, because it is a total waste of time and factually incorrect. I was sort of floored that this kind of stuff still goes around - the study that initially made this connection has been completely retracted by the journal that published it and the physician who wrote it was found to have a vested interest in proving a link. Reading the article, my BS-meter was really going off, but I wasn't sure what "court" they were referring to on my quick read-through.  Anyway... thankfully someone at Forbes did a great job writing a critique of that article that only reiterated how absurd the initial article was.

Then today I also read a slate article talking about how some medical ethicists are saying that parents should be able to sue the family of any unvaccinated [due to choice] children who get their own kids sick and cause harm. Not that I'm a big fan of lawsuits - but if doctors can be sued for any number of ridiculous things, then I have a hard time saying that if you choose not to vaccinate your child for the perceived risks, knowing that it is a public health danger, you shouldn't have any consequences if your child sickens another child who was too young for the vaccine or an illness that suppressed the immune system.

Just a bit of interesting reading....