Harming Children
Anything for a vote. Politicians truly demonstrate time and again that they feel they will succeed with the electorate if they shed their conscience. Of course, with some politicians and their limited cranial capacity for sufficient brain power to fire up their intelligence quotient, conscience need not come into play if it is there at all. Their ignorance will suffice.These are the politicians and would-be-successful candidates for high office who betray their lack of care in expressing opinions that have no solid base in fact. Who use the occasion of addressing the public to convey to them their opinion on sensitive issues of which they know little, but are determined nonetheless to speak as though they were authorities.
Of course this propensity to skew public opinion deleteriously for the issue at hand, and successfully for the planned ambition of the politician is not restricted solely to politicians. Some health professionals themselves have, on occasion, created panic in the minds of the population by suggesting that inoculations against disease themselves cause other health issues.
Only to be reprimanded by members of their own profession who are able to render proof that the accusations are unfounded and unhelpful. But the die is cast, the harm is done. The high profile case of The Lancet publishing an article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield claiming that the MMR vaccine (immunization against measles, mumps and rubella) causes autism spectrum disorder a case in point.
Where celebrities joined in the discussion, making uninformed, public declarations in support of Dr. Wakefield's thesis, causing a mass movement by parents refusing to have their children inoculated against these childhood diseases, leading to further medical complications as a result.
Dr. Wakefield's theory was debunked, The Lancet withdrew their support, and the British General Medical Council withdrew Dr. Wakefield's professional qualifications to practise as a medical doctor.
Current medical-scientific consensus that the vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV) is safe and effective and should be administered to young girls from age 12 up to protect them from the deadly scourge of the most virulent type of cervical cancer, is now on the verge of seeing a similar public relations disaster devolve.
There is no evidence, however remote, in the literature, to suggest that the HPV vaccine is dangerous. Its immunization use represents insurance against the later development of cervical cancer by young women. The medical community wholeheartedly advances its use as a needed societal protective device.
During the current pre-election process in the United States where the Republican Party is looking for its new candidate to run against Barack Obama in 2012's presidential election, the candidates are vying with one another for public attention. Presidential candidate hopeful, Michele Bachmann seems to be contesting Sarah Palin for the title of Queen of Misspoken.
To the dismay of infectious disease experts within the United States, who are united in a campaign to persuade the public that the HPV vaccine is completely safe and that their young girls should be immunized for their own future good health, Ms.Bachmann has intervened. To express her considered opinion on a subject she clearly knows nothing about.
Having spoken against the State of Texas Governor Rick Perry who had issued a later-revoked mandate for immunization of schoolgirls to avoid the potential of later contracting cervical cancer. Ms. Bachmann took it upon herself to deplore "innocent little 12-year-old girls" having a "government injection" which was "potentially dangerous".
She insisted on NBC's Today show she had met a woman from Florida who informed her after that debate that her daughter had become "mentally retarded" after receiving the Gardasil vaccine. Two bio-ethicists are offering $10,000 rewards to anyone who can bring forward the child who has so tragically suffered from the injection. But the harm has been done.
Despite that the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a statement guaranteeing the safety of the vaccine, mothers will now be invested with the fears of their daughters being irreparably harmed by an inoculation meant to protect them from incalculable harm.
Labels: Health, Political Realities, United States
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, September 17, 2011
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