CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2019, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2019, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ANTI-VAXXER’S VIOLENCE SHOWS CAUSE IS MORALLY BANKRUPT”
For
years, anti-vaccination activists have demonstrated against laws compelling
schoolchildren to be inoculated against diseases like polio, rubella, measles,
mumps, diphtheria, whooping cough and others. Now for the first time, this cause
has turned violent in an apparent recognition that it will get nowhere on the
strength of its own merits and morality.
The
violence was not severe – this time: Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan, the
California Legislature’s only M.D. and a pediatrician sworn to protect and save
lives when possible, was pushed aggressively from behind while walking a street
near the state Capitol in mid-August, within his own Sacramento senatorial
district. He did not fall and suffered no apparent harm.
The
perpetrator (not named here because notoriety is often a goal of such assaults)
resents Pan’s sponsoring several bills tightening California’s vaccination
requirements. These have made matters difficult for parents who don’t want
their children immunized, seeking to evade the shots while still keeping the
kids in public schools. Anti-vaxx groups immediately denied association with
the perpetrator, calling him a “lone wolf.” But they embraced him just last
year, when he tried to oust Pan both in the primary election and via a
still-active recall petition.
Pan’s
latest bill requires the state health department to review exemption forms
written by doctors who sign more than five such waivers in any one year. The bill
aims to correct a scenario where hundreds, maybe thousands, of parents have
sought out scurrilous physicians willing to sign spurious exemptions for fees
of about $300 apiece.
The
anti-vaccination effort mainly uses unproven claims that vaccinations cause
autism and other serious reactions. A British study making those claims early
in this decade was long ago debunked, its author recanting.
Little more than this discredited study, plus purely anecdotal claims confusing
correlation with causation, has ever been used to justify exemptions for anyone
other than kids affected by things like organ transplants, HIV or ongoing
chemotherapy.
So
the vast bulk of parents trying to exempt their kids essentially disregards the
proven fact that vaccinations virtually eliminated once-dreaded diseases like
polio and vastly minimized fatalities from measles, for one example which
killed thousands of children annually as recently as the early 1960s.
On the basis of
what amount to folk tales about autism, these parents choose to endanger all
others with whom their children might come into contact if they are infected
and contagious, but don’t yet know it. Such circumstances produced several
significant outbreaks in California within the last six years, exposure to
measles occurring at places like Disneyland and the Los Angeles International
Airport.
The
moral weakness of the anti-vaccination stance is obvious, no matter how often
activists masquerade as crusaders for “medical freedom.” Medical freedom can be
a just cause when, for example, cancer patients with terminal diagnoses are
denied access to experimental drugs or remedies not yet approved by government
agencies. Things are very different when the goal is avoidance of vaccines
proven effective over many decades.
That
contrast explains why Pan’s previous bills zipped through the Legislature,
ending religious exemptions that formerly applied even when families involved
followed no discernible religion. It’s also why the current bill had no trouble
getting through state Senate committees and appears poised for Assembly passage
and a signature from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The
anti-vaccination camp has failed for lack of merit to convince many lawmakers
of the morality of its cause, frustrating adherents like the man who assaulted
Pan while live-streaming his action on Facebook.
It’s
easy enough to blame an episode like this on today’s contentious political
climate, but devotees of morally bankrupt causes have long resorted to violence
and threats. The Ku Klux Klan does this; so do other hate groups. And the
anti-vaccination camp has never been reluctant to make veiled threats, often painting
Pan as a danger to children who should be punished.
All of which
makes the assault on Pan as much an admission of moral, intellectual and
political failure as anything else.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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