One of the most popular articles The Peak has ever published is a witty Opinions piece colourfully titled “I hate Jenny McCarthy.” The article, written by former editor Graham Templeton and published in 2009, took the eponymous talk show host and former model to task for her outspoken support of the anti-vaccination movement.
Five years later, it’s still garnering views on our website — and, despite overwhelming evidence refuting any and all claims that vaccines cause autism in children, this movement is still going strong.
Yes, seriously. Parents still think it’s a good idea not to give their children the MMR vaccine, which protects them against measles, mumps, and rubella, diseases that can and have killed hundreds of thousands of young people. Diseases that, thanks to modern medicine, shouldn’t be killing kids anymore.
But they are, and in greater numbers every year. Canada’s vaccination rates have dropped to 84 per cent — lower than necessary to ensure population immunity. Our rates are lower than those of countries like Eritrea and Tunisia, where vaccinations are both costly and difficult to acquire.
To not vaccinate is not only ignorant and selfish, it’s a willful endangerment of children.
So why aren’t we vaccinating our kids? For many, it’s because a man named Andrew Wakefield published a study in 1998 which claimed there is a direct causal connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.
There isn’t. Turns out that Mr. Wakefield had been given money by lawyers looking for evidence against vaccine manufacturers, and that his data was both carefully manipulated and just plain false. In fact, Wakefield was later removed from the British General Medical Registry, making him unable to practice medicine in the United Kingdom — and, hopefully, anywhere else.
Still, despite countless counter-arguments published by lawyers, scientists and medical professionals, the anti-vaccination movement marches on, stubborn and oblivious.
The debate has recently resurfaced in the form of a few offhand comments made by reality star Kristin Cavallari, who, like McCarthy, refuses to vaccinate her kids. “To each their own,” she told Fox News. “If you’re really concerned about your kid, get them vaccinated.”
Who can argue with that logic? If Cavallari wants to endanger her own kids, who are we to stop her? Except, of course, that just isn’t the case — the recent outbreaks of measles in Europe and North America are just one example of the dangerous effects of the anti-vaccination movement. It’s not an isolated decision: it’s one that affects everyone, especially young people.
Case in point: there have been 228 measles cases confirmed in British Columbia this year. We’re not talking about the black plague here; measles can be a dangerous disease, but it’s also one that’s easily treated in the Western world. Yet, on the premise of disproven evidence from a 25-year old article — not to mention the occasional staunch religious belief — parents are putting their children, and everyone else’s children, in danger.
There are plenty of studies out there that prove people aren’t swayed by the cold hard facts. So maybe a different approach is in order. Parents: vaccinate your fucking kids. To not do so is not only ignorant and selfish, it’s a willful endangerment of children. About 120,000 young people die of measles every year — and that’s nothing compared to the pre-vaccination days, when the number was closer to 2.6 million.
I still hate Jenny McCarthy, and in the immortal words of Graham Templeton, you should too. She and every other anti-vaccination airhead may desperately want to believe that vaccines which have the capacity to save hundreds of thousands of lives can cause autism, even though we know they don’t.
But you don’t have to listen to them. Vaccinate your kids, vaccinate yourself, and tell everyone you know to do the same.
