American Values vs. The Scientific American

The editors of Scientific American, in coordination with the pro-vaccine propaganda emerging from the release of Paul Offit and Seth Mnookin's new books (the two authors encouraging us to both vaccinate and bow down to the will of "science") and the release of a report attacking Dr Andrew Wakefield and his study tying autism to the MMR vaccine, have, in the magazine's February issue, submitted their own bit of vaccination disinformation.

The article entitled Fear and Its Consequences begins with an incident that has nothing to do with either fear or its consequences: the California pertussis outbreak of 2010

California is now in the middle of the worst outbreak of pertussis in half a century... The number of annual cases has been climbing in recent years. Last year, though, the rate of infection rose, once again, to epidemic proportions—7,297 known and suspected cases, a fourfold increase from 2009. 

Of course, no piece of establishment generated propaganda would be complete with out a rehashing of this epidemic - even though "vaccine refusers" had as much to do with it as they did with the financial crisis of 2008.

The editors then employ a nonsensical premise in an attempt to sell us on the idea of herd immunity (they sure do love their herd immunity)

The success of any given vaccine depends on so-called herd immunity, in which a high rate of immunization in a population helps to protect those individuals who are not immune.

No the success of a vaccine depends on how well it protects those receiving it - any herd immunity is a simply a byproduct of large numbers of people choosing that vaccine - or sadly, being forced to accept it.

Continuing on with the herd immunity theme, they assert:

Herd immunity requires high immunization rates—around 95 percent for highly contagious infections like pertussis and measles. 

As to their point, I'm not sure. As I've discussed ad nauseum, 1 million cases of undiagnosed pertussis occur each year; making herd immunity to pertussis pure fiction.

The editors prattle on:

When immunization rates drop below the critical level, disease can strike not only unvaccinated individuals but also vaccinated ones, because all vaccines fail to confer immunity in a certain percentage of people.

Terrifying. Damn those anti-vaxxers! But wait rates have never reached 95% for the measles - or any other illness for that matter - even under the regime of forced immunization. So how could rates be falling below critical levels when they've never reached critical levels?

Either way, whether or not they reach critical levels is unimportant because the attainment of those levels does not justify the unwanted medication of America's children.

Next up is the endangerment card:

Parents who opt out are endangering not only their own kids but everybody else’s, too—including those who cannot be vaccinated because they are too young or immunocompromised, as well as youngsters who have received their shots.

In my opinion (and that's the only one that counts when my child is involved) the endangerment comes when you allow 70 doses of vaccine to be administered to a young child. As to the precious herd, the danger of catching an infectious illness is a product of civilization, not a result of those who choose not to vaccinate. When we're forced to vaccinate we're simply being forced to protect others by using our children as objects. Opting out of that immoral system simply returns us to a baseline at which one person is at a moderate risk of catching an illness from another person

Slogging through their list of talking points, they arrive at the Wakefield matter

In February 2010 the Lancet retracted Wakefield’s infamous paper. That leaves no scientific evidence to support the assertion that vaccines cause autism or other chronic diseases. 

They fail to inform their readers that there may be no scientific evidence because science has never seen fit to examine whether or not vaccines (not just one single vaccine or one single vaccine ingredient) cause autism - especially when these vaccines are given in countless different combinations during different stages of development.

Finally the article sinks to it's most pathetically absurd point

The right to decide what is best for oneself and one’s children ends where science has so clearly documented a threat to public welfare. It’s time for the other 48 states to eliminate these exemptions and adopt strict enforcement policies to ensure that kids get their jabs. 

Wrong! The only time the right to choose what's best for one's self comes under government control is when those choices infringe upon the rights of fellow citizens - and there is no right to be free from illness at the expense of others.

The threat to public welfare about which they speak is really a threat to people (scientists love to talk about herds and hives and communities and the collective but never people) but that threat comes not from other people violating our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happineess (the area in which government involvement and protection is legitimate). Rather these "threats" - if one could call the mumps a threat - come from a combination of infectious agents and the living conditions we, for the most part, choose ourselves.

As free people, we can discover and use vaccines, avoid people and live a life that supports health rather than illness.These, unlike forced vaccination, are legitamate ways we, the people, can protect ourselves - legitamate because we, in the process, do not trample upon the rights of others to obtain that protection.

Scientific American's disdain for freedom is hardly surprising since it and similar publications believe we all live to do as the scientists say. After all in a free country how would they expropriate the money of hard working Americans in order to fund their self indulgent little science projects. And how could they afford to traverse the world, attending their yearly global warming climate change summits - held of course in some of the world's most glamorous locations.

Who would give them the time of day were it not for their never-ending alarmism promising (without their leadership) both a world about to explode into a gigantic fireball and one a the precipice of being devoured by the scourge of infectious illness.

It's revealing that, in the very same issue in which this little editorial appears, two other articles call for the implementation of policys that would, to solve the crises de jour, tell us what to drive, the temperatures at which we'd be allowed to maintain our homes and of course what foods and beverages we'd be permitted to consume. No aspect of our lives is safe from the scientist and his political enablers.

Scientists are, even though they're loath to admit it, people like the rest of us. And as such they desire power, prestige and the ability to foist their political agendas upon others.

They labor under the delusion that "science" confers to them some legitimate authority to rule and control - just as the kings of yesteryear imagined their authority flowed from a divine source.

In light of the dangers science poses to freedom, it is time emulate the founding fathers' separation of church and state and, as the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend suggested, separate state and science.