When Ethicists Attack

This morning a member of our Facebook page shared with me this the latest vile vaccine establishment attack on parents who choose not to vaccinate.

The mindless drivel we're about to dismantle was written by a so-called medical ethicist. a Dr. Eric Kodish and appeared in the Washington Post

He starts with an unsupported assertion that, “Most parents see vaccinations as a medical necessity to protect their children” His link provides no support to bolster his claim.

The doctor then moves on to display an utter lack of historical understanding stating, “The anti-vaccination movement is a relatively new one that has taken hold over the past decade.”

This is only true if 175 years makes something “relatively new.” A short history of vaccination appearing on Harvard.edu reports:

In the 1840s, the first state-sponsored vaccination campaigns appeared in England and, later, in Germany.

Mr. Kodish continues with something about non-vaccination being “based on myths that have been perpetuated by the power of the Internet,” yet lists none of these myths. Perhaps he does not have the knowledge to discern between myth and truth. 

Regardless at this point he begins the obligatory fear mongering that is a hallmark of pieces such as these with the lament that, “what began as a small movement is now powering a full-blown health crisis.” 

But to call ~500 cases of a mild illness in a nation of 300 million a crisis does not make it one. All it does is simply reveal the perpetual state of hysteria in which the vaccine extremist lives.

As to the anti-vaccination movement’s role in these cases, no evidence is provided to support the silly claim the non-vaccinated are “powering” a small rise in measles cases.

The author may be unaware but measles cases have been fluctuating around a low-level baseline established in the 1990s.

Since vaccination rates remain at all-time highs, changes in USA measles activity are based on other factors: world-wide measles activity for example.

Furthermore, infectious illnesses show cyclical peaks and valleys. But, this alarmism is nothing new: similar spurious claims arise every few years.

Marching ahead and armed with a seemingly endless supply of fallacious arguments, Mr. Kodish pontificates:

Some parents believe that vaccinating their children is a decision that only affects them and their families.

Not vaccinating - which is doing nothing -does not affect anyone unless there is a pre-existing obligation to act. In terms of vaccination no such obligation exists. 

Progressing to a popular zealot talking point Kodish implies people are obligated to vaccinate because some others can’t. While it is unfortunate some have health issues precluding vaccination, the existence of those issues do not impose obligations on parents to subject their children to a 18-21 years of unnecessary medical treatments. If there was even the slightest argument for such an obligation, I’m sure our intrepid "ethicist" would have presented it.

Unmercifully, the error-laden and logically challenged screed trudges on. Kodish hallucinates:

Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children also are putting other peoples’ children at risk along with their own younger children, 

More absurdity. The risk to these children already exists or there would be nothing to vaccinate against. Since the risk exists, non vaccination does not create it as a means to “put people at risk”

I cannot believe the Post publishes such child-like arguments. I guess that’s why the mainstream media is such a national laughingstock

Undeterred and blissfully unaware that wishful thinking is not a reasoned argument, Kodish plods on with his most ignorant and reprehensible delusion, scrawling:

They [the unvaccinated] contribute to the loss of innocent lives. 

But it is painfully obvious that doing nothing, i.e., not vaccinating, does not “contribute” to anything since it is not an action.

He then, in an out-of-character moves, actually shares a fact that is true: some doctors choose not to care for families who refuse to vaccinate their children. 

What this reality makes obvious is medicine should have its monopoly over certain aspects of healthcare removed. The profession has been taken over by extremists and it is no longer able to serve the nation’s citizens. Giving it monopoly protection harms the interests of Americans. Introducing competition into healthcare would separate zealots from reasonable healthcare providers and give parents opportunities to deal with practitioners with shared their views on health.

As to the utility of taking healthy children to the doctor for repeated well visits there is no evidence (at least I have been able to find none, and I've looked) the bloated schedule the American Association of Pediatrics has manufactured has any positive impact on health. It is just as likely that they are an opportunity for the type of over treatment that created the antibiotic resistance about which the author speaks.

Winding down, Kodish continues examining the issue of doctors refusing to treat patients. He talks about doctors “firing” those who don't vaccinate, while failing to realize, since we hired you, all you can do, as our employees, is quit.

Concluding, he encourages the totalitarian approach that permeates the public health subculture asserting:

Schools must insist that children cannot start kindergarten without being vaccinated. This approach has been phenomenally successful in states such as West Virginia and Mississippi

Kodish is, for a change, right; forcing vaccines on the unwilling has been phenomenally successful. Phenomenally successful at creating a police state and violating the rights of American citizens.

Encouragingly, with the help of that scary old internet so feared by vaccine fundamentalists, more and more people are awakening to the fact they are surrendering their freedom and the freedom to raise their children to an out of control public health establishment. As this awakening continues the house of cards known as compulsory vaccination, will come crumbling down.

And I think that's in the process of happening. After all, if the tide were not turning why the need for the constant and increasingly repugnant attacks on parents brought to us by the vaccine establishment and their media collaborators?