The Vaccine Debate Continues
Thanks for writing about the anti-vaccine movement [January 2012]. I know you will have to suffer through hate mail and phone messages [from refusers] for a few weeks, but the story puts you in good company. See Trine Tsouderos’s series about quack autism treatments in the Chicago Tribune, and Amy Wallace’s excellent profile of Dr. Paul Offit in Wired. I write about media coverage of vaccines and autism at AutismNewsBeat.com. You earned an A+. And I’m not an easy grader. By the way, have you heard of the band The Refusers? They’re from Seattle and have a song called “Vaccine Gestapo.” Some people are parody-proof.
Ken Reibel
Milwaukee
I am always amazed by the amount of misinformation bandied about by “refusers” who, each and every day, put my young baby (who is in the process of getting all of her vaccinations) at risk for infection by dangerous diseases. That’s why I want to give a heartfelt thanks to parent-advocates, like Ashley Shelby, for all of the work they do to educate parents about the importance of vaccines.
Posted by JWBLDB on mnmo.com
If the writer of this article thinks that he only needs to help parents understand the importance of vaccines and they will comply, he is dead wrong. The vaccine debate is about our sick children and the tens of thousands of parents who took their normally developing children for vaccines only to find that afterward they regressed into autism. When is someone going to study our children? The agencies and companies that test vaccine safety are the same ones that mandate and approve the vaccine program. Why does anyone call this science?
Maurine Meleck
South Carolina
Corrections
Our February story on “Weekend Escapes” incorrectly attributed the design of The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, to Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was built by Alex Jordan. Wright’s estate, Taliesin, is located nearby.
“Beauty Buzz” in the February Style section contained several errors. Worker B sources its almond oil from the Mediterranean, not Australia. Propolis, not royal jelly, serves as the hive’s immune system and creates an antifungal cocoon. And honey is not an anti-inflammatory, beeswax is.
