Health officials are saying the number of measles cases that originated in Disneyland continues to grow. Which is why this year after the game the Super Bowl MVPshouted, 'No way am I going to Disneyland!'
The thing is I think vaccines are one of the greatest medical breakthroughs that we have. I'm a big fan and a great fan of the history of the development of the smallpox vaccine, for example.
In different places you run into myths around vaccination or around family planning. In the United States, one of the myths that existed for a long time, that has been completely debunked, was that autism was linked to a vaccine.
Despite the debunking, you have a small group in the last five years that hasn't wanted to vaccinate their children, for instance, for measles. Then, all of sudden, we got an outbreak of measles and kids were starting to die from measles.
Vaccinations are bidding defiance to Heaven itself, even to the will of God …. the law of God prohibits the practice
At present, intelligent people do not have their children vaccinated, nor does the law now compel them to. The result is not, as the Jennerians prophesied, the extermination of the human race by smallpox; on the contrary more people are now killed by vaccination than by smallpox.
Vaccines are extremely well tested; their safety is well understood. The false allegations about vaccines causing autism have been disproven. But there are still echoes out there confusing people.
Maybe someday it will seem quaint that, during a time of plague, some of the parents of the 1990s wanted to deny their children protection so that they could safeguard their own self- image. Or maybe we'll just seem like a bunch of lunatics.
We have learned that a majority of parents whose children have late-onset or acquired autism believe it is vaccine-related. They deserve answers. We have also learned that the parents have been our best investigators in looking for both causes of autism and for treatments.
I don't care if people get angry about that, believing the rubbish that vaccinations cause trouble or make the child worse or something. That's not what I believe. I think it's important for me to say.
In the case of Pakistan, the CIA actually used a fake vaccination campaign to try to locate Osama bin Laden, so now vaccination is associated with espionage.
Many years ago I was part of a public health movement that raised concerns about the mercury in vaccines and about the heavy dose that infants get - used to. They don't anymore.
Without a doubt in my mind, I believe that vaccinations triggered Evan's autism.
There is abundant science out there that connects mercury exposure in vaccines to not only autism, but to ASD, to SIDS, to ADD, ADHD, language tics - which is like Tourette Syndrome - OCD, asthma, food allergies, and diabetes.
A child gets vaccinated and soon after, autism symptoms emerge. The apparent cause-and-effect is understandable but erroneous - more a coincidence of the calendar and childhood developmental stages than anything else, as repeated and exhaustive studies have shown.
Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative that was in many American vaccines until 2003. It was removed from many of the pediatric vaccines, but it was put in the flu vaccine, which is now given to 53 million Americans.
Alongside the flat-earthers, 9/11 truthers and Obama birthers, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists have always had a special distinction: They can do immediate and specific damage in a way that the others can't.
I do not trust those who make the vaccines, or the apparatus behind it all to push it on us through fear.
When I was researching the Victorian anti-vaccination movement, those activists often used a vampire as a metaphor for the vaccinator.
If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.
When I first went public with my son Evan's story, I just planned to talk about the 'R' word - Recovery. But soon I was spending most my time talking about the 'V' word - vaccines.
The risks are far greater to your child of not getting immunized than any kind of speculative potential relationship between the vaccine and the development of autism.
Information on how to heal autism and how to possibly delay vaccines or prevent autism shouldn't come from me. It should come from the medical establishment.
Vaccine conspiracies, like so much modern cult conspiracy culture, perpetuates itself and lives on indefinitely thanks to the community-building and archiving of the Internet.
I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Florida, after the debate. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter.
