Lookit, I’m ludic, no question. But I’m not a Luddite. I’m highly
skeptical of people’s motives when there’s money to be made, but I’m not interested
in tearing down a system built upon solid scientific foundations. There is no
question but that the principle of vaccination has saved countless lives and
brought some very, very nasty diseases to their knees. Where and when it has
been available, the Needle has done a huge amount of good, overall and in
the big picture.
And yet.
[I’m going to put forward here some arguments, which I am
compelled to say, due to the highly suspect nature of privacy and security as
they stand in the public realm in the 21st century, are purely for
the purposes of discussion. Pursuant to Section X of US Public Law IF6was9, the
views expressed in this editorial are not necessarily those of etc. and etc. “Parents
should consult a professional skeptic before trying this at home.” Etc.]
I want to rely on science, wherever possible. And in
general, I do. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ll play the science card first,
in nearly every case. I make it clear to my students that as an historian I am,
first and foremost, a Marxian: I am convinced that if you want to understand some event in the past, you have to look first at
the material conditions that produced that event — and then consider how
people’s ideas and beliefs shaped their engagements with those conditions.
Nothing in human history has ever sprung purely from human thoughts and
feelings. Nothing. On the contrary, one finds as many examples where human
ideas and emotional orientations have been driven by circumstances, as the
other
way around. Beliefs, philosophies, religions, have an elastic
relationship with reality.
 |
| The Bee's Knees? |
So why would I, hypothetically, of course, not want a
child in my care to be vaccinated? Isn’t the Needle the medical equivalent to
the Bee’s Knees?
Make no mistake, the medical system in this country
is indeed an industry. So despite the crucial and valuable work done
every day by jillions of fine, good-hearted physicians across this country, the
larger structures in place that often drive the bus, so to speak, have proven
themselves to be remarkably unreliable in standing for what is really the best
for patients.
Let us leave aside here the for-profit medical insurance
system in this country, which is an unethical and morally bankrupt monstrosity
designed to privilege denial of treatment over actually helping people.
We’ll set it aside because, after all, doctors in general do not have much say in
how the system works. They are inmates of the asylum, just as surely as their
patients are.
But consider: The vaccination regimes of my childhood were
very different from those today. Children’s immune systems today are exposed to
much more potent vaccines and much more intensive vaccination regimens than
before. The list of “required” vaccines in the State of New York is long, much
longer than when I was a kid. Varicella, for example, which I actually had as a
child. (I do bear the mark of that illness today: a tiny scar next to my
eyebrow where I scratched one of the little red itchies.) Or measles, which a number
of the kids in my neighborhood had, as did my wife (the MMR vaccination coming
a bit later than that). These are serious and unpleasant illnesses.
The logic is: Well, if we can prevent an illness, shouldn’t
we, even if it is not debilitating or fatal? On the face of it, this would seem
to be a very simple and compelling argument. Who wants another person — especially
a child — to suffer, when suffering can be prevented?
And it would be a fine argument indeed, if there were no
other consequences. But one of the problems I see is that the medical industry
— as with the energy industry, the plastics industry and a host of others — has
not always fully understood the costs that come with their achievements, because
it’s not on their radar, and because there is no financial incentive to see it.
Large corporations that fund medical research (sometimes directly,
but more often through foundations and donations to universities and so on)
have a lot of say over what passes as “sufficient” science. The money is there,
so why not spend it helping humanity? What does it matter that someone powerful
stands to make a lot of money from it? Science is science, right?
But consider: What are the most infectious, disease-ridden
places on the planet? Hospitals! If you are seriously ill and go to a hospital,
the odds are very, very good that you will contract a significant and untreatable
secondary infection. You will probably be treated with drugs that compromise
your immune system — already compromised, perhaps, by the illness that put you
in the hospital — and then you will be exposed to infectious agents that are themselves
immune to all the drugs intended to stop them.
Some people actually die in hospitals, not because of the
illness that brought them to the place, but from the secondary infection they
contracted from being in the hospital. But what alternative is there? What
alternative, that is, that turns a profit?
Case in point: My mother, 87 years old and ailing from an
unexplained dizziness, as well as high blood pressure (which did not in fact
exist, as was proven when she went into the hospital and was taken off Lipitor…and
nothing happened!), fell in the shower and went to the hospital with what
looked like a concussion. In fact, she also was experiencing early-stage
Alzheimer’s. But that didn’t stop her from contracting a tenacious case of pneumonia
that itself was immune to the antibiotics she was given. Fortunately, we had the
good sense to bring her home to live her last days in a comfortable bed, surrounded
by loving family.
Meanwhile, the cash registers continued to ring.
Consider: There has been a significant outbreak of unchecked
measles in a community of Orthodox Jews in New York City. These people were lucky:
They live in a country that has hitherto respected their religious beliefs that
contest the supremacy of allopathic medicine. They’re not vaccinated; measles
happened. That’s a more-or-less natural state of things.
But because of this outbreak — and the spread of measles
(not rubella, not varicella, not mumps, not polio or tuberculosis or smallpox or even tetanus)
to unvaccinated people in nearby communities — the State of New York has
recently passed a law revoking people’s First Amendment rights when it comes to
vaccination. All vaccination. Not merely to measles, the actual source of this
alleged crisis, but all vaccinations. If the law stands court tests, every
child in New York will have to be subjected to the entire range of ten vaccinations
for the “required” diseases. This without any effort at quarantine as a solution, for
example.
Not just measles: It’s now all or nothing, notwithstanding the fact that unvaccinated children present zero risk to vaccinated ones.
So, what is that about? Who is so determined to get these
vaccines into children? Who stands to profit from it, and whose campaign
coffers will get an infusion as a result? And keep in mind, this will mean that
children whose families hitherto have been protected from enforced medical-industrial
action by the First Amendment will now have to have literal barrages of vaccinations
— two, sometimes three rounds of 10 different vaccines in the space of just
three months or so. Even vaccinations that make no sense for particular age groups,
or that make no sense at all (like varicella). How does one not see this as
being driven by broader agendas than merely public health?
Defeat diseases — yes. Relieve suffering — yes. But isn’t
the situation in modern hospitals perfect evidence of a serious limitation inherent
in the worldview of allopathic medicine, especially when hitched to the engine
of commerce? And what happens to the health of large populations — not to
mention the ecosystem as a whole — when the collective immune system is no
longer exposed to a broad range of stimuli from the environment, thanks to the
industrialization of medicine? What other kinds of “complications” await when
we have finally defeated all disease?
The truth is that no one knows, because that’s not on the
radar of the allopathic medical industry. It’s a flaw in the reasoning: A
failure to understand the bigger picture, which may point right back at the
limitations inherent in allopathic approaches to the smaller picture. Especially:
failure to understand that balance always returns within the natural system.
The Judeo-Christian ethos has brought us to a place where conquering
nature has triumphed over living within nature. God supposedly “gave”
the world to mankind to do with as it pleases. The result? Nagasaki and Agent Orange and Chernobyl.
Plastic in Arctic snow and bee pollen and the deepest part of the ocean. Tardigrades on the Moon. And a medical industry
that is always two steps behind, fixing problems piecemeal rather than embracing
the whole. How long did the medical industry take to figure out that diet is
the most important influence on patients’ wellbeing? Decades? Only now, in the
21st century, has not medicating become a viable
recommendation for practicing physicians.
History shows us, time and again, in ample ways, that conquest
is not sustainable.
Nothing in nature conquers forever. Predators lord it
over prey, until they die or are put down by another predator, or the ecosystem
itself. The lions that consume all the antelope die out, too. Parasites cannot
afford to kill the host. In a very real sense, humans (in the Developed World,
anyway) are predators behaving like parasites. And we really do not know what
the full consequences will be, but we have inklings of them already, today. I don’t
think I need to point them out, do I?
So the point: I’m am not against vaccination, as
such. I am against enforcing vaccination regimes whose long-term impacts
on the individual, the society and the ecosystem are not understood — let alone
respected. I am suspicious (hypothetically speaking) of a medical industry founded
on allopathic approaches that lack the ability to appreciate that there are
larger questions of natural balance to consider (let alone being able to understand
that balance). The goal of an entirely disease-free, suffering-free world is not only
unattainable, it’s dangerous. Industry will never get us there, in any case.
Consider also: The medical industry has not always been its
own best friend. And government has not always been much help, either. For good
or ill, the days when the guy in the lab coat had an unrestricted claim to
authority are gone…in part precisely because of the growth of the medical industry
I have just described.
Rather than invest heavily from the public coffers, for the
good of all, in scientific research free from the taint of the marketplace, we
have allowed, even driven, bona fide science to get into bed with Capital. This
has led to a number of serious public-relations disasters (not to mention some
actual scandals!) in which science has been hijacked for profit by unscrupulous
corporations, aided and abetted by Government’s unwillingness to invest in
regulation. (The two surely are not connected, are they? Who could even think
such a thing?) Names like Monsanto and Dow come to mind immediately.
Realities matter, but so do perceptions. So if you want your
scientific perspective to win the day, you cannot simply assert that it’s science
and leave it at that. You do have to engage with people at their level — not
merely by insisting on the power of your scientific approach, but also by
addressing their concerns and perceptions directly.
Vaccination is precisely one of these cases. Like it or not,
despite the scientific studies that have shown no statistical correlation
between vaccination and autism-spectrum conditions, still there are these pesky
anecdotal cases that seem to point toward a cause-and-effect relationship. When
people read about parents whose kids’ behavior and cognition changed dramatically
after being vaccinated, you cannot simply pooh-pooh it and let it go. Not if
you want to convince them that you are right.
You have to address exactly these anecdotal cases — directly,
loudly — and explain why they are not what they seem to be…if that is indeed
the case. If it really is a matter of public health, it has to be worth the
effort and expense to explain these anecdotal cases. Maybe they’re urban myths.
Maybe there were other conditions that can account for the changes in these
children. Maybe the change has to do with an unusual combination of factors in
these specific cases. Maybe it’s only a tiny, tiny minority of children who
will be affected this way. Whatever. But people deserve an explanation, so get out
there and to the yeoman work that is needed to deal with this…if you can…and
find a handsome or pretty face that speaks well to present the evidence.
Because rest assured, your inability to do that only feeds
the perception that there is something behind these cases. And sleeping with
the corporate enemy doesn’t help. If it really is a matter of public health,
get to it!
Post Script: It seems to me that much of the problem here is
that we in the Developed World have become accustomed to a badly distorted
sense of time. Everything has to happen at the fastest pace imaginable…yesterday,
if possible.
It’s a subject for another edition of Here and Not Here.
But in the case of the medical industry, a new solution, a new benefit, a new
profit, is always just around the corner, and there is not enough time devoted
to thinking through the holistic consequences of our actions. We — the public —
become accustomed to being impatient…an impatience driven largely by fear that
has been fostered by the March of Progress, but also encouraged by the Drive
for Profit. Capital is only truly happy when generating more Capital, and the
faster the better. Imagine what would happen (to our minds, our hearts, our
consciousness, the planet) if we all. just. slowed. down.
