Offit, Wakefield, Hot Sticky Wax

I wanted to write about something different. Something funny. Something happy. Some life event. I’ve been reading other people’s blogs, and it’s so cool how well people write about just everyday stuff.

And, while we laugh nearly every day about something (like my daughter launching overly-nuked, molten-lava hot, hair removal wax across the kitchen and redecorating every appliance and cabinet in a lovely greenish-blue, splattered, spot pattern) , I couldn’t think of a thing to write.

Then, Paul Offit, vaccine patent owner, and outspoken vaccine defender, , appears on “The Colbert Report” hawking his new pro-vaccine book, and states, with absolute certainty and arrogance, that vaccines have nothing to do with autism. He then adds this lovely, little tidbit:

        “In the first few years of life, you can get as many as twenty six inoculations and you can get as many as five at one time,” and that this “immunological challenge is a drop in the ocean of what kids can counter manage every day.”

I won’t belabor the point about vaccines here – I’ve written about it before (see, e.g., http://sparkdevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/11/vaccines-whats-truth.html).  Suffice it to say, I am not in complete agreement with Offit's views.

And one final note. Anybody see that Wakefield’s “fraudulent” research apparently has been confirmed? See http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/07/new-research-shows-link-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism.aspx:

         “New research reveals that there could indeed be a link between the controversial MMR vaccine and autism, as well as bowel disease in children. The study appears to confirm the findings of doctor Andrew Wakefield . . . .

          A research team is in the process of examining 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease. Of the 82 looked at so far, 70 tested positive for the measles virus. In all cases, the virus came from a vaccine strain rather than wild measles.

         The Daily Mail reports:

         ‘The 1998 study by Dr. Wakefield ... and 12 other doctors claimed to have found a new bowel disease, autism enterocolitis ... This is the second independent study to back up Dr. Wakefield.’"

Seems like the debate will continue for awhile . . .