Tuesday, March 20th .....

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve stopped buying the local paper but occasionally I’ll pick up the Sunday Tasmanian published in Hobart. This weekend I was rewarded by a terrific article by Mia Freedman. Mia, I’ve discovered, has a website mamamia.com.au which I’ve checked out but probably never will again. It has articles like “I had an abortion!” and “Meet Deb, the one-armed pole-dancer.” There’s not much there for me, I’m afraid.

However, her article on Sunday struck a chord with me; it was entitled "We need our needles.” It talked about the trend for people to refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated because of a scare campaign that vaccinations cause autism. The problem is that, after numerous investigations, there is no link, nor has there ever been a link between vaccination and autism. Is it reasonable to believe that there is a world-wide conspiracy pushing vaccination just to make profits for drug companies? The example she gives is of a friend who decided, after ‘doing his research', that his child would not be vaccinated.

“I’m floored by the extraordinary assumption that he knew better than every scientist in the world – not to mention Bill and Melinda Gates who are spending millions of their own money, funding vaccination programs in Third World countries. What on earth could make a civilian believe his Google research is superior to decades of science?”

And it’s not even a matter of personal choice. The lives of babies too young to be vaccinated depend on herd immunity in the rest of the community so a choice not to allow one child to be vaccinated doesn’t just affect your own family; that decision has the potential to affect other families.

It’s a good example of how easy it is to mislead people with random graphs and alarmist statements.

The article takes a broader view as well. Suddenly, she says, everyone’s an expert. Now, anyone who can use Google thinks they know more than people who have proper qualifications and have devoted their lives to their special fields. Mia confesses that she knows her limitations. “I know less about science than scientists, less about tax than my accountant, less about cooking than Donna Hay and less about animals than the Bondi Vet.”

She finishes on a sensible note. “I’m certainly not suggesting that we become a flock of sheep or suspend critical thought. But I don’t need to do my research before I vaccinate. Or before I accept that the earth is round and that gravity exists. Scientists far smarter than me have already done that research and the verdict is unanimous, thanks.”