Last night, Brian was reading one of his science-y blogs, and he showed me a thing about Jenny McCarthy's latest verbal diarrhea on the subject of autism and vaccines.

I find this subject endlessly fascinating and aggravating, mostly because of Jenny and her ilk's staunchly desperate refusal to give any credence to the numerous studies that say there is no link between vaccines and autism.

I don't even have kids, nor do I plan to for several years.  This isn't something I have to worry about.  But I do, because these people who refuse to vaccinate their children are, to use Ms. Peet's word, parasites.  Also, they're morons.

Do they really believe that there is some vast medical conspiracy that is trying to make children autistic?  That their doctors are lying to them? That having an "angry mob" makes them right?  They may as well be children, standing there with their fingers in their ears, yelling "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALA."

I understand that it's frustrating that there are so few answers about autism and its causes.  But clinging to a theory that has been disproved over and over again just makes them look stupid, at least to anyone capable of rational thought.

But maybe that's part of the problem: maybe parents are, in some cases, incapable of rational thought when it comes to their children's health.  There's a part of me that can understand that; if something were wrong with my kid, I'd probably go nuts trying to figure out what the hell it was (however, I would hope that I would not think of Botox as a logical solution to foot odor, you crazy bitch).  Maybe having a sick child turns a lot of people into conspiracy theorists; I would hope that I would have the wherewithal to retain my sanity.  I've read some of the anti-vaccine stuff that's out there, from doctors, from parents who've noticed changes in their kids after getting them vaccinated, and it does sound scary, and I'll freely admit that when I read those stories there's a voice in my head that starts trying to undermine my more rational self.  But I tell that voice to shut up, and I still defer to the scientific findings that say that there is no link.  Will I still feel that way when it's my kid about to get a shot?  I hope so.

The thing that really kills me, though, is that so many parents have decided they'd prefer to risk having their child contract and possibly die from a perfectly avoidable disease (the measles, for instance) rather than get them vaccinated because of unfounded fears about autism.  Also, they're putting other people's children at risk, and I find that unforgivable. 

When did autism become worse than the measles, or polio, or the mumps?  Personally, I'd rather have a child who was autistic and alive than one who was dead from something that could have been prevented.


In other news: I need to come to terms with the fact that my watch is tearing holes in my long-sleeved shirts.