I would love to know how much skepticism and cynicism has grown since the advent of the internet. I know that there is no way to objectively measure attitudes, but overall there has to be a greater level of mistrust. A small dose of skepticism is healthy. Just like pain can alert our brain to take the hand off the stove to avoid serious injury; skepticism can help us avoid scams, uncover lies, and detect frauds. Just as acute pain can turn into chronic unrelenting pain, a small dose of skepticism can lead to crippling cynicism of any and all “authority”. Ironically, whatever the political, philosophical, or religious bend, we all our prone to cynicism. Just a couple of examples to illustrate the point.
The person that believes that the government is out to get him, that anything and everything dealing with the government is evil, and that we would all be much better off without “the gov’ment” (insert your best redneck imitation). Or the person that discredits any and all religion because they believe the Pastor/Bishop/Cardinal/Preacher is trying to manipulate them into a life of drudgery. But the one that I deal with at the professional level, is the person that believes that big Pharma and the healthcare community are knowingly exposing people to harm in the name of profit.
In the 50’s most of the pharmaceutical companies were lead by scientists who desired to eradicate disease through revolutionary innovations like antibiotics and vaccines. Over the years a paradigm shift occurred where these companies went from being run by men/women of science to CEOs and businessmen from other industries. They understood the importance of marketing and of creating medications that needed to be used throughout a persons life. “Big Pharma” became so effective at marketing their “product” to doctors and other health care professionals in the 90’s and early 2000’s that legislative active was taken to try and curb the influence that drug companies and their representatives had achieved. It was found that even the seemingly harmless gift of a pen emblazoned with a drug name could alter the prescribing practices of a physician favorably towards the marketed medication.
I provide this brief, yet incomplete, history of the pharmaceutical industry to demonstrate that I am not naive to the fact that the pharmaceutical companies primary incentive is profit. BUT I also must emphasize the fact that for all of the pharmaceutical companies shortcomings, immunizations have saved hundreds of thousands of lives since they have become readily available. (Side note: Vaccines really aren’t that new, they have been around for a couple hundred years. In fact our nation’s first president, George Washington dealt with skeptics in his day, fortunately for us he ignored them, and his men upon enlistment were inoculated with small pox. Talk about being revolutionary.)
There is no secret deal between the healthcare community and the pharmaceutical companies to dupe the general public. This is a ridiculous argument. My daughter Hallie is current with all of her vaccines, do you think I would knowingly put her at risk in the name of profit for the pharmaceutical company? Not a chance in Hell! Are there possible serious side effects from the vaccine? Yes, but they are extremely rare. Every day we make decisions that could ultimately shorten our lives: driving the car, eating high fat/carb foods, playing a sport, etc. In the case of vaccines let’s use the information provided by scientific studies and not some anecdotal case from a family member or celebrity (and in case she somehow stumbles across this post, yes I’m talking about you Jenny McCarthy).
Many of those that choose to not vaccinate have read articles or testimonials online of the dangers of vaccines, and have fallen for what is formally known as post hoc ergo proper hoc or post hoc fallacy. Most logical sports fans or athletes have fallen victim to post hoc fallacy. As a 12 year old boy my life consisted of baseball, and well more baseball. Before a game late in the season my mom cut up some peaches and put it in a bowl with milk and sugar. I hit two home-runs that afternoon. Guess what I ate before every game the rest of that season? Peaches and milk with sugar sprinkled on top. Of course the peaches didn’t give me the anabolic super strength of Mark McGwire, but there was no way you could have convinced my 12-year-old self any differently. Post hoc fallacy means that correlation does not equal causation. It is one thing to understand this concept and identify it in others, it is another thing entirely to identify it in our lives. It doesn’t matter that the doctor that showed a link between vaccines and autism has lost his license for falsifying data.
We truly live in an Information Age, where ideas, theories, and stories are shared instantaneously. Take a minute and consider the facts. Ask yourself this question, “Would my doctor, who has taken the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, advocate immunizing without evidence that the benefits far outweigh the risks? There is no conspiracy theory. Don’t make the same mistake my 12 year old self made and confuse causation and correlation. I have to go now, LeBron is playing and he always plays better when I stand up for the 4th quarter.
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