This category is a disaster for mankind and science.
Unfortunately a lot of them are in positions where we esteem that they should know better.

My mother was also offered thalidomide, which I guess is what ‘parent’ is referring to, when pregnant with me. Of course, following the thalidomide tragedy a whole regime of drug safety testing was put in place, the forerunner of the modern regulatory set-up. The success of this is the reason why there has been no repeat of anything similar.

[Incidentally, the major reason new drugs fail in the final testing stage of clinical trials (called 'Phase 3', when the drug is given to 300-3000 people) is unacceptable unwanted effects - including toxicity. The fact that so many compounds do fail in Phase 3 is an indication as to how high the bar is set nowadays. Many drugs of the past - including some things that 'natural therapy' people like to use, incidentally - would not have got approved under the current regime since they do not have an acceptable safety margin, toxicity or 'side effect profile' by current standards.]

Getting back to vaccines – as I’ve said before, I don’t think anyone is ‘indicting’ parents for being confused. I am far angrier with all the journalists who should know better, and who were largely responsible for creating a ‘manufactroversy’ about vaccination where none really exists. In medical and scientific terms, the benefit of vaccination in general, and MMR in particular, is a completely open and shut case – but it was presented (and continues to be in some quarters) as a real ‘the jury is still out’ argument.

I would hope most people in healthcare are sympathetic to parents’ confusion, and ready to offer help and advice. But you can see how people in healthcare and science might get frustrated when that advice is disbelieved in favour of

‘What X in my natural childbirth antenatal class told me she read in a leaflet from the health food shop’

- or similar.

One of the things that has amazed me is that in my neck of the woods it tends to be the middle-class professional degree-educated parents who don’t vaccinate. None of these (at least the ones I know) are people with scientific degrees or professions, BTW. Anyway, one rather depressing effect of their level of education seems to be that it deceives them into thinking they can judge the evidence on vaccination better than all the people whose job it is to do it. A similar effect can be seen in attitudes to childbirth, which I discussed back here.

The Autism Epidemic and Diagnostic Substitution

I’m sure it won’t convince Tony, or others who want to see conspiracies everywhere, but it is good reading for those with at least partly open minds.