February 4^th

Today we’ll look at the vaccination issue and particularly at Senator Rand Paul’s terrible case of foot in mouth disease. It is generally agreed among epidemiologists that vaccinations for communicable diseases are most effective when everyone is vaccinated; that the measles, whooping cough, rubella, vaccine now used is safe. Of course there may be rare side effects but there can be rare side effects from going to a restaurant.  

Then we have Senator Paul, a physician and a Libertarian, who claims that he knows of healthy children who, following vaccination, have developed serious mental disorders. Subsequently he claimed that he never said vaccines caused the disorders, which is true, but he certainly left his listeners with that impression. He should have known that as a physician his views would carry heavy weight and he should have thought first about what he was going to say. Naturally he blamed the “liberal media” for distorting his views; the media in this case was CNBC whose anchor, Kelly Evans, was interviewing him. He was distressed by her questions and at one point told her to “calm down.” (CNBC is now liberal, really?)

Senator Paul belongs to The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). This group of extreme libertarians encourages their members to avoid such government help programs as Medicare and Medicaid. They must know that participation in these programs does not restrict a physician’s charges; it just limits how much the program will pay for them. No matter, it’s a government program and therefore to be avoided. I guess old and poor people can go elsewhere. AAPS encourages physicians to offer their services on a cash only basis. Cash only would also make it much easier for physicians to defraud government tax collectors. Of course AAPS doesn’t say that. They probably don’t have to.

He has now (a day after his anti vaccine rant) insisted that everyone should have their children vaccinated and we have a new photo showing the Senator himself getting an updating measles shot. So what are we to think about this? We have the recent “walk backs” from Governor Christie in England just before hopping on a Sheldon Adelson provided private plane; we have Senator Paul “reconsidering” his remarks implying a link between vaccinations and neurological damage. I think what we have here is a couple of politicians checking the wind and finding that they have tacked a bit too late. What else is new?

As an aside here: while there is no doubt about Senator Rand’s intelligence (or about his condescending attitude toward ordinary mortals) one should not confuse intelligence and judgment. Unfortunately that’s easy to do.