The Vaccination/Autism Fraud

Anna Reisman has a review of Seth Mnookin’s very good-looking new book that’s worth reading in its own right. And it’s always worth being reminded about the consequences of failing to immunize children because of bullshit junk science:

Mnookin doesn’t fault parents for searching for answers through listservs and autism conferences and talking to other parents, and he’s angry at sharks like Wakefield and others who take advantage of their desperation. But he has little patience for people who refuse to acknowledge scientific evidence and who, by sticking to the anti-vaccine party line, put everyone’s children at risk. Nobody else will suffer if my kid’s depth perception isn’t quite normal, but children who don’t get vaccinated can die, or can be the reason that other kids die. The book lingers on the case of Brie Romaguera, who was just over four weeks old when she died from pertussis (whooping cough) in 2003. Too young for the DPT vaccine, she would never have caught pertussis if more of the children in her Louisiana community had been vaccinated.