SupportVaccination.org

While perusing my referral logs, I came across this. I don't normally plug a blog that only has one post thus far, mainly because I have no idea whether or not the blog will evolve into something worthy of my recommendation. (No sarcasm, please, I usually have a pretty good track record recommending blogs. Yes, I know I used to have Wizbang and LaShawn Barber's Corner on my blogroll, but nobody's perfect.)

However, this one intrigued me:

As someone who suffered through some of the "benign" childhood diseases like chickenpox and whopping cough. While I obviously lived to tell the tale, in the former case I ended up with pneumonia and in the latter I was miserable for months on end. I would not wish those diseases on anyone, and I don't pretend to understand why someone would leave their child unprotected from those diseases - and in a few cases, intentionally expose their child to said disease.

The opposition to vaccination is one of the most well-organized, well-funded "alternative health" movements I've ever seen. It is important to speak out against those who would use questionable science and fallacious arguments to influence parents not to vaccinate. The consequences of those actions can be potentially devastating.

Indeed it is, as I've blogged on before. And then later:

So what I ask of anyone - whether they support vaccines or not - is to show up with evidence that passes scientific muster. That's all. Anecdotes, ad hominem, or other logical fallacies need not apply.

Given that that is exactly the philosophy behind Respectful Insolence, I'm cautiously optimistic that I could be witnessing the birth of something good. Certainly this article leads me to think that I'm correct. An excerpt:

You will be hard-pressed to find anyone out there - other than hardcore anti-government conspiracy theorists - that claims to oppose vaccination. Rather, they’ll claim that they support “parental choice” (also referred to as being “pro-choice”) and “informed consent”.

Now being “pro-choice” sounds great, doesn’t it? Nobody wants to have their decisions on how to parent their child taken away from them. I certainly wouldn’t. And any parent would want to have a reasonable amount of information before they made decisions regarding the health of their children.

But what if I was told that my choice to vaccinate could cause my child to be paralyzed, brain damaged or die of SIDS? What if I was told that vaccines really didn’t have a whole lot to do with getting rid of disease? And what if I was led to believe that there were other alternatives to building up my immune system that didn’t require vaccines? If I were to base my decision on those criteria, I certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with immunization. I can’t imagine any rational person would.

That is the common thread that runs through many so-called “parental choice” websites. They tell you that you can choose to vaccinate. But by doing so, your child is at risk of getting a whole host of other diseases, and the vaccine isn’t really going to work anyway.

That's exactly how anti-vaxers operate. They grossly and often deceptively exaggerate the risks of vaccination while downplaying or even denying the benefits, sometimes going so far as to deny that vaccines prevent disease. Another favorite tactic is to claim vaccines "don't work" because they are not 100% effective in preventing disease. Never mind that virtually no medical interventions are 100% effective. In actuality, vaccines are one of the safest and most effective medical interventions there are. Sadly, JP already knows that the ad hominem "pharma shill" attacks are coming, as he shows:

I'll get this out of the way right now. I work as a marketing manager for a large technology concern that has no known ties to any government agency or drug company. Before that, I worked for a newspaper; before that, a radio station; before that, a chain of music stores. At no point in my life have I ever worked for a drug company. My wife doesn't work for one. None of my family members do, either. I have some acquaintances who are doctors, but they don't work in pediatrics nor do they (as a rule) administer vaccines to children.

(More on the "pharma shill" gambit beloved of alties--particularly online alties--next week; somehow I never got around to writing about it this week.)

I'll be keeping an eye on this new blog, to see how it evolves.