The Panic Virus

I just about had a panic attack seeing that I lost 2 followers this week. Where are my followers going? Is my blog that bad? Nothing like a controversial post to send even more people fleeing to the outermost edges of cyberspace. But it's all I've been able to finish lately, so here is Book Worm Tuesday:

Every parent has to grapple with the vaccine dilemma: Do the benefits really outweigh the risks or am I going to damage my child for life? It's the hip thing right now not to subject children to the normal vaccine schedule recommended by the AAP. Before Seth Mnookin became a parent, he heard the same arguments about vaccines causing autism when talking to friends. So, he did a ton of research and wrote The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science & Fear.

There's nothing particularly earth-shattering about The Panic Virus. He even admitted that vaccines can cause problems (otherwise why would the government have a board set up to review the claims?), just not autism. Some of the chapters on vaccines and Jenny McCarthy were review for me.

What he did provide was a cohesive, intelligible narrative, taking the reader behind the scenes of the normal sound bites and sensationalism surrounding this issue. With humor and compassion, he tells of autistic parents duped into paying for cures by greedy doctors and a media hungry for high ratings. As we know, the fear produced by this issue has led many parents not to vaccinate children, leading to outbreaks of diseases formerly eradicated in our society. And that leads, he says, to the ultimate victims of this issue: unimmunized children who catch these deadly diseases before they're old enough to have all of their shots. Everyone's decision on this issue affects everyone else. To get a balanced, scientific view on this issue, read this book. Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you'll understand the issue better and it'll make you think. (PG, highly recommended)