There is no evidence that childhood vaccinations cause autism or other mental health problems in children. So why are Republicans saying otherwise?
Republican politicians running for president have been saying some pretty weird things about vaccines lately. First New Jersey Governor Chris Christie got into trouble after he seemed to waffle on the question of if childhood vaccinations are safe. Or as he put it, “I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.”
Then Kentucky Senator Rand Paul really stepped into after he claimed that vaccines have led to “profound mental disorders” in children, even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence that this is true.
To be sure these sorts of claims have been made by Democrats over the years as well, but it’s still quite remarkable that two candidates for the presidency, one of which who happens to be a health care professional, have associated themselves with kooky conspiracy theories and outright medical quackery.
What’s going on here? Well as Jonathan Bernstein pointed out there are strong electoral incentives for current Republican candidates for the White House to find ways of standing out from the pack, and unfortunately peddling nonsense about vaccines is one way to do it. As Bernstein put it:
But Christie’s apparent attempt to appeal to vaccination opponents, while a surprising strategy for a governor in a densely populated state, is consistent with a plausible Iowa caucus strategy: an attempt to lock up a small faction of voters.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeIt’s hard to know exactly why a presidential contender makes any particular comment. Yet one challenge for candidates, especially in a large field in a mostly unified party, is how to differentiate themselves if they share positions with their rivals on every important issue — as most Republicans do in the 2016 cycle. This devolves into petty arguments about which candidate is most adamant on, say, opposition to Obamacare.
Another part of this is the seeming inability of national Republicans to be able to silence fringe voices inside their party. Just think of Todd Akin’s bizarre comments on the female reproductive system, or the whole “you lie!” fiasco from a few years back.
For better or for worse conspiracy theories are just a part of American life. But that’s no excuse for public officials to go out throwing them around when they are directly contributing to the outbreak of dangerous diseases.
Photo by Christopher Barth/AP
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Uhm… you know the latest measles outbreak occurred in extremely liberal California, right?
This is not a red v blue issue and there are morons on both sides.