This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot, "Hollow Men"

Sometimes the news just takes your breath away.

The headline, so understated, "Herpes vaccine for babies in `four years'".  The article then blithely going on to state, "BABIES may be vaccinated against such sexually-transmitted diseases as herpes and genital warts along with the standard childhood shots for measles, whooping cough and rubella."

Could this possibly be true - babies to be unabashedly vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease?  And what - no pretense of legitimacy, no effort to make excuses for this preposterous notion? 

No, apparently not, at least not yet.  But if the story is true, just wait and watch for the phony justifications, rationalizations, scare tactics.  They will come, sure as night. Make no mistake about it, though, there is no justification for exposing babies to any possible risk for this disease.

If this story turns out to be accurate, will parents allow themselves to be manipulated and deceived again, as has happened with the equally absurd promotion of universal infant hepatitis B vaccination? (At least in that case, among a small subset of infants, i.e., those born to a hepatitis B positive mother, hepatitis B vaccine might be defensible.)

Or will parents squarely face the truth this time,  repugnant and disheartening as it is, that only the vaccine manufacturers and those with ties to them will benefit if this vaccine is given to their babies?

(To read why hepatitis B vaccine, even for adults, but particularly for infants and children, is problematic, click here.)

Sandy Mintz