Scandals: Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

                                             Scandals - 06/14/02

                                        Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

                                             "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                 

Look for the next Scandals on Friday, June 21, 2002.

Past Scandals

©Copyright 2001-2002 by Sandy Mintz. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full ONLY with copyright, contact, creation, authorship, and information intact (including all links), without specific permission, and ONLY when used in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Sandy Mintz is required.