Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates Says Anti-Vaccine Effort Kills Children
Hugh Pickens writes writes "CNN has an interesting interview with Bill Gates who says that unbelievable progress is being made in both inventing new vaccines and making sure they get out to all the children who need them. The improvements could cut the number of children who die every year from about 9 million to half that. But Gates has harsh words for those who engage in anti-vaccine efforts, especially Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who falsified data to 'prove' a fraudulent link between vaccines and autism. 'It's an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids,' says Gates. 'Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn't have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today.'"
That's because his Gates Foundation advocates the use of vaccines and birth control as means of population control. I have nothing against advocating birth control, but it's hard to take the advice of Mr. Gates seriously when it comes to safety of vaccines when he thinks vaccines should be used for population control. Just Google "bill gates vaccination population" and you'll find several pointers on this. To quote Gates' TED talk: "First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people and that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on *new vaccines*, *health care*, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 15%." -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WQtRI7A064&feature=player_embedded So, how in the hell could better vaccines and better health care help lower the world population? They can't. Just bad vaccines and bad (or lack of) healthcare can do that, coupled with his "reproductive health services" which at this point sounds like sterilization. So yeah, if Mr. Gates hands me a vaccine, I don't think I'll be taking it (even though I don't have kids and don't plan to).
The problem is why does anyone care that Bill Gates says it? That's what got us into this mess in the first place, with soccer moms listening to jenny mccarthy, over, you know, actual experts. Sure, Bill Gates has apparently listened to experts, and is saying something sensible, but that's not a reason to give him a bunch of press over people who actually study and understand these things.
If he's giving money to eradicate polio then sure, he can have press over eradicating polio, and as part of that saying vaccines don't actually cause autism is fine. But the MSM jumping up and down like this is some great revelation because Bill Gates says it is the cause of all this in the first place. 'Your Kid has Autism so yu must be an expert on what causes autism! Your kid doesn't have autism and you gave them vaccines, vaccines must not cause autism!' The people who aren't taking polio vaccines (which is admittedly drops not injections but whatever), aren't doing it because they think vaccines cause autism; that group are yuppies in north America. The people not taking polio vaccines are doing it because they either think the government is out to sterilize them, are too poor to afford it, or believe the government has some other, random evil scheme to use vaccines against them.
Bill Gates is not an expert in vaccines. His correctly knowing that vaccines do not cause autism deserves no more press than my room-mate who makes 15k/year saying the same thing. The whole question asked by Gupta is a lead in for Bill Gates to make this statement, as though he is an authority on vaccines. . Except Dr. Gupta should be an expert, and should be behaving like one on medicine 'Mr Gates, we know that there was a discredited study linking autism to vaccines. How does that sort of fraud impact your work distributing polio vaccines' , not 'in 1998 they linked autism to vaccines, what do you make of it'.
When are you going to use some common sense to fix the whole industry you fucked up?
-- Linux user #369862
Not having your children vaccinated not only leaves your child open to disease, but then they can pass the disease onto others. Not vaccinating seriously harms you and others around you. Therefore, not vaccinating is equivalent to giving your child ciggarettes. QED.
Except smoking doesn't seriously harm others around you and the people that came up with that crock are no better than Dr Wakefield.
>>>hold their parents criminally liable.
Disagree.
Why?
Because then you open-up parents to all kinds of liabilities: You spanked your child? 5 years jail. You decided Government schools were crap, and homeschooled instead? How dare you! 10 years jail.
"What do you mean you let your kid run-around naked, because your family believes nudism is healthy? OMG the trauma you filthy hippy heathen!!!" 20 years. "You LET your daughter date a black boy? Now you've tainted her for life. You've ruined her." Hanging.
Never, never, never should society be able to dictate how parents should behave. Else becoming a parent means you become a Slave to the society at large, and can be sued for the most ridiculous things. And don't say it can't happen, because it's happened before (especially the whole white/black and nudism issue).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Hero?!
It's all of these children that our bumping up our population to levels that the world's resources will be unable to support. Even now, it's easy to feel the effects of overpopulation when it comes to the human race.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Vaccines lead to lower infant mortality and lower death to disease, which in certain parts of the world contributes directly to overpopulation which has an even *higher* death toll from hunger and secondary effects like war.
And how does this jive with your oh-so-unassailable position? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388051/Scientists-fear-MMR-link-autism.html. I see both sides taking up their stance with religious certainty. How sad.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Gates spends the money on the root of the problem, population control, then you won't have so many babies to die from disease, seriously there are 7 billion people on the planet and we aren't addressing population control but rather keeping more of them alive.
We are in need of a 4 or 5 billion deaths from a super virus.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
So a british reporter and a couple editors of a medical journal say Andrew Wakefield falsified data, and now everyone believes that is established, peer-reviewed fact that he did, or that science has proven he is wrong? bullshit