Rep. Burton’s dangerous anti-vaccination claims

After two decades in Congress, Indiana Rep. Dan Burton is finally on his way to retirement. But before he left, he decided to give one last holiday gift to the American people: a malicious diatribe on the evils of vaccines.

Unscientific claims linking vaccinations and autism aren’t anything new. Since Andrew Wakefield, who has by now lost his medical license, published a fraudulent 1998 paper suggesting certain childhood vaccines can cause autism, the vaccine-autism link has been one of the more annoyingly persistent quack medical claims.

The original study has been retracted, and scientists have repeatedly found no legitimate link between childhood vaccinations and autism.

But for some reason, more than 20 percent of the United States population still thinks vaccines can cause autism, and anti-vaccination groups like SafeMinds or individual activists still get media attention for their false and dangerous assertions.

Just this week, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform had a hearing to look into the causes and prevention of autism, which basically gave Burton an opportunity to deliver a several-minutes-long diatribe that repeated long-debunked and obviously dishonest anti-vaccination claims.

The committee called on scientists Alan Guttmacher from the NIH and Colleen Boyle from the Centers on Disease Control to speak about this matter, but the scientists were repeatedly confronted with pseudoscience and nonsensical proclamations.

Burton was joined in his ludicrous attacks by Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., who at one point yelled at Boyle after she failed to answer his question as he wished, “Never mind. Stop there...You wasted two minutes of my time.” Luckily, the representatives were more polite to noted conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist Mark Blaxill, who has argued that the CDC is actively covering up evidence about the environmental causes of autism.

By all means, Congress has the right to look into pertinent medical areas, but this hearing was turned into a dangerous anti-science circus. By repeatedly giving platform to Wakefield’s fraudulent claims, Burton has given potentially deadly pseudoscience new credibility on a wide scale in the United States.

Since Wakefield’s paper, there has been a resurgence of many entirely preventable diseases in the United States. In 2012 so far, 49 states and Washington D.C., have reported increases in cases of whooping cough, with the majority of deaths affecting infants.

Anti-vaccine activists hurt everyone, especially pro-vaccination Americans in comprised positions, such as children too young to get vaccines or individuals who are immunocomprised.

As long as members of Congress try to throw out years of research to favor their gut feelings or emotions, American health will be the victim.

Just because Burton is retiring doesn’t mean there won’t be other dangerous anti-science politicians willing to take up his mantle. Rather than trust politicians’ pseudoscience, please, Americans, get your kids vaccinated as directed by a board-certified doctor.


­— gwinslow@indiana.edu