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February 12, 2015
Measles deaths and vaccine safety,
look at the numbers, then decide
By Dan Pool, Editor
dpool@pickensprogress.com
It was an interesting contrast on CNN the
other day with a pediatrician discussing the
medical reasons his patients should receive
measles vaccinations and a mother discussing
why she “believed” the shots posed risks.
The pediatrician cited facts some of which
were also included in an article by Dr. Sanjay
Gupta on the CNN website. In that article, Dr.
Gupta, an American neurosurgeon and an as
sistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory
University School of Medicine and associate
chief of the neurosurgery service at Grady Me
morial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, said he
hated to write an opinion piece
on measles as what he had to
say was fact.
Gupta noted vaccines have
prevented 6 million deaths
every year worldwide and have
fundamentally changed mod
ern medicine “The benefit of
vaccines is not a matter of
opinion. It is a matter of fact.”
Dr. Gupta continued, “That
you are 100 times more likely
to be struck by lightning than to
have a serious allergic reaction
to the vaccine that protects you
against measles is not a matter of opinion.”
The mother for her argument explained that
a friend had a child vaccinated and he had
acted “funny” ever since — nothing docu
mented. There was a famous study from 1988
about a link between vaccines and autism, but
that was later retracted as the author admitted
to outright fabrication of research. He has
since been striped of his medical credentials.
Later the same day I noticed on Facebook
some comments that measles vaccines have
killed more people than the disease over the
past several years. Some cited the vaccine kill
rate as high as 1,000 over the last three years.
My “BS” detector went on high alert on
those claims. How could a vaccine kill more
people than the disease itself? Seemed un
likely. Snopes.com (a website to debunk inter
net myths) was ahead of me in their
skepticism. They had called that particular ca
nard as “provably false.”
According to the research from that site,
which generally cited either the CDC or World
Health Organization (WHO), measles had
killed fewer than 10 people since 2010 in the
United States. But if you count worldwide
deaths, “in 2013, there were 145,700 measles
deaths globally - about 400 deaths every day,”
according to WHO.
UNICEF, the Bill and Melinda Gates foun
dation and the Lions Club International all
consider measles a fairly big threat worldwide.
UNICEF predicted that 1.7 million children
could die from the disease in the next 3 years
without further action - vaccinations.
As to purported vaccine deaths, most cited
a website for Vaccine Adverse Event Report
ing System (VAERS), which is a research site
of sorts. But the website
itself notes it relies on
“passive reporting,”
meaning anyone can send
in reports which are not
verified. The website
does not hide how it oper
ates and notes clearly,
“No proof that the event
was caused by the vac
cine is required in order
for VAERS to accept the
report.”
On the other hand,
the medical journal Pedi
atrics did a story where they screened 20,000
scientific titles and 67 papers on vaccine safety
and concluded simply enough that vaccines
are safe and work.
UNICEF, World Health Organization
(WHO), U.S. Centers for Disease Control
(CDC), American Red Cross, the Lions Club
International and the United Nations Founda
tion are working to spread vaccines around the
world. On the Lions Club International web
site, they cited one of their joint goals is “by
the end of 2015 to reduce global measles
deaths by at least 95 percent compared with
2000 levels.”
The areas where the groups are having trou
ble spreading the vaccines are places like
Afghanistan — poor, violent and lacking in ed
ucated populace.
Ironically, they may have to add to that list,
particularly affluent, educated areas in the
United States where parents are refusing to
vaccinate their children because they “believe”
that vaccines are harmful.
In 2013 there were
145,700 worldwide
deaths from
measles. American
children are kept
safe due to vaccines
let’s not abandon
them out of hysteria
AGREE OR DISAGREE? Tell us your thoughts on this week’s editorial either with a letter to the editor
that will be published next week. Letters may be e-mailed to news@pickensprogressonline.com. All let
ters must have a valid e-mail address, full name and telephone number for verification. We still take
them by regular mail at Pickens Progress, P.O. Box 67, Jasper, GA 30143
The Essential Bad Attitude
By Alan Gibson
It’s alarming how charming I feel
It was a friend’s wedding and
I wasn’t up to it. “Don’t forget to
turn on the charm,” teased my
companion as we entered the
church. She knew I was no good
in social situations and she liked
to needle me about it. OK missy,
I decided, you want charm? I’ll
give you charm. I’m setting the
old charmometer so high that the
resultant behavior takes on an al
most manic quality.
“Are you friends of the bride
or groom?” the usher asked.
My eyes widened over a grin
that was close to lunacy. “I’m a
friend to all mankind, by
heaven!”
“Oh, okay. I guess you can sit
wherever you want.”
“Thank you. Say, just be
tween the two of us, is there an
open bar at the reception?”
“I think so.”
She whispered, “Dial it back.
You’re making a jerk of your
self.”
“It’s a charm overload. I’ve
got to jettison the excess.”
“Save it for the reception.”
The reception, at a country
club, was worse. “Where’s the
bride,” I grinned. “I want to po
litely kiss her, and then nibble
her.”
“She’s in the reception line.
Leave her alone. Have some hors
d’oeuvres.”
I wolfed a tray of canapes and
answered “both” when offered
Manhattans or martinis: “I don’t
have to drink to be charming.
Wait a minute: yes I do.”
I snatched the bride from the
reception line and twirled her
semi-voluntarily through an Irv
ing Berlin medley.
Meanwhile the mother of the
bride was giving me a wide
berth. The mother drew my com
panion aside. “Is he always like
this?” “He’s turning on the
charm.” “Well that’s nice; I just
don’t want him to alarm the oth
ers.”
My companion motioned me
with a finger-waggle - a gesUire
she knew I despised. “You can
drop the charm. Just be your
self.” “I have no idea how to be
myself. It’s the secret of charm
ing people everywhere; a huge
bluff. Say, have you noticed the
bridesmaids’ outfits? They look
like extras from Gone With the
Wind.”
By the next day all indices of
charm had abated, and I had con
cluded that the only way to be
genuinely charming was to turn
off the charm. Some irony, huh?
[For more of the same, visit
Alan’s blog, essentialba.com.]
Pdiins ftijMtti foynp
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Hey, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't look half as good!
OTHER VOICES
Of Mockingbirds and Watchmen
By Keith Petty
I’m not sure when I was first
exposed to Harper Lee’s To Kill
a Mockingbird, but it was proba
bly through the film version on a
lazy Sunday afternoon in the
1970’s. At the time, it struck no
particular relevance with me.
Perhaps that was because I was
simply captive to the innocence
of my own pre-adolescence, or
perhaps, like many of the charac
ters in Lee’s novel, I was firm in
the initiation that my white skin
made me privy to a host of life
advantages and excluded me
from a host of sufferings.
The latter of the statement is
bold and self-examining, but it’s
what Pickens County and Jasper
were in those days, a county and
county seat barely removed from
the same mindset that sets Atti-
cus Finch on a mission to prove
Tom Robinson's innocence and
save him from execution or mob
justice.
If you doubt me, think back to
African Americans still sitting
separately in the balcony of the
old Maddux theater. Think back
to the segregation of residential
areas and churches. Think back
to the rumor of a black man suc
cumbing to a heart attack in a
local grocery store because those
who knew CPR did not wish to
place their white lips on black
lips. Think back to the days when
the proliferation of the most fa
mous racial slur was as normal as
the sun in the sky. These are
some of the events that punctu
ated our existence here.
Fortunately, as I grew older, I
was able to detach myself from
many of the veins of thinking
upon which I grew up and to
begin to think for myself. Per
haps that is why now To Kill a
Mockingbird holds such an im
portant message for me and,
hopefully, for my students.
For those deprived enough to
be unfamiliar with Lee's tale,
Mockingbird is a two-fold story
with convergence toward the
novel's finale. It is the story of
Atticus Finch, an attorney of
soimd reasoning, who is assigned
to defend Tom Robinson from
the judgment of Maycomb, Al
abama's finest during the Great
Depression.
Robinson, a black man, has
been accused of raping a white
woman, a concoction by the
woman and her father in order to
save her from the public knowl
edge that she truly had romantic
interest in Robinson, breaking a
time-honored code of the South
that prohibited interracial rela
tions.
It is also the story of Atticus's
children, Jem and Scout, and
their friend Dill Harris. The chil
dren are fascinated by the stories
of Arthur "Boo” Radley, a town
resident with somewhat limited
mental capacity who represents a
perceived danger to all of May-
comb.
The title of the novel derives
from a vignette within the novel
in which the issue of owning a
gun as a boy arises. Atticus ex
plains that when his father al
lowed him his first gun, he
forbade him to kill a mocking
bird because of the mocking
bird's innocence. This theme
carries throughout the novel as
so often our judgment and perse
cution of others is exactly like
killing the innocent mockingbird.
Within the classroom, Mock
ingbird is a novel that grabs stu
dents' attention. When teaching
and examining this superb piece
IMMIIMIMM
of literature, I am able to lay
aside the more tedious aspects of
my profession and guide students
through a world that still holds
tenuous ties to today's South.
They become engrossed in the
characters and the story, and they
are able to frilly relate the ideas
presented in the novel to the re
alities of life. Class discussions
revolve around judgment and in
justice, and the critical thinking
skills gained through analysis of
the novel pale only in compari
son to the great lessons in hu
manity with which students
come away upon completion of
the study.
The importance of Lee's
novel is just as profound today as
it was when it was released in
1960, and its place as a corner
stone in Southern, American, and
world literature is accentuated by
the upcoming release of another
Lee novel, Go Set a Watchman.
Watchman takes place twenty
years after Mockingbird. Scout
Finch, now living in New York,
returns to Maycomb, Alabama
amid the brewing Civil Rights
Movement. The novel takes its
title from the book of Isaiah,
chapter 21,verse 6: "Go, set a
watchman, let him declare what
he seeth.”
A watchman on the tower is
symbolic of latter-day prophets
declaring the signs of the times,
leading up to and including the
great destruction of modern-day
Babylon. It is, therefore, reason
able to conclude that Scout Finch
will indeed be the watchman in
the novel and that the destruction
of Babylon may be compared to
the coming destruction of the
white-dominated regime of the
South during the 1950's.
It is with great anticipation
that the literary world, Lee fans,
and I await the release of the new
novel on July 14, 2015.
If it teaches any lessons as im
portant as those taught in its
predecessor, during a time when
the racial divide of our nation has
again reared its ugly head, per
haps our culture may again be re
deemed in some regard, or, at the
very least, perhaps it will cause
us to be a bit more reflective of
our own bigotry and shortcom
ings.
Perhaps it will remind us that
all flesh, no matter what color,
eventually rots. Perhaps it will
nudge into our subconscious
thinking that all of us are only
one accident away from becom
ing that physically or mentally
incapacitated person.
Even if that new novel does
not have that impact, Lee has al
ready adequately formulated her
legacy, for every town, every
classroom, has its mockingbirds.
Maybe the new novel will simply
let us know that every town
needs a watchman to cause us to
examine ourselves and break
away from that which tradition
has unjustly preserved.
[ Keith Petty is an English
and literature teacher at Jasper
Middle School. He has been em
ployed by the Pickens County
school system for two decades.
He also currently serves as the
writing instructor for the Gilmer
campus of the Mountain Educa
tion Charter High School system.
He holds a B.S. in secondary
English education and an M.S. in
curriculum, instruction, and as
sessment. His previous writing
credits include columns for the
Pickens County Progress; Best of
Ellijay, Blue Ridge and Jasper;
Georgia Backroads magazine;
and Share magazine.]
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