I am a fan of Bill Maher, and I respect his right to question the vaccine orthodoxy, but I'm afraid that he's falling into the same sort of irrational thinking and logic that he criticizes religious people of doing. It's true that vaccines have side effects, sometimes serious, but on balance science tells us through decades of data that vaccines save a lot of sickness, save a lot of lives, and save a lot of medical costs. Bill should look at the whole body of science, not just cherrypick some anti-vaccine crusader's rhetoric, to form his opinion regarding vaccines. That is where he is losing his critical science-based approach and going into murky thinking and logic, by not looking at the whole body of evidence and putting too much weight on what some vocal vaccine critics have to say about the matter.
I do agree strongly with Bill that there's more to staying healthy than simply relying on vaccines. Proper diet, exercise and nutrition, including plenty of vitamin D, are key to keeping the flu from infecting one's body. I believe this because science and common sense tells us these are healthy choices to make to keep the body healthy and free of infections.
Perhaps Bill should read up on what the world was like before modern vaccines were available to wipe out diseases. It was not a pretty picture, and certainly not what we want to go back to. |
