Link: http://tinyurl.com/vaccinebook

I’ve begun reading Robert “Bob” Sears’ The Vaccine Book. Despite what you might be thinking, the impetus to begin learning more about baby (and child) vaccine’s actually came from my wife. I’m not always obsessed with needing for info!

Having just started the book (Just finished reading Stumbling on Happiness), I was immediately struck by a paragraph in the Preface which not only plays the skeptic to doctors generally, but also disclaims the authority of the writer. It’s this anti-authority slant, where someone who is perceived as an authority casts doubt on himself and other perceived experts, that I find so important*. In the field of medicine, where the egos of doctors are bigger than the size XL scrubs they so frequently don, this sort of disclaimer strikes me as particularly unusual, but nice to see!

Some people feel that vaccine books aren’t necessary; after all, why not just ask your doctor if vaccines are abolutely necessary and safe and leave it at that? It takes all of one minute, then you’re done. no research or effort on your part is needed. Here’s the problem with that approach. Doctors, myself included, learn a blot about diseases in medical school, but we learn very little about vaccines, other than the fact that hte FDA and pharmaceutical companies do extensive research on vaccines to make sure they are safe and effective. We don’t review the research ourselves. We never learn what goes into making vaccines or how their safety is studied. We trust and take it for granted that the proper researchers are doing their jobs. So, when patients want a little more information about shots, all we can really say as doctors is that the diseases are bad and the shots are good. But we don’t know enough to answer all of your detailed questions about vaccines. …

Even though vaccines are important, you as a parent are still entitled to know what you are giving your child. you have a responsibility (and a desire) to make informed health care decisions for your family.

*Notably, a real slick charlatan knows the importance of this disclaimer, too, so it’s by no means an “all clear” indicator that the disclaiming expert actually knows anything.