The Narrow Gate: Day 1608 - Dismissing Science and Loving Ignorance

The Narrow Gate

Welcome to the continuation of my blog, post-seminary. Ministry and evangelism have brought me back home to Chattanooga. I welcome your company on my journey.

The original blog, Down In Mississippi, shared stories from 2008 and 2009 of the hope and determination of people in the face of disaster wrought by the hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, of work done primarily by volunteers from churches across America and with financial support of many aid agencies and private donations and the Church. My Mississippi posts really ended with the post of August 16, 2009. Much work, especially for the neediest, remained undone after the denominational church pulled out. Such is the nature of institutions. The world still needs your hands for a hand up. I commend to you my seven stories, Down in Mississippi I -VII, at the bottom of this page and the blog posts. They describe an experience of grace.

Friday, May 5, 2017

Day 1608 - Dismissing Science and Loving Ignorance

A recent news account in a link about a new serious measles outbreak (44 cases, all but 1 in children under 10 years old) in a Somali immigrant community in Minnesota tried my patience to avoid anger. This outbreak in Minnesota follows an outbreak in an unvaccinated Amish community in Pennsylvania (400 cases) in 2014. These are God-awful tragedies caused by misguided religious zeal, intellectual laziness, lack of common sense, or plain indifference to human suffering.

It seems an anti-vaccine group had targeted this Somali community, perhaps even including the defrocked Dr. Andrew Wakefield (England removed his medical license permanently) who started all this in 1998 with an effort to apply for his patent on an alternative vaccine, meanwhile receiving funds from an attorney attempting to sue MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine manufacturers. After the scientific journal, The Lancet, pulled his paper for concerns of ethics and misrepresentation, numerous subsequent studies at millions of dollars expense tried to reproduce or refute his claim. They showed only that there is no link to vaccines and autism or of mercury poisoning to thimerosol, a preservative formerly used in some vaccines.

A timely article discussing the demonstration of no relationship between either MMR vaccine and autism, or thimerosal and mercury-poisoning just appeared in Science Magazine. (A companion article discusses the phenomenon of "science of persuasion" in which politics, religious bias or conspiracy theories are the basis of scientific decisions opposed to fact-based decisions.)

That article mentions one loud anti-vaccine voice in the US pushing this fraud about thimerosal in public magazines: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. - JFK was his uncle. He claims that our POTUS wants him to lead a panel on vaccine/immunization safety. The popular magazine that published his story has retracted and removed his article.

Thimerosal was removed from vaccines in 2001, mostly because of this uproar. The Science article also quotes this statement by the CDC, “If thimerosal did cause autism then the number of cases diagnosed after removal of thimerosal (in 2001) should have leveled off or gone down (in vaccinated children)…that did not happen.

Not a single court suit in the US alleging such harm by these claims has been successful.

The Washington Post reported that when asked if he felt responsible for the outbreak among the Somali, Mr. Andrews said, “I don’t feel responsible at all.”

"I don't feel responsible at all," Mr. Wakefield and those who do not allow their children to be vaccinated against deadly but preventable contagious diseases say.

Recalling childhood acquaintances who suffered debilitating injury from measles, knowing there are deaths of children from measles, thinking about these 61 cases in Minnesota, and the deaths and recurring health problems in many persons who contract but survive polio, I can only wonder how people who ought to be committed to finding the true facts allow politics, religion or a glib tongue to convince them of something otherwise - even when there is overwhelming fact-based evidence of the opposite conclusion.

They put themselves in the same boat as ISIS who pressures populace under their influence to stop polio vaccinations.

Go figure.

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Gates

The gate pervades the Good News. Peter entered the temple gate after the Jesus’ arrest to deny him. Poor Lazarus lay at the rich man's gate, longing for the crumb's from the table, while dogs licked his sores. The blind, lame and paralyzed lay at the Sheep Gate at the Jerusalem temple waiting at the pool with five porticoes for healing water. Jesus warned of the easy road and wide gate to material ease and spiritual destruction and calls us to the hard road and narrow gate to the waters of life.

necessary disclaimer

This blog is created solely to communicate to my brothers and sisters how one person sees adversity bringing out the greater character of humanity. It's early part relating connection to the volunteer relief effort in Mississippi after Katrina and later work with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program and the Presbyterian Church(USA) is solely through my participation in them; this blog does not carry any sponsorship from these fine organizations or purport to speak for them. All original content is that of the writer who holds the copyright to all original writings and art or other works (See Creative Commons License above). Every effort is made to identify content from other sources which have been obtained from open internet sources. It's more recent content contains sermons and lessons used in preaching and teaching. The url to scripture are obtained via http://bible.oremus.org unless otherwise indicated.

Texts quoted from oremus bible viewer are from "New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved." and "New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved."