What happens to people who move to Arizona? Does the desert sun cook their brains? Do they undergo some secret indoctrination into the Highest Order of Libertarian Whacko-Birds? Some of the weirdest and creepiest public sentiments I've seen and heard come out of that state.
Still, I was unprepared for just exactly how creepy and whacko this cardiologist is. Cardiologist. Let that sink in for a minute. A trained, accredited doctor of cardiac medicine. Dr. Jack Wolfson was interviewed by CNN over his attitude toward a fellow doctor who begged parents of unvaccinated children to stay home or vaccinate their kids, because his child has leukemia and is extremely vulnerable.
Oh, how selfish people are. Listen to Dr. Wolfson tut-tut the man whose child is gravely ill with a life-threatening disease. Via TPM:
The doctor said that children should not avoid getting infections such as measles and mumps. "These are the rights of our children to get it," he told KPNX.
Back on CNN, Wolfson dismissed his fellow doctor's appeal to anti-vaxxers.
"As far as I’m concerned, it’s very likely that her leukemia is from vaccinations in the first place," Wolfson said.
Someone needs to yank his medical license for that irresponsible, inflammatory and wholly false statement. Now. But there's more.
The CNN interviewer asked Wolfson repeatedly if he could live with himself if his unvaccinated child got other children, like Sacks' daughter, fatally sick.
“I could live with myself easily. It’s an unfortunate thing that people die, but people die. And I’m not going to put my child at risk to save another child,” he said.
"I'm not going to sacrifice the wellbeing of my child," he added. "My child is pure."
Wow. Pure. He said pure. Like Mengele-pure? Like eugenics-pure? Or pure in the sense that he has hovered over his child to protect them from every possible exposure to diseases? See, it's fine with him if other children get the mumps and measles, but his child is pure.
I wonder how pure his child would be if they were unfortunate enough to contract one of these diseases and ended up sterile. Or worse, dead. If they survived the disease itself and any secondary infections, that "purity" is right out the window, gone and gone forever, because they will have immunities they could have had without suffering.
Enough is enough here. As a parent, I know how much it sucks to take your happy baby to the doctor and take a fussy, feverish, crying one home. I get that. But that's why you're the parent. Parents have to do the hard things, and that means subjecting their kids to a small reaction and some pain in order to protect them from bigger things, like death or blindness or sterility or worse.
Parents do the hard things even when they don't want to because that's what it means to be a parent. This isn't brain surgery; it's common sense.
As for Doctor "Your child isn't my problem" Wolfson, perhaps he should give up the cardiology gig and try out for Biggest Loser, Selfish Libertarian Edition.
Excuse me while I try and recover some faith in the human race now.
