Republicans have learned to dodge questions about climate change by saying, “I’m not a scientist.” When Rand Paul started getting questions about vaccines on Monday, he had no such excuse.
The junior senator from Kentucky has been through medical school and residency, and remains an actively (if occasionally) practicing ophthalmologist. But there Paul was on Laura Ingraham’s radio show and then on CNBC Monday, spouting what most public health experts would consider highly misleading information about vaccine safety — and about how, or at least when, parents should vaccinate their kids:
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“We’ve had vaccination laws for a long time, and for as long as they’ve been around they’ve been controversial,” says Parmet, a professor of law at Northeastern University.
National political figures may never convince the most passionate vaccination skeptics, whose views, however unscientific, may be sincerely and deeply held. But what political leaders say can embolden the vast majority of people who believe in vaccines, get them for their children, and recognize anti-vaccination for the public health threat that it is. That’s why Paul’s statements in particular are more than a curiosity or a data point for sizing up the presidential candidates. They are a serious issue in a debate that affects real people’s lives.
