March 17, 2010

View over Central with the university and ETHZ in the background taken from the bus 46 bus stop in front of the station. I totally forgot everything about photos today so a quick photo with my mobile (Nexus One) had to do the trick. The winter seems to finally start giving in to spring in Zürich and even though the morning was freezing the afternoon was really nice and warm.

It has now been a court decision in the US that the government will not pay money to parents who claim that a preservative in vaccines have triggered autism in their children. The court ruled against the parents since there are no scientific proofs what so ever that autism can be triggered by vaccines. This is just a myth that was created as a scientific had manipulated data that created an apparent link between vaccine and autism. It is quite chocking to see how this myth has gained influence and many parents refuse to vaccinate their children against the diseases that was nearly extinguished but now are coming back in regular outbreaks. As a parent in Switzerland you often hear about this myth and it is no longer considered obvious to vaccinate your children. The vaccination rate in Switzerland against the measles is as low as 87%.

One example of this phenomenon are the measles epidemics that as late as in 2009 killed an unvaccinated child in Switzerland. These epidemics mainly hits the Rudolf-Steiner (Waldorf education) schools where parents are discouraged to vaccinate their children against a number of potentially deadly diseases and encouraging the parents not to worry about whether the children will dies because if they do, it was probably their destiny.

Another example of huge skepticism against vaccinations could be seen during the swine flu hype. Whereas the Swedes were queuing for hours and fighting to get the vaccines, the Swiss only used a tiny portion of the vaccines bought by the government and finished by passing them all on to poorer countries. Now, the swine flu never really got the serious outbreak that we all feared so the consequences of the vaccination refusal didn't get so serious but who knows what will happen next time.