We have had some interesting discussion on the vaccination issue and I appreciate the position of the EB chiropractors See Sidebar but I saw the entire discussion taking a drastic turn when the discussion moved toward our children and ourselves (vaccination and flu shots). In other words, when we move from a general discussion to personal and individual situations it is a whole different ball game. They believe that children should be vaccinated because the evidence-based studies are legitimate. (I think it’s a debaters’ technique for them to accuse those who disagree with the results to not believe that a man ever went to the moon. There are enough dishonest studies, altered facts and downright chicanery in the scientific community to cause a rational person to be suspect of any findings.)
As the discussion proceeded, a very interesting fact arose. It seems that these EB chiropractors, even with their strong belief in the benefits of vaccination, felt that if they knew or suspected that their own children would be permanently injured or might die as a result of vaccination they would personally do whatever it took, legally or otherwise, to prevent their children from having the shots despite their general confidence in vaccination. Of course, they would have to ascertain the information about their children’s situation apart from evidence-based study. What “evidence on vaccination” shows would be of no importance to them as a parent, if personally they knew that it was not beneficial for their particular child. They might not even oppose vaccination for others since negative reactions are supposedly very rare. (Although having had that knowledge about their own child, one might be reluctant to recommend it to others for fear that their child will have the same negative experience that their child would have had.)
Since vaccination is not an objective straight chiropractic issue, what is the purpose of this discussion? I think it is a very good example of the difference between the EB chiropractors and the OSCors. We OSCors have ascertained by means other than evidence-based studies that chiropractic care is good for our children (and everybody else’s children as well as adults). Those means include our philosophy, anatomy, physiology, and anecdotal information. It really does not matter whether studies have shown the benefit of chiropractic on a large scale. We address people as individuals, just like the EB chiropractor does, except in his case, the individual is only his child and he is not doing something for them. In our case, it is everyone and doing something for them.
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