Dr. Sanjay Gupta would like to know where Senator Rand Paul is getting his "dangerous" views on vaccinations.
You would think a doctor would be smarter than this, but yesterday Senator Rand Paul (also known as Dr. Rand Paul), made some
jaw-dropping comments about vaccines:
"I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," he said.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta responded today, calling Senator Paul's comments
"dangerous":
There is no question I think this is dangerous to the extent I think there is some pandering happening. This is the sort of pandering that can be dangerous. Because, Rand Paul is a doctor. I'm sure he looks at studies, he knows the scientific method. He says he knows of many children who have wound up with mental disorders after vaccines. I don't, I don't know where he's getting that data from. One of the old adages in science is that correlation does not equal causation. There may be kids that have mental disorders that also received vaccinations around that time in life, but just because those two things happen around the same time, do not make one causing the other. So, again, I don't know why he's saying this. The numbers don't bear that out, the science doesn't bear that out, I'd be curious what drove those comments.
Dr. Gupta then went on to offer numerous, actual facts relating to the safety of vaccinations versus other everyday medicines like aspirin.
Watch his must-see smack down below the fold.