Omniscient. That’s the one! Most people who read this blog believe implicitly in one form of omnipotent and omniscient higher being or another. Whether the name is God, or Jahweh, or even Allah, the effect is the same, they believe that their destiny is to live their lives according to a set of ethics, or Commandments, or rules; and if they live those lives to the end of their allotted time, they will go to ‘Heaven’. But the main idea is that they all believe in an omnipotent, all-knowing God who already knows all the answers, but is reluctant to share the knowledge with his subordinate creations.
So what did those people who were unfortunate enough to hear the interview on BBC Today with Professor David Salisbury, Immunisation director (Gauleiter) of the Department of Health think of the Word from on High? A very short while before, a father of two from Essex gave what I thought to be a perfectly logical reasoned argument against the whole MMR vaccine idea, basing his reasoning only partly on the alleged links with autistic behaviour, but also on the extremely valid arguments that it is a big thing for one vaccine alone to be shovelled into the body of an infant, but when three come along together, the bodies concerned sometimes react in a very negative fashion. These arguments were, as I said, reasoned, polite but solid, and based on his being a parent, and because he thought the MMR vaccine had been supported by Government because of cost factors!
The good Professor commenced by parroting statistics about the huge (comparative) rise in cases of measles this last year compared to ten years ago, and blaming it all on hysterical parents such as the gentleman from Essex. He further went on to describe the actions of the Essex-based parents, and all others who had the temerity to even doubt the Word from on high, as both irrational and ‘totally unneccessary’. He stated that parents should not only concern themselves with their children, but also should be aware of the ‘wider community’!
Now my own days of immunisation arranging are long gone, and my children are all adults themselves, with two fine grandsons for GranDad to spoil outrageously whenever possible. When my own were kids, my wife and I availed ourselves of the immunisation services available in South Africa, partly because the shots were both well-proven, well-researched and because they came one at a time! The Health Services were a little like me, both competent but conservative in thinking. What arrangements for immunisation and vaccination have been made for my two grandsons are the business of my sons, but I hope that they have weighed up the benefits as opposed to the risks, and believe me there are risks, of having no less than three sets of weakened bacteria or viruses slotted into the veins of a tiny baby. Again they are the parents, and it is their choice, but I hope that their actions will be based on research and true statistics, not on the words of one who really does believe that he knows everything, that he cannot be wrong and there is no point arguing!
My own thoughts are echoed by my own favourite person in all of British History, who once wrote in letters to the Church of Scotland :-
“I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken”