What's New Robert L. Park 24 April 2012

WHAT'S NEW    Robert L. Park   Tuesday, 24 April 2012    Washington, DC

1. THE MOMMY WAR: THE GREAT CULTURAL REVOLUTION OF OUR AGE.=20
Was rich stay-at-home-mom Ann Romney detached from the real world, or jus=
t=20
a hard-working mom devoted to rearing her offspring? The media told the=20=

story both ways. The only mistake Hilary Rosen made was to apologize for=20=

saying Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life." In the context of=20
holding a job, Hilary was right.  "I made a choice to stay home and raise=
=20
five boys," Ann Romney said; "Believe me, it was hard work."  But few wom=
en=20
today have that choice; they need their job to help feed their families.=20=
=20
Many wouldn't want it any other way.  The rate at which women are assumin=
g=20
leadership positions in government and industry is unprecedented.  The=20=

invention of "the pill" in the 1960s freed women to explore their potenti=
al=20
as equal members of the human race. So does it matter that Ann Romney=20
decided to stay home and have babies?  Of course it matters; this tiny=20=

planet belongs to all of us.  A fertility rate of 5.0 is typical of the=20=

desperately poor African dictatorships; advanced nations are closer to 2.=
0=20
(no growth), but even at 2.0 the environment will continue to deteriorate=
.=20=20
The total world population of 7 billion is far more than the Earth can=20=

support. As China has come to realize, the fertility rate must be kept=20=

below 2.0 for a very long time.  Sound hopeless?  Not at all; but it can'=
t=20
be done overnight.  We must get started. "The pill" may be the most=20
important invention in the 200,000 year history of Homo sapiens.

2. "DEADLY CHOICES": PAUL OFFIT EXPOSES THE ANTI-VACCINE MOVEMENT.
There was never a time before people knew that falling trees and large=20=

animals with teeth can kill.  Microbes are another matter. They had been=20=

killing us for perhaps 200,000 years before Antonie van Leeuwenhoek showe=
d=20
them to us. Paul Offit and two colleagues worked for 25 years to develop =
a=20
vaccine for the rotavirus, a cause of gastroenteritis that kills as many =
as=20
600,000 children a year worldwide, mostly in underdeveloped countries.  T=
he=20
vaccine is credited with saving hundreds of lives a day.  Offit=20
wrote "Autism=92s False Prophets" in 2008 exposing British physician Andr=
ew=20
Wakefield for falsely claiming the MMR vaccine is linked to autism.=20=20=

Vaccination prevents more suffering than any other branch of medicine, bu=
t=20
is still opposed by the scientifically ignorant who accept the upside-dow=
n=20
logic of the alternative medicine movement.  Because vaccination of=20
schoolchildren against virulent childhood infections is ubiquitous,=20
crackpots, scoundrels and gullible reporters get away with linking it to=20=

unrelated health problems as they did in the 1980s with the ubiquitous=20=

power lines.  We still hear echoes of the power-line scare in the cell=20=

phone/cancer panic. Paul Offit has just written "Deadly Choices: How The=20=

Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All.  We need to do everything we can =
to=20
stop it.=20

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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