What Happened To Personal Responsibility?

Harvard Medical School has just given people another excuse to avoid responsibility. According to a recent study, your friends and family can make you fat. That's right, now aside from blaming fast food restaurants, soft drink companies, and bakeries, you can blame the people you hang out with.

While the study is so lacking in scientific data that even the people who conducted it are saying they won't be able to replicate it, the biggest flaw is that it assumes people cannot resist peer pressure. People have no free will apparently, because they can't say no to their friends and they can't resist a commercials.

Enough.

It's not your friends fault that you pig out when they come over. It's not McDonald's fault that you scarfed down a Big Mac for lunch instead of something healthy. It's not the bakers fault because there was trans-fat in the muffin you bought this morning. It's your fault. It's time we, as a country, took responsibility for our actions. We are overweight because we like to eat and we don't like to exercise. That's all there is to it. Obesity is not an epidemic, it's not contagious, it is, except for specific medical conditions, a choice.

I wonder if someone would give me a grant to do a study to prove that.

To Vaccinate Or Not To Vaccinate

Since 1998 the subject of does the MMR (Measles, mumps, rubella)vaccination cause autism. In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield claimed to have discovered a link between the two. Parents desperate for an answer latched onto the study. Since then, no study has ever been able to replicate those findings and today he hearings began to determine if he and his colleagues behaved unethically and dishonestly in conducting their research.

The fact that the results have never been replicated indicates the dubious nature of his findings. In fact, 12 of his 14 colleagues that worked with him have since repudiated the study. It turns out that Dr. Wakefield filed for a patent on a competing vaccine.

Unfortunately, the damage has been done. Parents have been nervous about vaccinations since the study came out. Parents cling to the believe that their child's autism was caused by the vaccine. Their belief is fueled by two factors. First, the disease is often diagnosed at the same age that the vaccine is used. Second, the alternative theory is that the disease is genetic, and parents mistaken believe that this option means the disease is their fault.

No one can be blamed if they are a carrier of a genetic condition. Parents need to give up this guilt and look at the scientific evidence. Until we stop wasting money trying to prove what has already been disproved time and again, we'll never be able to focus on a cure.