First of all, a qualifier. I LOVE Vinay Prasad. And i also love Robert Kennedy and was active in forming the emerging Health Professionals to Elect Kennedy committee. Vinay, your arguments and critiques are fair and understandable. I believe you are not entirely accurate in depicting Kennedy as anti-vax across the board. He is FOR vaccin…
First of all, a qualifier. I LOVE Vinay Prasad. And i also love Robert Kennedy and was active in forming the emerging Health Professionals to Elect Kennedy committee. Vinay, your arguments and critiques are fair and understandable. I believe you are not entirely accurate in depicting Kennedy as anti-vax across the board. He is FOR vaccine safety and randomized trials, which is very different from being anti-vax. He was anti-vax MANDATES (as were you), and he is willing to ask questions, but it's not fair to characterize him as anti-vax. And pointing out a possible connection between elements in the MMR vaccine, the microbiome, the gut and the brain which in SOME cases might lead to neurological disturbances-- which is what the greatly misunderstood and demonized Andy Wakefield said-- is NOT the same as saying "vaccines cause autism".
Nonetheless i am thrilled that you wrote such a generally fair and compelling piece on Kennedy without trashing him for views he doesn't really hold. And i hope you will continue to keep an open mind and listen to his positions, which, i believe you will find, are much more nuanced, layered and reasoned than one might have thought.
warmly
Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS co-author of "The Great Cholesterol Myth"
First of all, a qualifier. I LOVE Vinay Prasad. And i also love Robert Kennedy and was active in forming the emerging Health Professionals to Elect Kennedy committee. Vinay, your arguments and critiques are fair and understandable. I believe you are not entirely accurate in depicting Kennedy as anti-vax across the board. He is FOR vaccine safety and randomized trials, which is very different from being anti-vax. He was anti-vax MANDATES (as were you), and he is willing to ask questions, but it's not fair to characterize him as anti-vax. And pointing out a possible connection between elements in the MMR vaccine, the microbiome, the gut and the brain which in SOME cases might lead to neurological disturbances-- which is what the greatly misunderstood and demonized Andy Wakefield said-- is NOT the same as saying "vaccines cause autism".
Nonetheless i am thrilled that you wrote such a generally fair and compelling piece on Kennedy without trashing him for views he doesn't really hold. And i hope you will continue to keep an open mind and listen to his positions, which, i believe you will find, are much more nuanced, layered and reasoned than one might have thought.
warmly
Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS co-author of "The Great Cholesterol Myth"