Combating dangerous science denial in Modesto, one lecture at a time

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, I suppose I can never claim to be a real Modestan. But living here 30 years has taught me that Stanislaus County is replete with kind, community-minded people, folks who work hard to create the community in which they want to live.

We have a county illiteracy rate (21%) lower than the state average (23%), but we are underserved medically. We may have some continuing murder, meth and auto theft problems, but our county is still a good place to raise children.

In 25 years teaching at Modesto Junior College, I have clearly seen we have a wonderful thirst for science. MJC’s Modesto Area Partners in Science lecture series has helped quench this thirst with monthly science programs since 1991, and the Science Colloquium offers weekly programs each semester.

October’s MAPS featured UC Irvine’s Shahir Masri on “Elevating the Climate Conversation Beyond Debate.” Thanks to Modesto Bee reporter John Holland’s article, 550 people filled the MJC West lecture hall. We are encouraged to learn that 56% of Stanislaus County residents polled by Yale Climate Opinions agree that recent global warming is mostly caused by human activities — 3% higher than the national average. And 75% of our polled adults think that our schools should teach about climate change. Less than half of us fall for science denial of human-caused climate change.

November’s MAPS program dealt with another component of our nation’s science denial. Recently retired local physician Robert McGrew presented “The Overwhelming Importance of Vaccination to our Public Health.” He drew an audience of over 325 people. I invited Dr. Bob for this topic because of the mid-August Disney measles exposure.

In a moving and personal hour, Dr. Bob followed seven generations of his own family lines to show us the impact of horrendous infectious diseases that have killed or maimed so many of our ancestors. Well-illustrated with fearsome photographs of damage from smallpox, measles, diphtheria, tetanus and others, a recurring theme of his talk was, “Why do so many Americans doubt the importance and benefits of vaccines? Because they work so well.”

Vaccines work so well that some Americans believe they personally don’t need to be vaccinated. Herd immunity, or community immunity as Dr. Bob more politely calls it, does indeed protect unvaccinated people if over 95% of the populace is immunized. Infectious disease transmission becomes unlikely if there are so many of us who cannot become infected.

There are several categories of people who cannot or should not be vaccinated, such as very young infants and people immunosuppressed by diseases like AIDS, or by the patient’s medications.

The mistaken but widespread fear that vaccines cause autism started with a physician in England, Andrew Wakefield. He published an article in the respected British medical journal, The Lancet, claiming the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism in children. Twenty subsequent papers on the question show no causation of autism by any vaccine. The British Medical Journal made it clear that Wakefield’s work was fraudulent. Unfortunately, he still inspires many mistaken people. No longer an MD, Wakefield continues his dangerous work today throughout the world.

These climate change and vaccination lectures were chosen to help combat growing science denial, which is dangerous to us all. We can thank our fine K-12 schools, CSU Stanislaus, and MJC for their education about the reality of science facts and for our ability to understand them.

This story was originally published November 28, 2019 at 8:02 AM with the headline "Combating dangerous science denial in Modesto, one lecture at a time."