Jim Carrey is one of Canada's finest exports to Hollywood, an amazingly talented actor and a truly funny guy.
Unfortunately, his views on childhood vaccinations are not funny, they're dangerous.
In the wake of Tuesday's move by California governor Jerry Brown to sign a law making vaccinations mandatory for all school-aged children, Carrey took to Twitter to vent to his 14.7 million followers.
"California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped," he wrote. He followed that up with four more texts Tuesday, including the endorsement of a documentary that has been discredited by virtually the entire medical community.
He fired off five more tweets Wednesday, mostly repeating the following: "A trillion dollars buys a lot of expert opinions. Will it buy you? TOXIN FREE VACCINES, A REASONABLE REQUEST!"
Never mind that the California law enjoyed bipartisan political support, as well as the blessing of doctors, hospitals and public health officials. Never mind that immunizations have saved millions of lives around the world for decades with only a handful of rare problem cases. Never mind that the supposed link between vaccinations and autism has been discredited by numerous studies.
Carrey doesn't care. Instead, he sees a vast conspiracy.
"We need a vaccine for corporate greed government corruption and the media sponsored terror that is generated by big pharma profitiers?," he tweeted in April.
California joins Mississippi and West Virginia as states where vaccinations are required for children to enter the school system, public or private, as well as licensed day cares, barring a medical exemption only. The California law removes the "personal belief exemption" loophole an increasing amount of parents were exploiting. Parents wanting to opt out for personal reasons still can but they then have to home school their kids.
In Canada, three provinces - Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba - have laws requiring kids to be vaccinated before entering school, according to an online article by Karen Born, Verna Yiu & Terrence Sullivan, three Canadian public health experts. The laws, however, are toothless. Manitoba's law only applies to measles. Although the other two provinces require the full slate of immunizations for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, pertussis (better known as whooping cough), measles, rubella, mumps, varicella (chicken pox) and meningococcal disease, they write, parents can opt out for "medical, religious or ideological reasons."
That would be the same "personal belief" exemption California just removed.
Meanwhile, B.C. and the other provinces and territories have nothing on the books at all. In B.C., the provincial government and the public health officer talk out of both sides of their mouth at once. "Children are not required to have immunizations prior to entering school," states the ImmunizeBC website. "However, it is highly recommended that children are up to date with their immunizations prior to entering school to protect both themselves and their classmates from the serious diseases vaccines prevent.
"We recommend that you discuss this further with your health care provider.
"If parents choose not to immunize their child, the child may be told they must stay home from school if there is an outbreak of disease. This rule is designed to keep unimmunized children from getting sick and to keep the outbreak from spreading."
George Orwell couldn't have written a better example of government doublespeak - vaccines are good and doctors are trustworthy but we'll take action only after an outbreak caused by negligent parents who don't trust their doctor and think vaccines are bad for their kids. Basically, that policy is an admission that kids without their vaccinations pose an increased risk of acquiring dangerous and highly contagious diseases and then spreading them among their classmates. But don't worry. After an outbreak has happened, the problem kids might be sent home for a little while. Maybe.
That's unacceptable.
Vaccinations work when the vast majority of the population is vaccinated, protecting not only the recipients but the small group of vulnerable kids who can't be immunized due to compromised immune systems and other medical conditions.
B.C. and all the provinces and territories should follow the California example regarding childhood vaccinations.
They should listen to doctors, not a guy who played one in a movie.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
