Last year I read a good book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear by Seth Mnookin.

But for some reason I did not review it on my book review site. But here is a review of this and some related books from New Scientist. I don’t recall why I didn’t write a review but Mnookin’s book came back to mind when I saw Parade magazine this weekend.

Seth Mnookin wrote an article “Why So Many Parents Are Delaying or Skipping Vaccines” which covered some of the ground he covered so well in his book but the emphasis was clearly on the problems parents cause for both their children and other children when they do not vaccinate their children as recommended. [Update: The link went bad. Looks like Parade reorganized the site. The new link is given.]

Study after study has show vaccination to be safe, yet many are hesitant. How can people ignore the evidence and do a dumb thing ? I am not calling people dumb. Even smart people can do dumb things.