Florida's Potent Quack

 Yesterday, the governor and surgeon general of my home state—Florida—decided to eliminate vaccination requirements in public schools for some of the most common childhood illnesses. 

As a result, ancient enemies of humankind—horrors we thought he had vanquished decades ago—may soon be stalking the halls of our public schools again. Think: measles, mumps, rubella. 

People will actually die because of this. Children will actually die. 

And the worst part of it is that the author of this policy—Florida's surgeon general—is actually a Harvard-trained physician. He is abusing the power and prestige of his training to send children to their deaths. 

You may say, with a note of sarcasm: "oh, right. A doctor. Very impressive. What else can one expect?" 

A Samuel Beckett writes at one point in his Trilogy, of a set of parents, ambitious for their offspring: 

 "They felt that a more or less unintelligent youth, once admitted to the study of these professions, was almost sure to be certified, sooner or later [....] For they had experience of doctors, and of lawyers, like most people." 

We, too, have had experience of these professions. Even Charles Bovary was admitted to practice. 

But still—we have had a century now of reform of the medical profession to try to ensure that the people who reach its highest echelons understand something about the scientific method—and the importance of evidence-based reasoning. 

But apparently—we still have a long way to go—when a Harvard-trained physician; a state's appointed surgeon general—can stand up there and tell us his office will be revoking vaccine guidance for common childhood illnesses. 

As George Crabbe (the eighteenth century poet—who had also himself worked as a surgeon in his professional life)—once wrote of an incompetent and morally indifferent poorhouse doctor—this Florida surgeon general plainly is: 

A potent quack, long versed in human ills,

Who first insults the victim whom he kills;

Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy Bench protect

And whose most tender mercy is neglect.