Oh, and when I say he's choosing his words carefully, I also mean that he does not say anything about Autism, but says "profound mental disorders", which most people are going to infer as Autism. This way he can say "I never said 'Autism'!" later, but the damage is already done.

Thankfully the only people who listen to this yutz are other conspiracy theorists who likely avoid vaccines already. So I don't think he's changing anyone's mind.

He and Chris Christie are dancing around vaccination as if it was radioactive. The problems for them are manifold, mainly:

1. Obama supports vaccinations.
2. Scientists support vaccinations.
3. Vaccinations clearly work.
4. Measles outbreaks are happening thanks to anti-vaxxers.

This convinces me if Obama came out and said breathing air was overall good for you and that inhaling car exhaust was damaging to your health, you'd see the entire GOP presidential field suggesting that true patriots keep their noses close to running tail pipes.

Christie is even funnier, since he ordered quarantines and other nonsensical measures to protect New Jersey from Ebola, yet actual disease within our borders is no big deal.

Obama had a weird stance on vaccinations at least briefly back in 2008. But he's since gotten away from it, thankfully.

It wasn't even that weird of a stance, more like he'd heard that autism might be connected to vaccinations, but he didn't know where the science stood. He was misinformed, but that misinformation seems to have been pretty quickly corrected.

The rest of his comments were very pro-vaccination:

---

We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Nobody knows exactly why. There are some people who are suspicious that it’s connected to vaccines and triggers, but -- this person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it. Part of the reason I think it's very important to research it is those vaccines are also preventing huge numbers of deaths among children and preventing debilitating illnesses like polio. And so we can't afford to junk our vaccine system. We've got to figure out why is it that this is happening so that we are starting to see a more normal, what was a normal, rate of autism. Because if we keep on seeing increases at the rate we're seeing we're never going to have enough money to provide all the special needs, special education funding that's going to be necessary.

But I don't think the science was inconclusive in 2008. So, at least to me, it's a weird thing to say. I don't think the intent was malicious, but the "Nobody knows! So maybe!" perspective is not great.

It was a topic he didn't know enough about, and was offering what is unfortunately an all-too-common layman opinion. I figure that, within an hour of his saying that, someone on his team got him up to speed.

Wasn't the Wakefield study debunked in 2010? If so, then it would make sense to say in 2008 that it's possible that vaccines cause autism.

Also: Wow, I had no idea that Rand Paul was such an ass.

The Wakefield study was officially retracted in 2010, but it had been pretty well debunked by mid-decade. So Obama really should have known that there was no connection between autism and vaccinations in 2008; but I can also understand that, unless your job is directly related to either vaccinations or autism, your info might be out of date.

If that's the case (your info is out-of-date or you don't know), honestly just keep your mouth shut. It certainly didn't accomplish anything useful.

I'm not really comparing Obama and Rand Paul here because only one of them gets their news from Prison Planet, but it's really unfortunate that so many politicians have sometimes inadvertently fueled the anti-vax crowd.

Giving Rand Paul the benefit of the doubt that he's not an anti-vaxxer. HA!

He's an ophthalmologist whose certification is from an institute he founded to give him a certification.

Rand Paul founded Duke?

No, Paul passes himself off as "board certified" by an organization called the National Board of Ophthalmology, which he founded.

It's a sheer coincidence they certified him, in the same way you've coincidentally won the Gmol Award for Awesomness every year.

Thank you kindly, SPK! Your award for this year is in the mail.

Wow, I just looked it up. Insane.

seriously

I'm too scared to look.

He believed Obamacare allowed doctors to report patients who owned guns to the government.