Dr. Jim Meehan is another anti-vaccine physician who lacks credibility
This article about Dr. Jim Meehan was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco, CA), who is a frequent contributor to this and many other blogs, providing in-depth, and intellectually stimulating, articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.
Professor Reiss writes extensively in law journals about the social and legal policies of vaccination. Additionally, Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines, a parent-led organization that supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable disease. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.
An anti-vaccine doctor from Oklahoma, Dr. Jim Meehan, wrote an online post about why he would no longer vaccinate his children. It’s pretty clear that his post is not so much a discussion of his own children (most of whom are adults) as an attempt to deter other parents from protecting their children from preventable diseases. His post is basically a set of claims trying to convince parents that vaccinating is very dangerous.
His claims are nothing new – they are strictly out of the anti-vaccine playbook. But the post has received some attention in the anti-vaccine world and was shared several thousand times, likely because many people treat an MD as an authority on the subject. So I decided to take a few minutes to explain why his claims are not good reasons to reject expert opinion and not protect children from disease.
Since then, Dr. Jim Meehan has become one of the go-to anti-vaccine doctors who is trotted out to dismiss the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Furthermore, he has become a COVID-19 denier, testifying against the use of face masks and claiming that the disease isn’t dangerous. Furthermore, Meehan was forced to settle a libel suit filed by Dr. Eve Switzer.
Dr. Meehan’s claims fall into several categories (which will be discussed individually below):
- The diseases we vaccinate against are not dangerous, and it’s okay, even good, to encounter them naturally.
- Vaccines have toxic ingredients.
- Vaccines are dangerous to children.
- The science behind vaccines is corrupt because the pharmaceutical industry controls it and then corrupts it.
- We should listen to him because he is a doctor and knows what he is talking about.
Note: Dr. Jim Meehan’s post doesn’t present these claims in that order. I have changed the order because I want to address the claims in a logical order, that is, first his claims about vaccine safety, then the conspiracy theory that underlies them, and finally, his appeal to authority. Read More »Dr. Jim Meehan is another anti-vaccine physician who lacks credibility