Vaccination: Where Does Your Candidate Stand?

Three politicians with medical degrees ran or are running for President of the United States this year. Two are Republicans who participated in the Republican TV debates: Paul Ryan, an ophthalmologist, and Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon. Sadly, these physicians were not supportive of the CDC's and American Academy of Pediatric's positions on vaccination. In the second debate, Dr. Carson said that some of the vaccines given to children were not needed, but never elaborated as to which ones. Paul Ryan voiced support for spreading out the vaccines while describing himself as being “...all for vaccines. But I am also for freedom.”  Both physicians were criticized by the mainstream medical community.

So, this is a bit of old news. Fast forward to the present for a look at the position on vaccines held by our current four candidates who will be on most ballots this November.

Dr. Jill Stein, a Harvard Medical School graduate, is running on the Green Party ticket; Governor Gary Johnson, on the Libertarian; Donald Trump is the Republican and Hillary Clinton will be  the Democratic ticket.

Let's see if you can match the Tweet on vaccines with the candidate who tweeted it.

1. Jill Stein

B. I'm not aware of evidence linking autism with vaccines. Let's do more to support autistic people & their families.

D. No to mandatory vaccines.

Please click here for answers.

How did you do?

Dr Stein tweeted “B” in July 2016. She had originally tweeted, “There’s no evidence that autism is caused by vaccines,” but deleted the statement five minutes later and replaced it with the above Tweet. An hour after that she added another tweet, “As a medical doctor of course I support vaccinations. I have a problem with the FDA being controlled by drug companies.” Personally, I wish she had not replaced her original tweet.

Gary Johnson tweeted “D” in 2011 which is what one would expect from a Libertarian. Last month on August 25th in an interview with Vermont Public Radio he changed his stance, commenting that he had recently learned of the concept and value of herd immunity. He said if the vaccine issue became a federal one, he would “come down on the side of science” and would “probably require that vaccine.”

Donald Trump tweeted “C” in March, 2014. He reiterated this position in the Republican debates last year.

Hillary Clinton tweeted “A,” in February 2015, the only unequivocal tweet in support of our current vaccine policies.

An editorial note -- these comments and their images, below, reflect candidates' positions at the time and Mr Johnson's, in particular, is several years old. We encourage research into all of the candidate's current platforms for their most current thinking. Also, the opinions expressed here in now way reflect those of Consultantlive.com or its editors.

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