I haven't been following the coverage of the European Elections in Munster, so I don't know how Kathy Sinnott is doing down there. However, I read in this morning's Irish Examiner that a rival candidate has "fired an unprecedented broadside" at her.
Brendan Ryan (Lab) is questioning Synott's policies across a number of fronts, but he didn't raise the one issue I'd like her to address.
Kathy Sinnott came to prominence when she took the government to court in an attempt to get the state to provide primary education for her 23-year-old autistic son. Although she was ultimately unsuccessful, I had a lot of sympathy for her. How could anyone not even if you thought the court ruling was correct (and I did)?
But, after that she became the most prominent member of the "MMR causes autism" campaign. My sympathies started to wane.
Now that she's a politician (this is her second campaign) I think she must be held accountable for her MMR-autism campaign. British research has shown that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and now American research has confirmed the British findings.
Unless Kathy Sinnott publicly accepts these findings, I don't think she's fit to be elected. In fact, she's a danger. More than anyone else she's responsible for the fall in vaccination rates and the rise in the incidence of measles in Ireland.
She helped make parents afraid of the vaccine and turned many against it. I remember my wife and I worrying about it before our son was vaccinated. Parents worry even when reason tells them not to. They don't need scaremongering politicians to fuel those fears.
We need children to be vaccinated and we don't need elected officials denying scientific facts to the detriment of our children's health.
