With great regret, because I know and privately like MP Skutecki, I decided to apply for a reprimand in connection with his activities supporting anti-vaccines. I am a doctor, I took the Hippocratic Oath, my basic moral and professional duty is to protect my health and life – says Paweł Kukiz Szczuciński. The case is unusual, because the MP belongs to Kukiz’15, and the doctor is an advisor to this group.
- “Patients are often better educated than the doctors who vaccinate their children!” – exclaimed MP Paweł Skutecki into the microphone at the Saturday anti-vaccine protest STOP NOP in Warsaw. He also demanded the abolition of compulsory vaccinations
- The MP’s speech outraged doctor Paweł Kukiz Szczuciński *, a psychiatrist and a pediatrician. On Wednesday, he reported to the Deputies’ Ethics Committee. He demands that Skutecki, MP Kukiz’15 be reprimanded, although he himself is an advisor to the movement
- Often we, doctors, by not paying enough attention to patients, are unable to alleviate their parents’ fears. At the same time, a lot of cynical people are involved in the anti-vaccine movement, who see it as a springboard for a career – says Paweł Kukiz Szczuciński
- Immunization coverage is falling and if we do not stop this trend, the question is whether and when an epidemic will break out in Poland – he adds
- Paweł Kukiz, the leader of the party, clearly opposed people who did not have any substantive preparation to speak out on the subject of vaccinations
Agnieszka Sztyler-Turovsky: The situation is so dramatic that you decided to take a stand against the member of the party you are an adviser to?
Paweł Kukiz-Szczuciński: I am a doctor, I took the Hippocratic Oath and my primary moral and professional duty is to protect human health and life. As I work in paediatrics, it is especially important for me to ensure the safety of children. Therefore, with great regret, because I know and privately like MP Skutecki – I decided to submit a motion to reprimand the MP in connection with his activities supporting the so-called anti-vaccines. The MEP is not an ordinary citizen – he has the tools in the form of financial resources to hire experts. Instead, instead of doing it, it is listening to people who tell lies and half-truths, people who inevitably lead us towards the return of the infectious disease epidemic. This is not in line with the dignity of the legislative power in Poland, which is the Parliament.
What would you say to those who accuse you of being outraged by the statements of MP Skutecki, because you felt threatened as a doctor, perhaps sponsored by vaccination producers?
Anyone who disagrees with their rhetoric considers anti-vaccines to be bribed by pharmaceutical companies. I am aware that such accusations will also be made against me. Doctors, however, must not be intimidated. We cannot be fear and let ourselves be dominated by this group.
Anti-vaccination movements are as old as vaccines, and have been around for centuries. In the past, enemies of vaccination thought vaccination was an apocalyptic mark of Satan, and it was preached that those who were vaccinated would grow hooves. In the twentieth century, vaccinations were accused, inter alia, of about inducing autism. Of course, it’s not just human stupidity and the tendency to look for conspiracies everywhere behind it.
But complications aren’t pure inventions.
Nobody denies that vaccines, like all drugs, sometimes have side effects. However, firstly, they are rare, and secondly – usually harmless – because they appear in the form of flu-like symptoms or local lesions.
So you are XNUMX% sure that the anti-vaccine theories concerning, inter alia, inducing autism in children after vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella do not contain a shadow of the truth?
Am I XNUMX% sure? And are you XNUMX% sure that the earth orbits the sun and not the other way around? I believe in Evidence Based Medicine. I believe in science. I believe in recognized international publications. The manifestation of autism features is temporally correlated with the timing of one of the vaccinations. I propose an experiment – if someone eats ice cream today and causes a car accident during the day, can you conclude that eating ice cream leads to traffic accidents? And I can assure you that on a global scale many perpetrators of accidents have certainly eaten ice cream before. This is the basic logical fallacy of anti-vaccine workers.
And yet more and more parents are almost frightened of vaccinations.
Often, we doctors, by not paying enough attention to patients, are unable to alleviate their fears. We, as vaccine providers, often have to bang our own breasts. But apart from parents whose children suffered from real NOP (adverse vaccine reactions – ed.), Or fell ill some time after vaccination and mistakenly assign a causative role to vaccination, and whose parents I humanly understand and sympathize with, a lot of cynical people are involved in the anti-vaccination movement. who see it as a springboard to their career. There are also ordinary intellectual lazybones who prefer to read a random post on Facebook, rather than a hard-to-read but reliable scientific article.
There are also opponents of vaccination among doctors.
It happens that under-educated doctors can distort the kind of falsehood used by anti-vaccineists. I have seen such cases. When I asked about the publications on which they base their suspicions – they were unable to cite reliable sources.
If the doctor finds NOP, he is obliged to report it. If he notices any regularity, he has the right to submit it to a scientific analysis. But if he thoughtlessly repeats rumors – he should absolutely be held responsible for it.
What if parents in Poland stop vaccinating their children en masse? There will be an epidemic?
Immunization coverage continues to decline and if we do not stop this trend, e.g. by introducing the obligation to present a vaccination book before admission to a nursery school or school, the question is not whether and when an epidemic will break out. It was in May that the Czech Republic had to fight the Odra epidemic with the help of the army. Currently, there are outbreaks in Slovakia. This is the effect of, among others just growing anti-vaccine activity. Meanwhile, complications of measles, especially those affecting the central nervous system, can be dramatic. At this point, I must emphasize: vaccinations are primarily intended to protect against the occurrence of serious complications. Rotavirus infection itself is not dramatic, but the complications of severe dehydration are.
As a doctor of the Polish Center for International Aid, I sometimes work in pre-war areas. I see there, for example, children on the border between Syria and Lebanon who, not vaccinated, for example against mumps, get sick. Believe me – these are not pleasant views. In Europe, we have forgotten how dramatic complications of seemingly trivial diseases can be. Rubella itself is not a serious disease, but a pregnant woman contracting rubella is a disaster.
Some fear the return of infectious diseases due to the migration of refugees. Is the threat real?
The anti-vaccine activity overlaps with the migration crisis in Europe. And indeed, a few years ago, a measles epidemic broke out in Berlin – it turned out that the focus was a group of newcomers from the Balkans who, as children, could not be vaccinated due to the war taking place in those territories. Years later, these people, who were not immune-protected, contracted the infection from an African. The epidemic quickly developed to several hundred cases. And it is in the heart of Western Europe. incl. for these reasons, France has just introduced mandatory vaccination. Measles cases in Europe tripled in 2017. Serious complications occur in children under 5 years of age. Several dozen deaths were recorded in this group.
Does Mr Skutecki already know that you are demanding his punishment? And what about Paweł Kukiz?
I informed MP Skutecki about the submission of the application. Paweł Kukiz knows the case. Sam comes from a medical family and knows a parent’s health service – he has never been a supporter of the anti-vaccine movement.
Has anyone from Kukiz’15 tried to stop MP Skutecki earlier?
We have talked many times with MP Skutecki that he would stop his cooperation with pro-epidemic movements. Paweł Kukiz, the leader of the party, clearly opposed people who did not have any substantive preparation to speak out about vaccinations. Every now and then, anti-vaccines tried to persuade MPs to support their various ideas – but these, however, sometimes after consulting me for the most part, gave up promoting anti-vaccine movements. The vast majority of members of the Kukiz 15 movement are aware that vaccination is one of the most important inventions of mankind. In the past, it was not wars, but huge epidemics that were the biggest “genocides” and only the introduction of vaccinations radically changed the situation.
Will the notification to the Ethics Committee impress MP Skutecki? Could only an official ban on the expression of opinions stop him?
I do not know whether the proceedings before the ethics committee will change the deputy’s attitude. By the way, I am very curious what the decision of the ethics committee will be. This is the first, as far as I know, a situation of this type and a kind of test – is it allowed to conduct activities in our country, which experts unanimously indicate will end in a catastrophe.
* Paweł Kukiz Szczuciński, specialist psychiatrist, pediatrician, member of the PCPM Rescue Team, health care adviser to the K’15 club
Comment by MP Paweł Skutecki:
My speech at the STOP NOP protest was well-thought-out. I’m not an anti-vaccine freak. I reiterate: I demand the lifting of the vaccination obligation in Poland. I believe it should be voluntary – I do not forbid parents who are willing to vaccinate their children.
It is absurd to scare us with an epidemic, and the word epidemic is overused. There is talk of a measles outbreak in the Czech Republic and alleged military aid to fight the spread of the disease. It’s not true, we asked about it at the Czech consulate in Poland.
It was similar with the increase in the incidence in Poznań. It was related to the encampments there, and not to not vaccinating children. Every year there are periods when Odra is diagnosed in Poland, but it is not an epidemic.
I am in favor of people having the greatest possible freedom. We do not have to accept any medical procedures to be performed in hospitals on us or our children. Especially if these are not medical or life-saving procedures, but only prophylactic – and such are vaccinations.
We cannot predict the consequences for a child’s life and health in the near or distant future of vaccination performed in the first XNUMX hours after birth. I do not believe that doctors in the conditions of Polish health care can say with certainty that a child does not have, for example, a congenital impairment of the immune system and the effects of vaccination on its immunity will not be catastrophic.
Many specialists emphasize that TB vaccination is done too early.
In Poland and Bulgaria, children are vaccinated in the first XNUMX hours after birth. Most countries in Europe do not have such an amount, such an early compulsory vaccination.
I am in favor of each child having their own vaccination schedule supervised by a doctor who will take responsibility for the fact that the child has been given the vaccine at a given moment in his life, in a given health condition.
If someone wants to vaccinate their child, let them vaccinate. But let’s not risk the health and life of children, and I believe that this is what is happening in hospitals due to the fact that the vaccination system in Poland is not good.
It is a sick situation that the police come to the hospital when the parents refuse to give their child a consent to vaccinate. The case was loud, among others hospital in Białogard. She went to court and her parents won.
I have no regrets to Paweł Kukiz Szczuciński for reporting me to the Parliamentary Ethics Committee. I created a vaccination team in the Sejm, we appoint independent doctors, but the media does not publicly publicize the matter, so I treat reporting the matter to the ethics committee as free advertising, which will publicize the question of compulsory vaccinations among parents and doctors.
Also read: Vaccination calendar 2018. Compulsory vaccinations for children