David Oshinsky

Professions :

Born :

1944

I read Norman Lock’s The Boy in His Winter with delight and amazement. Styled in the vernacular of a rapidly changing America, it stays true to the themes of Mark Twain’s original: class relations, race and slavery, childhood innocence, moral hypocrisy—and, of course, the stark beauty and unforgiving nature of America’s greatest river. I finished this absolutely elegant narrative feeling that Huck Finn has never been more alive.

winter boys america

The main problem, certainly, for the people who will not get vaccinated with Thimerosal, which was put into polio vaccine. And the belief was that it may cause autism. And there's been an awful lot done in terms of studies in Western Europe, Canada, the United States, and no correlation was found between Thimerosal and autism from those children who took vaccines. Indeed, when Thimerosal was taken out of many of these vaccines, the autism rate in the United States still rose.

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So, obviously, autism - which is the key in this - is a very big problem. We need more studies about it. We certainly have to try to figure out what causes it and why and do something about it. But to tab it to vaccines, I think, is a real mistake. Not only is there no evidence, but what it leads to is larger numbers of unvaccinated children. And that's not only a problem for polio. It's a problem for a wide range of vaccine-preventable diseases.

real mistake children

Vaccines [measles] have been proven to be safe, and what happens if you don't take vaccines is children get measles and die. So the anti-vaccine crowd has, you know, kept measles around in a way that - you know, it's a tragedy, because so much is done to make sure these things are safe.

vaccines tragedy children

So much of the bitterness that the term 'McCarthyism' evokes refers to the probe begun in New Jersey in the summer of 1953 - both in the laboratories of Fort Monmouth and in the surrounding communities of Red Bank and Belmar, where some of the best scientists and engineers in America worked.

new best red america

Coming of age in the 1960s, I heard the word 'fascist' all the time. College presidents were fascists; Vietnam War supporters were fascists. Policemen who tangled with protesters were fascists - on and on.

college age time war

Jonas Salk showed that a killed virus vaccine would work and would be damned effective in fighting disease. This was something that virologists of the day pooh-poohed. And Salk proved them wrong.

wrong day fighting work

'Liberal Fascism' is less an expose of left-wing hypocrisy than a chance to exact political revenge. Yet, the title of his book aside, what distinguishes Goldberg from the Sean Hannitys and Michael Savages is a witty intelligence that deals in ideas as well as insults - no mean feat in the nasty world of the culture wars.

intelligence revenge culture world

All of these charges by McCarthy were a way of getting the Democrats out of power. The Democrats had controlled the government for 20 years, and the New Deal had helped a lot of people. So Republicans turned instead to saying that the Democrats were soft on communism, which was ridiculous.

government power people way

The March of Dimes turned a disease not nearly as prevalent as childhood cancer into a national crusade. Polio was not that widespread.

march cancer childhood disease

When FDR died in 1945, he was still paralyzed from the waist down. After he died, his portrait was put on the dime. Through his illness, he went out of his way to minimize his difficulties. Of the thousands of pictures taken of him, only two show him in a leg brace or a wheelchair.

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The Left is deeply invested in Obama's presidency; they believe he's too important, symbolically, to fail.

fail left important believe

Abram L. Sachar

Bryan Ward-Perkins

Bruce Catton

Bruce Bartlett

Brian Crozier

Allan Nevins