Jill Stein straight answers #Hillbot AND realist attacks on vaccines

First, let's get a rhetorical question up front.

Some of Dr. Jill Stein's latest critics on health issues are trying to score partisan political pro-Clinton points first, pro-science points second. Does that describe you? Be honest, whether the "you" is the punditicracy class or John/Jane Doe.

So, to the likes of David Badash, how much are you driven by pro-science concerns in attacks on Stein & how much by fears of Hillary losing? (Jordan Wasserman is a clear Hillbot, so I'm not rhethorically expecting honest from him.)

First, the Green Party, in this year's platform, has moved more mainstream in its stance on "woo"/alt-med issues.

This:

The Green Party supports a wide range of health care services, including conventional medicine, as well as the teaching, funding and practice of complementary, integrative and licensed alternative health care approaches.

Is something that most Dems would wholeheartedly support.

And another blogger notes she opposes homeopathy, and got platform changes there back in 2012. To me, the changes she got the party to make look as much or more like PR than opposition. But, she did something.

BUT now, perhaps a bit late, she's given a bottom-line answer:

I'm not aware of evidence linking autism with vaccines. Let's do more to support autistic people & their families. https://t.co/eISgfxQ5vm

— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 31, 201

Again, it would have been better earlier, but there it is.

For people who will try to nitpick about it being stated in the form of a negative, I A. Consider it stated well enough and B. Will consider further statements against this to be in part, at least, politically driven.

That includes, even, any amateur or professional movement skeptics, like Galen Broaddus, already blocked on Facebook. 

That said, setting aside the label of "antivaxxer," Stein at first again refused to give a simple yes/no answer on the issue of whether or not vaccines cause autism.

As a result, Dan Ariel, the blogger who defended her on homeopathy at the link above, is now, "furious," mad enough to be close to jumping ship. And I'm getting there myself.

The flip side of calling her a panderer is to state that, while she is straddling two horses, she is pulling them closer. 

Let's also note, California's Democratic Party (shock) also supports pseudomedicine:

California Democrats will…support generally accepted holistic healing practices and alternative medicine, particularly those areas licensed by the state such as acupuncture and medical cannabis and utilized to relieve intractable pain without the side effects of conventional controlled drugs.

Acupuncture has no scientific support. 

And Hillary's own medical guru is a celeb doctor who flirts with quack ideas and has also worked with Rick Warren.

And both Clinton and Obama have their own checkered pasts on the vaccines-autism issue.

Is the Green Party anywhere near perfect? No.

I blogged about my reservations about the Green Party's platform in some depth in 2008, and shorter in 2012. I called for a Science and Reason Party a full decade ago.

I've cut it more slack, as a third party in a duopoly-driven system and because no Socialist party has ballot access in Texas.

Otherwise, outside the actual medical issues, the mix of pablum and pandering in Stein's AMA Reddit statement is something I expect from Democrats and Republicans, but definitely don't want in third-party candidates. And some follow-ups have not been  perfect, namely, her lumping of the FDA and CDC.

That said, for any antivaxxers in the Green Party, let us note the recommended US vaccination schedule is not materially different from elsewhere in the developed world.

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Update: On the third hand, she believes some sort of woo about wi-fi and health.