Children in the United States are at greater risk from preventable diseases today than they have been in decades, mostly because of misinformation about vaccines.

And when given a chance to spread truth and science during a presidential debate, three Republican candidates chose instead to add to the problem.

At issue: the decades-old, long-ago-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.

It’s a myth. It’s no more true than the theory that the moon is made of cheese.

But that doesn’t keep a surprising number of people from spreading and believing misinformation about childhood vaccines.

Donald Trump is among those who has claimed vaccines cause autism. When asked about his statements during a debate featuring Republican candidates earlier this month, he backed off, but only a little, and then he tried to edge back, using an anecdote that seemed to indicate that he indeed did think vaccines caused autism.

The moderators then turned to candidates Ben Carson and Rand Paul, both of whom are medical doctors. And while both stated that they believed vaccines were safe and the research solid, they went on to hint that, well, maybe there was cause to be concerned. And Carson pointed to the number of vaccines administered during what he considered a short amount of time.

A fourth candidate also weighed in. Candidate Mike Huckabee noted there’s controversy about the subject.

Well of course there is controversy, because people such as Huckabee, Paul, Carson and Trump prefer politics over science.

And the science is clear. It has been for more than a decade. I’m not sure how many times it has to be said: Vaccines do not cause autism.

The timing of vaccines isn’t a medical concern either, according to the research. Pediatric experts note that earlier vaccines mean earlier protection for children.

Those who continue to espouse mythical dangers of vaccines are turning their backs on established medicine and legitimate research.

Either that, or they make the common mistake of confusing “correlation” with “causation.”

There is a correlation between young children receiving vaccines and young children being diagnosed with autism. But that doesn’t mean one causes the other.

You don’t have to go far to understand why “correlation” can’t be used to presume a cause and effect.

Let’s say we apply the “link” Trump sees to a study by a consulting firm that examined the kinds of alcoholic beverages Americans drink.

As reported by the Washington Post, what the data from the firm GFK MRI – and analyzed by Jennifer Dube of National Media Research Planning and Placement – found is that there is a correlation between people’s political views and what kinds of alcoholic beverages they drink.

Bourbon drinkers tend to be conservative, for example, while those who drink vodka tend to be liberals, according to the data.

Now, no one claims that bourbon makes a person conservative, or that drinking vodka inspires liberal beliefs.

Similarly, it is true that most young children get vaccines. It’s also true that autism is often first suspected or diagnosed in young children. However, that doesn’t mean that one causes the other.

On the autism front, researchers recently have found surprising correlations between parents’ ages and the tendency for autism. Rates of autism rise when parents are older, and also when there is a gap between the ages of the father and the mother.

Scientists don’t pretend to know why this link exists. They stress that what they have at this point is a correlation, one that may mean nothing.

That is what makes them different from politicians, conspiracy theorists, bad-science enthusiasts and others who go looking for a cause-and-effect and cling to it even after the facts have proved them wrong.

Since the anti-vaccine crowd gained traction, especially in celebrity circles, vaccination rates in many states, including Kansas, have started to fall.

Falling vaccine rates create risks that are not theoretical. More children are suffering from measles, whooping cough and other preventable diseases, and more of them are dying.

Right now, it’s not a big number. For example, there were more than 48,000 cases and 20 deaths from whooping cough (or pertussis) in 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That’s not many, but there were more cases in 2012 than in any year since 1955, according to the CDC.

Unless vaccination rates head back in the right direction, more children will be left unprotected, and that makes outbreaks of disease more likely.

The outbreak of measles that was traced last December to Disneyland in California provides an example of how quickly and how far a contagious disease can spread.

Despite quick action by authorities, by the end of January, more than 80 people in 14 states had gotten sick. By the time medical professionals brought the outbreak to an end in the spring, nearly 200 people in 24 states had gotten sick.

This year also saw the first death from measles in the United States in 12 years.

Americans have never been very discerning when it comes to health claims. We have a long history of quacks and quackery that continues into the 21^st century.

But we should be able to count on those who would lead the country to base their health policies on science, not debunked research and specious theories.

 

Seven years ago this month, TransCanada Corp. filed an application with the U.S. government for a pipeline that would transport oil from Canada across the United States.

Seven years … and TransCanada is still waiting for an answer from President Barack Obama.

When it comes to the things that frustrate and irk Americans about government, the Keystone XL pipeline decision stands as a poster child.

Hundreds of lawyers and lobbyists have enriched themselves as TransCanada and opponents of the Keystone XL have battled in court, regulators’ offices and Congress over the proposal. A similar number of environmental experts and energy consultants also have profited from the controversy.

But Obama has so far refused to issue a decision in the inexcusably long debate, apparently because he doesn’t want to anger environmentalists or voters in states where Democrats are something of an endangered species.

While seven years of lawsuits and studies have undoubtedly kept lots of suits and government workers gainfully employed, they have not served the country well.

When it was proposed, the Keystone XL appeared nothing out of the ordinary. It was similar to – and would connect with — another pipeline already operated by TransCanada.

Pipelines crisscross virtually every part of the U.S. They carry natural gas, oil and other products. In Nebraska alone – where environmentalists made their most successful political and legal stand against the Keystone project – there are more than 20,000 miles of pipeline carrying hazardous liquids and natural gas, according to the Nebraska Pipeline Association, an industry group.

The proposed XL pipeline would transport oil from Canadian fields to the existing Keystone pipeline in Nebraska, before heading south through existing lines in Kansas and into Oklahoma.

From Oklahoma, the XL pipeline continues south, delivering oil to a port or ports along the Gulf in Texas.

Pipelines offer a safer means of transporting fuel than do trains or trucks. That’s not to say that pipelines are free of problems. The history of leaks and explosions makes clear that no means of transport is absolutely safe. But when it comes to protecting the public’s health and safety, pipelines offer a superior record than either highways or railroads.

But the Keystone debate isn’t about safety, it’s about the environment, and it has become a political rallying cry for environmental groups coast to coast.

In the beginning, environmental groups opposed the pipeline on the grounds that it endangered the Nebraska Sandhills ecosystem.

When TransCanada moved the proposed pipeline to address those concerns, environmental groups modified their argument.

It’s now become clear that this is a battle over mining and climate change.

Environmental groups don’t want production of oil from what are known as the Canadian tar sands, from which oil that would move through the Keystone XL would come.

Oil production from tar sands is different from the oil wells that dot parts of Kansas. It’s more like mining, including the moving of surface soil and rock and the removal of vegetation.

Environmentalists object to the mining of the tar sands, of course. But that opposition alone doesn’t offer much legal standing for opposing the pipeline because it doesn’t really address the impact of the project on the United States, which is what the U.S. State Department supposedly is assessing­­.

So the opponents’ legal and public relations campaigns have turned to how the pipeline will facilitate the mining of the tar sands oil and thereby worsen the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

And because climate change is bad for the United States, the argument goes, anything that contributes to it must be culled or killed.

But as TransCanada and many others in Canada and the U.S. have pointed out, stopping the pipeline won’t stop the mining of the tar sands for oil.

With crude oil prices where they are these days, the financial viability of tar sands production becomes a real issue. As oil prices drop, the profits from production evaporate. But as long as companies see the production as feasible, they will continue to get oil from the tar sands – in Canada and elsewhere.

And if they continue, there are only so many options for moving the oil. With their fight against the pipeline, opponents are pressing for less safe methods for transport. Their opposition means that they prefer that trains and trucks, which pose greater risks to the public, should be used to haul the hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil each day across the country.

The Keystone foes will argue that is not their stance at all – that they are fighting to stop not just the pipeline but also the tar sands oil production.

But after seven years, their fighting has not stopped production. TransCanada has made plain that it will find other means to produce and move the oil if the pipeline is rejected.

And if Obama denies the permit, TransCanada could challenge the decision under the trade agreements that exist between the United States and Canada. Several trade experts think the U.S. likely would lose such a challenge.

That would mean a whole new venue for the lawyers, and, who knows: The argument could drag on another seven years.

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Much of the public’s business is conducted in secret.

That’s no surprise to anyone who has served in government or tried to cover government as a journalist.

I don’t mean to be cynical about the lack of transparency and accountability. Nor do I intend to demonize government officials and employees who would rather conduct business outside the glare of public scrutiny.

It is admittedly easier to get things done when reporters and critics aren’t second-guessing decisions – decisions that have not even been made but are being contemplated. And most of us prefer the easy way when we set upon a task.

But as in so many things in life, the easy way is often not the best way.

So when Gov. Sam Brownback’s staff used private email to send the proposed budget to lobbyists last year, the message to Kansas voters was clear, even if it was unintentional: The governor cared what special interests that have supported him financially and politically had to say about his plans for Kansas, but not what the public might think.

Similarly, Hillary Clinton’s use of private email for government business while she was Secretary of State may have been a matter of convenience as she has repeatedly stated. But the private email also was a way for Clinton to skirt rules about accessibility and transparency.

The Associated Press made a public records request for Clinton-related correspondence in 2010. Finally, in March of this year, it sued the federal government for failure to comply with the federal open records law.

The State Department’s failure comes in part because Clinton waited until late in 2014 to turn over to the government her email from her private account. Even then, she didn’t turn it all over. First, she said, she deleted personal emails, which were about half of the 60,000 emails she sent or received from her private account, according to an AP story about its lawsuit.

The AP account also noted the State Department has been sued by others for excessive delays in responding to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Given the country’s history with the Clintons, skepticism about what was deleted is valid – as is skepticism about why Hillary Clinton used a private email account to conduct business as U.S. Secretary of State.

But at least the federal government acknowledges that government-related records are subject to open records laws, regardless of whether they are handled through a private email account or a government-operated account.

That’s not the case in Kansas, where officials claim that emails sent through private accounts – and even some sent through government-operated email accounts – aren’t subject to open records laws.

In April, in response to The Wichita Eagle’s reporting on the Brownback administration’s use of­­­­ private email to send budget plans to lobbyists, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt weighed in.

He said state officials’ emails about state business aren’t public if they’re sent using personal email accounts.

To reach this conclusion for his fellow Republicans, Schmidt did have to conjure up his own definition of “entity,” which is a term the law uses to define who is subject to the state’s open records law.

“Thus, the ordinary meaning of ‘entity’ does not include any flesh-and-blood being, such as an employee,” according to the attorney general’s opinion.

Claiming the term “entity” does not include individuals – and especially individuals acting on behalf of a state agency or office – is simply ludicrous. Any dictionary – regular, business or legal – will tell you that.

Only an attorney general looking for an excuse could argue differently.

State officials and employees often look for loopholes in open records law, and when they have trouble finding an appropriate loophole, they often make one up.

Consider the case of Art Hall, director of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas.

A KU student last year filed an open records request to gain access to Hall’s correspondence with the Koch Foundation, the conservative group that basically founded the center within the auspices of the KU business school.

Hall previously served as chief economist for the Public Sector Group of Koch Industries Inc., and the student (and the liberal organization that she led) wanted to know whether the Koch brothers were influencing activities at the center.

KU told the student she would have to pay $1,800 to cover the costs of gathering the records, so the group collected the money and paid it.

Then Hall sued to stop the release of his emails. On one hand, he argued that his emails weren’t public because his $111,000 salary wasn’t really paid by the university but by private donations to the center. But on the other hand, he argued that the records request threatened his academic freedom as a faculty member at KU.

Last month, the student, Hall and KU agreed to a settlement in which a few innocuous records were released.

“This small subset matches much more closely with what I would perceive to be public records, as opposed to my private correspondence,” Hall told the Lawrence Journal-World.

Meaning: Not all the relevant records were released.

The case is one of many examples of how the public is shut out of business that is supposed to be conducted on their behalf.

Kansans should insist that state laws make clear that government-related records created through email and other electronic correspondence are accessible to the public.

­­­­As the Kansas Legislature worked overtime in a futile attempt to develop a balanced spending and tax plan for this year, more than one curious thing happened.

But among the more curious of events were votes in the state House and Senate declaring that every employee of the state of Kansas was essential.

Lawmakers made the strange claim as a way to avoid furloughs that would be triggered by their failure to approve a plan to match the state’s income and its spending. They felt compelled because under state law, all state employees whose jobs were not deemed essential and who worked for agencies whose spending plans had not been already approved by lawmakers would be out of their jobs — until the Legislature and governor did theirs.

To avoid the furloughs, the legislators and Gov. Sam Brownback basically declared that every one of the more than 35,000 state employees – which include workers at state universities, state prisons, the Highway Patrol, state hospitals and scores if not hundreds of other agencies – is absolutely vital to the operation of essential government services.

(According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, Kansas has about 51,000 state government employees, but state officials told reporters amid the crisis this spring that the number was 35,000.)

The move to protect state workers was one of the more obvious signs – as if we needed one – of state leaders’ refusal to make their actions match their rhetoric.

Republicans hold solid majorities in both houses and run every statewide office in Kansas. Many of them won office by complaining about government spending too much money. On the campaign trail and in office, many of the state’s Republican lawmakers have stoc­­­­k responses to Kansas’ financial troubles:

• We don’t have an income problem, we have a spending problem.
• We need to get rid of the waste in government.
• Government needs to be like a business and operate more efficiently.

But I don’t kno­­­w of many businesses that would declare that every single employee on their payroll was essential.

Quite the opposite.

Most businesses would tell you that no employee was indispensable.

And many businesses and their employees would tell you that they are familiar with furloughs. They have been there, and they have done that.

Are furloughs painful to workers’ personal finances and family budgets?

Absolutely.

Do furloughs impinge on a company’s ability to get work done?

Undoubtedly.

Are unpaid leaves for employees a sharp kick in the ribs, morale wise?

Of course.

Are furloughs to be avoided at any and all costs?

Hardly.

Given the demeaning comments, the pay freezes, the program cuts and the insults that have been heaped on government workers by lawmakers over the past several years, I can’t imagine that too many of us think the state’s employees need to be taken down another notch or two.

So I have no problem with the end result of the Legislature’s action.

But all thinking Kansans should have a problem with a Legislature that weaves crazily from wanting to cut government so it can afford billion dollar tax cuts for favored constituents to one that declares – unanimously – that every worker in the state provides essential services that Kansas cannot do without for even a few days.

That’s just whack.

And don’t buy lawmakers’ arguments that they were just using the process to get a desired result.

The only reason furloughs loomed in Kansas’ future is because the governor and the Legislature have refused again and again to deal with the state’s very real fiscal problems.

They don’t want to cut spending, but they want to keep cutting taxes.

It is worth noting that the governor failed to put forth a plan that balanced the state’s budget. The plans he did put forth were, at best, partial answers that didn’t address fundamental flaws in the budget. Instead, Brownback’s short-term fixes filled bits of the money gap by borrowing or transferring funds, and making cuts to education.

That meant that all of the heavy lifting had to be done by the Legislature.

Members of the state House and Senate were supposed to be the bad guys who proposed raising taxes and cutting more services – so Brownback and his supporters could pretend to believe that their tax-cut math still worked.

Yes, the governor still insists: You can cut billions of dollars in taxes and get more tax dollars. (It’s just going to take more time.)

This altered state of reality is not something commonsense Kansans accept.

Declaring that all the state’s employees – the good, the bad, the dedicated, the lazy, the redundant, the innovative, the hard-working and the incompetent – are vital to the state’s efforts to provide essential services is just another fantasy cooked up to avoid reality.

It’s another piece of political fiction – the kind that allows the state’s political leaders to pretend to solve a problem of their own creation.

A native of Garden City, Julie Doll is a former journalist who has worked at newspapers in California, Indiana and New York, as well as across Kansas.