Bill Maher ain't no slave to the needle.

On the Real Time with Bill Maher finale, Bill took some time to tell us how vaccination is "a risky medical procedure" and how his childhood vaccines might have caused his horrible allergies; "Was it because I was vaccinated as an infant? I don't know." Ironically Maher, a devout atheist, might as well have said "Did God give me horrible allergies? I don't know.", because there is equal amounts of evidence to support either of these claims. Absolutely zero.

Guests Chris Matthews and Alec Baldwin weren't buying it either, and they take the opportunity to have a little fun with Maher:



I like Bill Maher a lot; he has a long history of sniffing out bullshit where ever it can be found on the cultural landscape, even when its spread by politically like minded people. Case in point, Maher angrily throwing a bunch of 9/11 truthers off his set a few years ago.

But this anti-vaccination stuff is nonsense. While some vaccinations can have side effects, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that they are perfectly safe, and there is a long history of unwarranted hysteria surrounding vaccination, which time and time again has been proven false. The most recent being Jennifer McCarthy's assertion that a measles vaccine gave her son autism, something that is scientifically impossible.

But Maher really goes beyond that, speculating that chemicals used widely in modern food production and chemicals we're exposed to in the environment over the course of our daily lives constitute an "aggregate toxicity", which is the real reason people get sick. Again, no evidence, this is just him spit balling here. And that's really too bad; I think Maher is letting his corporate paranoia get the best of him, and this whole issue hurts the credibility of an otherwise very rational thinker.

This stuff is more in the realm of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, except instead of the corporations out to get you, it's the government (surprise, surprise).