With growing tensions in the Middle East, terrorism, American reassessments of overseas adventures, economic issues at home, and so much more, the media has decided this week’s most pressing issue is vaccinations.

In 2008, Barack Obama declared the science of vaccinations inconclusive.

On Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Ernst said

“I’m not going stand up here and dispense medical advice,” Earnest said, according to the AP. “But I am going to suggest that the president’s view is that people should evaluate this for themselves, with a bias toward good science and toward the advice of our public health professionals, who are trained to offer us exactly this kind of advice.”

Chris Christie, the Republican Governor of New Jersey, echoed the White House Press Secretary’s position and the media promptly beat him up.

I did not know vaccinations were that controversial. I have friends who research vaccines to make sure the vaccines being given their children are not produced with an assist from aborted children, but otherwise I don’t know that I know anyone whose children are not vaccinated. Both of my children are vaccinated.

When I was little, moving to Dubai, I remember weekly trips to the Department of Public Health in Baton Rouge, LA to get rounds of shots for all sorts of stuff. Vaccinations save lives.

This is only a political issue because the press, having failed to paint the GOP as anti-women, wishes to now paint the GOP as anti-science. Before this month is out I suspect some reporter will ask Republican candidates if they believe in a global flood and a man named Noah (I do). They want to not just try to embarrass the GOP, but create a wedge issue from whole cloth.

The reality is most Americans get their vaccinations and their children get vaccinations. The reality is that some of the loudest voices against vaccinations are celebrities who lean to the left. In fact, the reality is that a growing number of upper income people have opted out of vaccinations and those people skew to the left.

But the media wants to make this about the GOP being anti-science. The whole issue is the media’s back door into further conversations about global warming.

But here’s the thing the media misses. The main reason there is a growing opt-out of vaccinations is because there is a growing distrust of government. People are convinced government screws everything up, including medicine. The real story is that the growing distrust of government is bipartisan, includes upper income Americans, and could potentially be fatal to many children.

The only cure for the distrust is to put government back into its proper spheres. But the media has no interest in telling that story.