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Measles Resurgent Due To Fear of Vaccination
florescent_beige writes "In the September Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Gregory Poland, M.D. writes that 'More than 150 cases of measles have been reported in the United States already this year and there have been similar outbreaks in Europe, a sign the disease is making an alarming comeback (abstract). The reappearance of the potentially deadly virus is the result of unfounded fears about a link between the measles shot and autism that have turned some parents against childhood vaccination.'"
This follows the recent release of a massive review of studies into the side effects of vaccination, summarized here by Nature, which did not find convincing support for the idea that MMR shots caused autism.
The MMR vaccine has not shown signs of causing neurological problems; but Measles, in the not-as-rare-as-one-might-like cases where it progresses to include Encephalitis, certainly has...
This year my wife mysteriously got measles (in Italy). She hadn't been vaccinated because when we were young the vaccine was not available. BUT our youngest child got it, too, because he was at the time younger than the age at which you get the shot.
I don't tell you the trouble of having a diagnosis, since the disease is so uncommon today, that after two visits, my wife finally diagnosed it herself on wikipedia (sic). And the trouble of telling all the authorities, which needed to find the lost protocols for such an infection.
To sum it up: the studies linking the shot with autism were done by an UK professor, who has been on trial for telling false results to help his own company.
When you don't get the shot and you are healthy, you're just selfishly exploiting the fact that most of "other people" will get the shot and you will be protected. BUT measles IS dangerous, and some people won't have your choice, because they are too young or too unhealthy to get that shot. They will risk severe damages by the disease, so PLEASE don't be a wimp and kindly get vaccinated.
so a load of people latch onto autism as a reason against vaccination, but its not the only concern. A lot of people are more concerned about lower-level negative immune system responses, such as increased allergy rates.
I'm so concerned about allergies that I'm willing to risk the death or serious illness of my child and many of the vulnerable children around him; I'm a fuckshit!!
Evolution is an adaptive mechanism, not some endless process churning out more and more advanced forms of life.
Kinda, it is. Evolution is the change over time of propagation of mutations.
Last year there was a study published on a 40 year old strain of bacteria. What they had found was for the first x years, as mutations occured they did so at a rather consistent rate, and the population 'evolved'. Some mutations propagated, some were out compeated, and so on just as we've come to expect.
But after that first number of years, there were no more changes to the environment, but the mutations continued at a very similar rate. What they found though was that at that point, with no other pressures on the population, that the % of the mutations that lead to improved survival/proginy dropped significantly. There were still lots of mutations, they just weren't leading to any further evolution.
The organizms had advanced to the point that most negative trait mutations did not effect them significantly enough to prevent their growth rate, and that positive trait mutations did not give them enough of an advantage to out-compete other organizms.
That isn't to say that some other mutation won't occur to greatly improve their survivability, or that introducing some new stimulus wouldn't lead to a new branch of evolution. But there is a point where evolutionary pressure deminishes while the mutation rate remains.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I don't see any mention of the Jenny McCarthy body count yet. It's a well sourced web-site on the topic.
That sounds terrible. You should try to get your local schools to require vaccination. In my area you must provide proof of vaccination in order to attend school. There are exemptions for health and religious reasons. The vast majority of children are vaccinated, even though there is a pretty large illegal immigrant population. I am grateful for the free immunization program for poor children regardless of immigration status.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Vaccine intolerance is real; side effects of administering a vaccine include death and severe allergic reaction. For the sake of argument, let's take all current scientific evidence we have and accept that vaccines never ever cause autism.
But consider that no blood tests are ever performed before vaccines are administered, to ensure the vaccine is going to be trouble free for the specific person receiving it. If one of the side effects of a vaccine includes death by allergy (as does happen), it's downright careless not to test all your subjects to see of they will tolerate the vaccine before actually vaccinating them. Instead, money is reserved to support the parents in case something goes wrong. As a parent, I'm sure that given the choice between monetary support or a healthy child, I'd choose the latter.
In my opinion, the lack of blood tests before vaccinating makes a pretty strong case for parents being suspicious of whatever is being administered to their children and rejecting it. Perfectly reasonable parents feel that the dangers of the "side effect" of a vaccine outweigh the risk of getting the disease that it's supposed to prevent; especially since we're talking about "just" the measles and not polio, smallpox or the black death. Given the choice between their child getting the measles or dying/becoming autistic, parents will take their chances and choose what is perceived by them as the lesser of two evils. Sure, it's not scientifically sound. But giving 100% of the population a vaccine which is known to be safe 99% of the time, yet failing to performing blood tests which might or might not protect the remaining 1%* obviously isn't good enough to ease the minds of parents with an autistic child.
Am I still sounding reasonable?
I'm the father of an autistic boy and feel that despite everything, I can't 100% rule out that the MMR had something to do with the onset of his autism (any more than I can rule out the opposite). A statement "The MMR vaccine is safe, probability>99.9%" is, in fact, not good enough. I'd love to get my daughter vaccinated against the measles, and mumps, and rubella, but I'm only being offered this in the form of an MMR cocktail. I'm willing to pay for any necessary blood tests and/or costs involved in getting her separate M, M, and R vaccines, but I'm not being given that option. What choice do I have left but not to vaccinate?
* projected autism rates.
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