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In Australia, Immunize Or Lose Benefits
An anonymous reader writes with news of a plan from the Australian government to cut down on the number of kids who aren't vaccinated. The new scheme will deny family tax benefits to parents whose children don't pass immunization checks. Quoting:
"The FTB supplement, worth $726 per child each year, will now only be paid once a child is fully immunized at these checks. Families are already required to have their child fully immunized to receive Child Care Benefit and the Child Care Rebate. Children will also be required for the first time to be vaccinated against meningococcal C, pneumococcal and chicken pox. Children will also be immunized against measles, mumps and rubella earlier, at 18 months instead of the current four years of age."
Rational social interest trumps irrational "self" interest, for once. The USA could learn a thing or two from Australia.
...considering that they have socialized medicine. To libertarians this probably looks like a communist nightmare, I'll admit that to me it only seems OK because I don't believe in the Right to Put Everyone In Danger By Being a Total Moron.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I don't think you understand how immunization is supposed to work.
Get all this crazy cruft out of the tax code and then the government can't use it as a lever/hammer against you.
You make sure the children who could get sick are forced into a living condition where they will get sick.
Yes they are a bunch of idiot parents who think these vaccines will hurt their child more then will help. But by cutting them off won't change their mind, while their logic is flawed their heart is in the right place, and a lot of parents who think these will hurt their children will just suffer with less, and probably putting their child at greater risk.
Why don't we just kill all the poor people. At least that way you not being hypocritical.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
you fail
Child Care Benefit ... Child Care Rebate
Bunch of parents voting themselves more bennies. Comes with strings. Obey your owners.
Vaccines may not cause autism, but the hygiene hypothesis remains a scientifically valid concern (so far as I know). This sounds like Australians are vaccinating children for everything they possibly can. Couple the heavy vaccination schedule with advances in food safety and constant household cleaning; these kids might have little besides flu and rhinovirus to train their immune systems, and that doesn't seem like a sustainable course.
People are going to learn to do what they are fucking told when the government fucking tells them.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I am confused as to why there is this fetish for forced immunization (other than the obvious benefit to the pharma making the immunization shots)? Surely evolution will take care of everything when the epidemic hits, if those shots are worthwhile?
In this specific case just look at Michele Bachmann's PUBLIC statement about how some woman told her that an immunization caused "mental retardation".
Belief that there is a problem with immunizations is not an economic class issue. Bachmann certainly isn't poor.
Actually, it's you who doesn't understand how evolution works... While it's currently antibiotics that are producing the most problems from superbugs, ultimately, anything we do to try to kill off diseases will only cause evolution to produce better bugs.
We are actively changing the fitness function for diseases to include "must be resistant to antibiotics, must be resistant to antivirals, must be able to infect even immunised people, etc", this will inevitably lead to bugs that fulfil these criteria... eventually.
What "government"? Are you even Australian?
At least here in Scandinavia, the government is not the enemy, it represents us and our shared interests. Many Americans seem to think their negative view is the "universal" truth. It is most certainly not.
On the other hand we allow individuals to choose what immunizations they want their children to get. It just happens that most people actually trust our government, universal health care system and science; the majority of people choose to get all immunizations offered.
We are actively changing the fitness function for diseases to include "must be resistant to antibiotics, must be resistant to antivirals, must be able to infect even immunised people, etc", this will inevitably lead to bugs that fulfil these criteria... eventually.
By this logic, we should be expecting bullet-proof cattle and thresher-proof wheat any day now, not to mention hook-resistant fish and armored potatoes...
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
That is all.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
which doesn't necessarily make them all that important. A virus/bacteria/etc that is resistant to all of those things but only gives you a runny nose for 2 days isn't really a big problem.
And of course we know that doing nothing killed people. A lot of them. For centuries. Or have we all forgotten that infant mortality rates used to be over 10%, and deaths by what are now preventable diseases killed millions at a young age?
Ok, so maybe we create diseases that are immune to whatever we're doing, that's why we keep doing drug research. It might be a cat and mouse game, but I prefer being on the side of people who have very fortunately lived through all of these things. And I'm sure so do you, even if you don't realize it.
I'm waiting for that super small pox virus to emerge. Any day now...
By this logic, we should be expecting bullet-proof cattle and thresher-proof wheat any day now, not to mention hook-resistant fish and armored potatoes...
Cattle, wheat and potatoes are selected for being easily harvestable, among other things. Fish, now, well that there could be the beginning of a very nice disaster movie plot! :D
sigs are hazardous to your health
that which puts me and my children in danger- not getting vaccinated, is not a natural freedom.
The problem with the definition of freedom, as defined by teenagers (not chronological teenagers, but psychological teenagers) is that it does not take into account how some "freedoms" naturally and automatically impinge on the freedoms of others.
For example: your freedom to play your music as loud as you want, my freedom to get a good night's sleep. Your freedom to consume nicotine, my freedom to breathe clean air when I walk down the sidewalk. You freedom to talk on your cellphone, my freedom to enjoy a movie. Etc.
If you claim as a right or freedom that which impinges on someone else's rights or freedoms, without even considering the possibility, you aren't selfish. You're just stupid: you don't know what freedom really is. To you, it is "let me do whatever I want without consideration of effects or consequences." That is "freedom" as defined by an ignorant teenager (again, not a chronological teenager, a psychological one, who could be of any age), and has absolutely nothing to do with the real fight for freedom in this world by real freedom fighters, who are often quoted by people who don't even know what freedom really is.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure... but evolution takes longer in species that reproduce at much lower rates and exist in much smaller numbers.
Sure, I'm not trying to assert that immunisation is a bad thing... just that we should also acknowledge that it's likely to lead to a prevalence of bugs that can get around said immunisation eventually.
Actually, there is only one rational outcome here. And the basis for that is in your previous statement.
Which means that in order for child A to avoid the vaccination "safely", someone must guarantee that children B - Z are vaccinated.
While it may be a correct mathematical statement reflecting the spread of infection, it is not a "rational" approach to immunization. If everyone followed that, then none of the children would be immunized. If 50% of the population followed that then the diseases would still be a problem. And so forth.
if you want the free benefits from society then you have to live up to expectations. It's your choice as to immunisation or not, but you are making a decision for your child, not for yourself, and so it is reasonable to want to protect your child from potentially fatal diseases, and teach them to swim, and to look before crossing the road. As many of these diseases can be passed on to others, it's also a community issue.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Aside –re bullet proof cattle and thresher proof wheat... actually... no... we may be killing individuals, but we are also enabling the survival of the species in doing so. We change the fitness function not to not like being killed by us, but instead to enjoy us carrying out intensive breeding programs/planting lots.
Remember – evolution cares not for individuals, only the mass.
If she didn't already go around foaming at the mouth, this would certainly light her off. I've got to check on Peter Bowditch [ratbags.com] more often; he's going to have a blast covering this.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
We are actively changing the fitness function for diseases to include "must be resistant to antibiotics, must be resistant to antivirals, must be able to infect even immunised people, etc", this will inevitably lead to bugs that fulfil these criteria... eventually.
By this logic, we should be expecting bullet-proof cattle and thresher-proof wheat any day now, not to mention hook-resistant fish and armored potatoes...
Domestic animals and plants have indeed changed a lot, but in the opposite direction you suggest. In theses cases, individuals that are more apt for human consumption reproduce *more* than their peers, not less, because they are selected for breeding by farmers. This is the reason, for example, we have fatter cows that grow faster, produce more milk and are more docile than their wild ancestors.
If millions of years of mammalian immune systems getting infected haven't done it yet, a few decades of a few billion humans reducing the number of pathogens which are exposed to them isn't going to.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Okay, Dr. Bob.
good idea. as long as disease carriers (not "tax paying humans" that is) are eradicated also. .. not a filthy pharmaceutical paradise?
the goal should be a healthy world, free of disease
So if you have enough money to not need government healthcare you have more freedoms then a poorer person? Makes great sense to me!
Infant mortality rates 2000 years ago were more like 70%.
Fish are being influenced by selective pressure from fishing... it's pushing them to spawn younger, grow faster and die sooner. Not much can be done evolutionwise to become net-resistant, so they are evolving to breed faster.
It's already happened.
As usual, the rich don't have to bother.
Except it doesn't. The only viruses that successfully 'get around' immunization are the ones that do it naturally(See Influenza), because that's the way they are, not as some defense mechanism.
We are seeing anti-biotic resistant bacteria because anti-biotics dont kill all the bacteria, some survive the treatment, and very occasionally then take hold elsewhere to become resistant strains.
We don't see this problem in our immunological response, because our white cells don't exactly leave bacteria and viruses half dead, or survivors for that matter. Once those antibodies attach, your done. No passing go, no collecting 200$, no passing on your genes so that the next generation can evolve to fight back. That white cell there is going to annihilate you.
It only cuts off benefits for not getting it. If you don't need the benefits, then you effectively are not required to get immunization.
The basic message is "Poor people need to be immunized, not rich people."
The existing system that the article refers to is flawed in reality, as people who don't believe in vaccination can still claim the allowance and benefits by citing discrimination. It's common enough that pre natal classes tell you how.
So this scheme will fail due to the same reason.
I read a book a while back. Can't remember the name. Survival of the sickest or something like that. The author had an interesting argument that as we decrease the ease at which diseases are transmitted the more evolutionary pressure there is for them to not kill the host or make the host extremely ill. The common cold was his example as it doesn't make you sick enough that you feel like you shouldn't go into work so it gets transmitted.
"Libertarians, who, let's face it, are either morons or sociopaths"
Right, because the government's will trumps any sort of idea that you can make choices for you or your children.
Seriously fuck you just because you claim anybody who disagrees with your viewpoint is a moron or a sociopath.
I won't call you names, but you're exactly the kind of person who should never be in charge of anything for any reason.
The root justification for all those family/children benefits is usually economic.
Population growth translates into GDP growth.
Tax benefits are doled out to encourage population growth.
I'm not saying it is good or bad.
Just saying that is usually the actual reason.
>So the next super bug will come from Australia?
Double negative on that. The previous super bugs will not be coming from Australia.
He was actually talking about 100 years ago, not 2000. In 1911, what could possibly still be called "modern times," the infant mortality rate was about 10%, and the maternal mortality rate was about 1% (Around 9 in 1000 births killed the mother).
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
By this logic, we should be expecting bullet-proof cattle and thresher-proof wheat any day now, not to mention hook-resistant fish and armored potatoes...
No... humans pick these things. Also, the turnover rate for breeding new cattle and wheat is astronomically longer than the turnover rate for bacteria. The simpler the organism, the faster the turnover rate, the faster it evolves.
What happens here is antiviral, antibiotic, or vaccination doesn't kill off 100% of the virus. Some cells tend to survive. If some of the cells are resistant to the 'cure', then the survivors tend to be those particular cells that live to continue manufacturing virions that are less susceptible to the vaccine.
You may not have a vaccine-resistant virus today, but vaccination creates selective pressures that tend to make ones that are vaccine-resistant survive and reproduce more.... resulting that in the future newer viruses that occur are more likely to resemble the more vaccine-resistant ones, and eventually, as the trend repeats with enough iterations, the resistance becomes stronger and stronger......
As for "bullet resistant cows" that can't happen, really, because farmers make sure to slaughter 100% of the cows they try to kill. If a bullet to the head or wherever they typically shoot, fails to kill it, they will use another bullet, etc.
In order to evolve that trait, there has to be enough diversity in the population that there are already some cows that are bullet-proof, or some percentage of the population subjected to the bullet has to survive....
The trout in my local river sure seem to have developed some hook resistance... Little bastards outsmart me every time...
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Assuming there are reasonable exceptions for people unable to receive vaccinations (allergies, immune system problems, etc.), this seems like an example for other countries to follow.
...poor old Australia - even yoghurt has a culture.
I couldn't believe when the immigration officer asked me if I had a criminal record when arriving in Sydney - I asked "why? Are they still required for entry to Australia?" - no sense of humour some people!
Thanks - I'll be here all weekend - remember to tip your waitress!
Demographically, at least in Sydney, the well-to-do types are less likely to immunise as they are more likely to believe in new agey fairy floss and the "evils" of vaccination. The people who are on benefits are actually more likely to immunise their children in the first place
"Society isn't going to pay and reward them to exercise that right."
You do realize that first the taxes are taken from the family, the only question is how much of THIER OWN MONEY the government decides to hand back...
At least that is my reading of "Tax Benefit". If the government is truly handing out other tax payers money instead, they should be able to place whatever onerous restrictions they like upon it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not necessarily. For example smallpox was completely eradicated through vaccination, and polio is well on it's way out.
First: You are mixing up bacteria and viruses. Bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics. Viruses do not, because they do not react to antibiotics in the first place.
Second: Evolution in biology does not work like in poorly researched science fiction. While you can throw any factor you want into a fitness function, there are limits on what can be replicated in a cell. The viral capsid has to consist of protein and be of a certain shape, and the immune system can be trained to recognize it.
Third: Even if it worked, you're running the small risk of the spontaneous appearance of a disease that could overcome vaccinations and infect everyone, as opposed to not vaccinating and definitely allowing ordinary diseases to infect everyone. Unlike the antibiotic, the vaccine is preventive, long-term and specific to a disease. The danger of antibiotic abuse (ie. irregular or uncompleted treatments, or regular small doses) is that it exposes bacteria just enough to allow resistance to evolve, rather than killing off the infection completely. Vaccination doesn't do that because the immune system will kill the infection before it can take hold.
Probably not the best place to look but from wikipedia:
"Archivides "Archie" Kalokerinos is an Australian physician. In 2000 he was awarded the title Greek Australian of the Century by the Melbourne-based Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos. He holds controversial opinions on a number of medical issues. He was a supporter of Linus Pauling's controversial theory that many diseases result from overproduction of free radicals and can accordingly be prevented or cured by Vitamin C; this led him to treat many conditions with high intravenous doses of vitamin C. He also believed that vaccination schemes have been used for deliberate genocide (among indigenous Australians, and in spreading HIV in Africa); and that the US government systematically planned to get rid of undesirables such as criminals by encouraging people with known heart problems to be vaccinated."
If that's the beast argument you can muster for not giving vaccinations then i feel sorry for you...
The problems are bigger than that. Theres no easy source of issue. For instance, we are overusing antibiotics. There is no quesiton there. But our bigger problems are with viral agents. And of course, prions. And good luck trying to explain to someone why Archaea are different from Bacteria. Theres also things people dont even realise theyre doing. Like, anti-bacterial hand gel. That is one of the worst ideas (at a consumer level) ever. Anything it doesnt kill is now immune to the damn gel and has no competition in its enviornment -- your skin. Have you been to a doctor in recent years? The last one i was at had "do not ask for antibiotics for your viral disease" posters. There are actually posters about this. Why a doctor cant just tell someone "no" is beyond me but... And we arent actively changing anything, I dont even know what you mean by that. When I got my (thankfully not antibiotic resistant) staph infection a year ago, no one told me it wasnt a big deal. But then, 40 skin ulcers (there were more; thats how many scars I have from them. not all formed scars.) in a 24 year old tends to be a big deal. So yes, these things will occur. And it will be bad. But will it be "300,000,000 dead in less than a century" bad, as is the case with smallpox? No. You know we have destroyed two viral agents thanks to our efforts. Thats two more than ever went away on their own...even if one is rinderpest. We either fight or die. And in a world with less than a days travel to anywhere on the globe, "Die" is easy.
We are actively changing the fitness function for diseases to include "must be resistant to antibiotics, must be resistant to antivirals, must be able to infect even immunised people, etc", this will inevitably lead to bugs that fulfil these criteria... eventually.
I'm no expert on immunology, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't follow. There could be several elements of an ecosystem that affect a virus or bacteria's survivability. When a vaccine culls the system of those vulnerable to element X, and the remaining population is immune to X, it could be that in gaining that resistance, it became newly vulnerable to Y, which is exploited on the next round of vaccines.
So while you could end up one day with a virus that is immune to (pretty much) everything, you could also indefinitely persist in a kind of whack-a-mole cycle where each new vaccine introduces a new resistance *and* a new vulnerability, either of which could have been present (as a resistance or vulnerability) in a previous iteration.
More formally, if there are ecosystem elements A through E and we denote a given disease as [resistances]/[immunities], the generations might go like this:
1) A/BCDE -> vaccine exploits E ... and so on.
2) AE/BCD -> vaccine exploits C
3) ACE/BD -> vaccine exploits B
4) BCE/AD -> vaccine exploits A
5) ABC/DE -> vaccine exploits D
6) BDC/AE
Someone correct me if I'm completely out of left field on this.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
"this will inevitably lead to bugs that fulfil these criteria... eventually."
Not necessarily. Other possibilities are that the pathogen will diversify so that it can take advantage of a different host (i.e. switch a different niche) or that it will simply go extinct. Extinction is always an option for any species -- probably a desirable one for some human pathogens.
That word - it does not mean what you think it means.
"Fascism" can hardly be present when someone is arguing to NOT force someone to do something.
You are arguing the case that people should be forced to do something "for their own and everyone else's good". Perhaps you are even right; fine, but at least admit to who is the fascist in this situation.
You can't have it both ways.
Fascism is and always will be at heart a progressive/liberal creature, since they are the ones at heart with the drive and desire to control what other people do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Poor people who rely on the money are effectively required to get immunizations for their children, while rich people have no real increased incentive to immunize their children.
I could look at the thinking behind this many different ways, and none of them are good.
No such thing as vaccine resistant. The vaccine actually attacks the body stimulating it to produce anti-bodies, you might argue that this produces anti-body resistant bacteria but that has always been the case, if a bacteria could attack faster than the body reacted it survived, also if the body could not produce effective anti-bodies the bacteria lived. This has been going on since bacteria attacked other living things, not just since humans were around. If the anti-body to bacteria battle could produce a super-germ we would have seen one by now.
Is that if you have a medical exception, or conscientious objector that needs a Dr to sign, you will still get your benefits.
From:
http://immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/faq-related-payments#immunised
"What exemptions will be available for the new immunisation conditions linked to the Family Tax Benefit Part A supplement?
While the Government considers that immunisation is an important health measure for children and families, existing exemptions will continue to be available.
A child may have a temporary or permanent exemption if a recognised immunisation provider determines that receiving the vaccine is medically contraindicated. A child may also receive an exemption from the immunisation requirements if a recognised immunisation provider indicates that the parent has a conscientious objection to immunising their child.
These exemptions will also continue for Child Care Benefit. "
They also do not mention any additional ingredients of these vaccines. But that is another story.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
What happens here is antiviral, antibiotic, or vaccination doesn't kill off 100% of the virus. Some cells tend to survive. If some of the cells are resistant to the 'cure', then the survivors tend to be those particular cells that live to continue manufacturing virions that are less susceptible to the vaccine.
You may not have a vaccine-resistant virus today, but vaccination creates selective pressures that tend to make ones that are vaccine-resistant survive and reproduce more.... resulting that in the future newer viruses that occur are more likely to resemble the more vaccine-resistant ones, and eventually, as the trend repeats with enough iterations, the resistance becomes stronger and stronger......
That is not how vaccines work. Vaccines don't kill anything. They train your body to recognize and respond effectively to the infection.
Some very basic info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
"up to 90% of the total decline in the death rate of children "
That's the death rate, not the infection rate.
Yes, other medical treatments vastly reduced the death rate from measles and whatnot.
Drugs to control fever and improvements in intensive care are credited with saving many lives.
Vaccines when they arrived vastly reduced the incidence of infection.
Unvaccinated people are healthier, have higher disease resistance , and recover more rapidly from illness.
Those "studies" that show unvaccinated children as way healthier than vaccinated children are not scientific studies, they are BS.
One of the anti-vaxxer groups did a farking survey on their website and compared the results to a german public health study. Then all the anti-vaxxers go around calling it proof that vaccines make you sick.
Poor reading comprehension and lack of critical thinking skills sadly still kills millions of people every year and vaccines have done *nothing* to stop this tragedy.
I live in France, where you can't get kids into kindergarten or school without vaccination certificates. And they cut child benefit too. The result is a very high vaccination rate, and that protects those who cannot be vaccinated such as very young children.
Virtually serving coffee
evolution cares not for individuals, only the mass
Is that why fat people are proliferating?
[EOS - End of Sarcasm]
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
there is always a definite percentage of vaccines that don't take. it is a game of statistics, you are protected by what is called herd immunity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
basically, when you choose not to get vaccinated, you are freeloading on herd immunity to protect you. problem is, if enough people do that, past a certain threshold, there is no more herd immunity, and people will get sick. including people who got properly immunized, since not all immunizations take
so depending upon the disease, because some low iq idiot parent didn't get their kids vaccinated, some other perfectly good girl or boy whose parents were completely responsible, will die anyways
chooosing not to get vaccinated is not a choice you can make in a vacuum of other people's rights and freedoms. your choice has an impact on others, and if you choose stupidly, you can kill other people. therefore, it si perfectl moral, logical, and 100% in line with a MATURE philosophical conception of freedom, to force people to get vaccinated. not getting vaccinated impinges on the rights and freedoms of others
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's wrong to force people to give up their money it taxes for whatever socialist health insurance/care system they are running there if they are then not allowed to use it.
My question: is there a 2 tier health care / insurance system in Australia? At least a 2 tier system is a step in the right direction from a single government dictated tier system.
Is it possible to opt out of other government programs there and can one reduce the taxes by opting out?
The idea is correct: people should have the option and not to be forced into anything like a vaccination, and then the system shouldn't be responsible for the people who opt out. But they shouldn't be forced to pay into that system either.
You can't handle the truth.
i support your demonization of rush limbaugh, but you have no right to piss on the national pride of the dominican republic, you who speak of "facts"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The Benito ways of the Australians are disgusting, but fascinating.
Vaccines are not antibiotics. However, both vaccines and antibiotics that are used properly eradicate diseases successfully, and those that aren't used properly breed resistant strains. The Australian government has the right mindset here.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Most pro-vaccine alarmists haven't read any of the excellent critiques out there. I have yet to meet a pro-vaccine person who really understands the debate. Most simply dismiss anything that doesn't confirm their biases. (And yes, the same is true with most anti-vaccine alarmists.)
Is ignorance really an issue? Nobody seems to care when ignorant people conform in their views. It's only when people don't conform that "ignorance" is suddenly a problem. Then the hysterical alarmist mantra begins... obviously appealing to our highest critical thinking centers.
Vaccinating is at least as dangerous as not vaccinating due to low disease rates, based on mainstream numbers. Check out the CDC's page on vaccination risks. Measles? Mumps? I have to vaccinate against that? I have to vaccinate against a disease that has only 2000 cases reported worldwide? I have to vaccinate a newborn against an STD? (Even my staunchly pro-vaccine doctor disagreed with that one!) Seriously people.
Having read most of these comments, I am frankly appalled. The arguments being given for government-mandated vaccinations are as bad or worse than the ones being given for any number of things we can all agree are bad (surveillance, secret databases, security checks). Either people do not realize, or do not care, that they are in fact trampling on personal rights just as badly as those they criticize.
That leads me to wonder what the difference is. Is it because vaccination is "science"? Science that every once in a while comes under attack by the extreme right? If that's the only reason these "social good" arguments are now valid, when they are in truth just as valid now as in every other case (ie, valid arguments, but do not outweigh personal liberty), it's frightening.
I'm not anti-vaccination, but I am getting there, if only because of the lengths people seem willing to go to advocate further government control regarding them and silence anyone who even seems to disagree. The posts in this discussion make me feel we really do not have many "free thinkers" here and that on the whole, they're just as susceptible to the same scare tactics and small-mindedness as the right.
Great Intellect...
In Austria where I live we have a similar system. In order to receive your money you have to go to the doctor and get a special card stamped. This ensures that all small children are checked out by a doctor frequently during their first few months of life.
Usually you would also get all the vaccinations during those visits. However as far as I know you would also get a stamp
If you went to the doctor and refused to get your child vaccinated or it didn't get vaccinated for some other reason.(eg beening allergic to the vaccine etc.) I think this way of doing it is much better, since it ensures that practically all children get vaccinated and also preserves your personal liberties. It is just stupid to require vaccination since this is completely inflexible. There are many cases where it might actually be in your child's interest not to get vaccinated. Sure vaccines are a great thing and usually prevent your child from getting sick, but your doctor should know better in your specific case it might be bad.
Don't like it - get fake immunization certs. They are asking for it!
You raise a good point actually.
Bacteria have to actually survive to pass on their genes.
I think the problem is that antibiotics, with their often one track chemical minds, don't do a thorough job.
But speaking of cattle, I bet spiking their feed with antibiotics doesn't help us humans much.
There are different factors to consider here - resistance to antibiotics and antivirals is indeed a big problem, especially since the genes can transfer horizontally between species. But a virus that mutates so as to not be recognizable to the current vaccine is not so much of a problem - we just make a new version of the vaccine. We do it all the time with the flu virus. Maybe a slowly mutating species turn into a quickly mutating species due to the evolutionary pressures of vaccines, but it seems unlikely, it would take a rather big genetic change, and there is no evidence of it happening yet (as far as I know) - unlike resistance to antibiotics which is well demonstrated.
anti-bacterial hand gel. That is one of the worst ideas (at a consumer level) ever. Anything it doesnt kill is now immune to the damn gel and has no competition in its enviornment
I'm presuming you are referring to triclosan containing soaps, not hand sanitizer gels. The latter typically contain 60-70% alcohol, and you're not going to be developing resistance to that.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Polio was well on its way out ... now it is on it's way back in due to conspiracy theories - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis#Eradication
Rational social interest trumps irrational "self" interest, for once.
Except in the case of the chicken pox vaccine which, unlike catching the disease, fails to confer lifelong immunity in all cases resulting in increasing evidence for a rise in the rate of shingles (which is far nastier than chicken pox) in adults for populations where the vaccine has been introduced. Given that the rate of complications from the disease in children is comparable to the rate of complications from the vaccine the primary argument for the vaccine has been that it saves money in terms of lost productivity due to child care. Sorry but while I am a big fan of vaccines in general saving money by vaccinating against a very mild childhood disease at the cost of an increased risk of a nasty adult disease is arguably not rational.
I understand penalising the child care benefit/rebate is for lower/middle class who use child care so they can work, also child care centres would be hotspots for virii. But why penalize FTB A, (calculated on total family income) and not ftb b (calculated on lowest householders income). From my understanding it would affect more families (which imho is a good thing).
One of the known mechanisms by which pathogenic bacteria get resistance to antibiotics is by horizontal gene transfer from our own gut flora. Gut flora becomes resistant to antibiotics because the levels in our gastrointestinal tract is lower than in our bloodstream. Viruses and bacteriophages (which infect bacteria) then transfer plasmids between different species.
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Correlation is not causation. Ever consider other factors may be partially or entirely involved lowering infections and/or deaths? That is, maybe more sanitary conditions or perhaps a virus running it's course?
I firmly believe in people having the individual freedom of choice, even if it may cause harm in the population at large.
I for one am glad about http://www.doh.wa.gov/cfh/immunize/schools/exemption-info.htm which says, "On May 10, 2011, Governor Gregoire signed a bill that requires a licensed health care provider to sign the Certificate of Exemption for a parent or guardian to exempt their child from school and child care immunization requirements. The signature verifies that the provider gave the parent or guardian information about the benefits and risks of immunization. A parent or guardian can also turn in a signed letter from a health care provider stating the same information." Bold added for emphasis.
People in India and other parts of Asia have been vaccinating themselves against smallpox for thousands of years. That's eons in virology. If biology worked like you think it does, there would be a mutant killer strain of unstoppable smallpox virus. Except there's not. It's actually been eradicated. Huh.
There are a number of things to say about this.. and I will note first that I am an Australian - and I have lived and worked in the USA, in Asia, in Europe (France and Switzerland) and travelled to many other countries.
Most of the western world see providing some kind of universal health care not as Communism - but as basic humanity AND as a requirement of Christian and / or liberal values. (That is Christians support it - left OR right wing - because its seen as the Christian thing to do - and the left to centre thinkers - non - christian - support it also so most countries have it - at some level - as they can afford. Its just the USA where its equated - to the rest of the worlds BEMUSEMENT - with communism)
In Australia we have a hybrid system - public healthcare - which is free and available to all (- well citizens and permanent residents etc) and is paid for by taxes and a levy. And a Private system - paid for by the individual.
Some things are better done in the private system - some are better done in the public. Its not perfect - and we struggle for money... but its not a bad system. On the world stage - it would be one of the better ones. Not the best - but definately in the top 20 - maybe the top 10 or higher again.
Its not communism - and in fact its good economics and its good christianity.
I have a fatal disease. Treatable. In the USA - most people with that disease Die. Because the HMO dont like to pay that money. (The USA stats are appalling actually)
Here - I was treated.... the disease is in remission - Im in the work force - Ive actually paid back in taxes the money the government spent on my.... plus more.... Plus i do volunteer work etc - Ive worked for the UN around the world - Ive become an asset to my society and others..
So and in fact - my family arent dealing with my death etc - so they are more productive - all up - a huge plus....
So my point is - the health system in aus - works really well.
The immunisation is is another example.
I remember the Polio epidemic. And I've seen the damage polio and measles can do.
We had virtually eradicated them in australia - and them so dingbat in the UK broke the ethical boundaries and lied - and issued a study linking autism to vaccination. so a number of parents stopped vaccinating. and so these diseases gained a foothold again. And so in the last few years Children have Died and been crippled and gone blind in Australia - where these diseases had been forgotten because their parents worried about a debunked study - which purported to show a LOWER risk of autism than the real risk of these diseases. And the parents were shocked because they didnt know about those diseases anymore... because everyone was vaccinated - we never saw them.
Unfortunately - the effect of that study lingers on... and parents are STILL not vaccinating (and then are desolate when their children die or are crippled for life or are blinded for life ) and that is why this change has come in....
Its critical that vaccination rates stay high....
and there are a small number of people that cant be vaccinated for medical reasons (they have allergic reactions)....
so to Keep them safe EVERYONE else must be vaccinated because they cant be. I cant go around storing Weapons grade plutonium unshielded in my backyard (in the city). Is it an infringement of my rights that I cant be a danger to others. In part - the reason for doing this is to not be a danger to others.
Also, as an adult - you can decide to be a nutter and just take homepathic remedies or just pray for healing - but as a child - the right of a parent to abuse the child needs to be limited. My parents used to starve me and have me exorcised of the demons of television. They now admit they were way wrong and believed in crazy
Plasmodium (malaria). Not a bacteria, but
Although the red blood cell surface adhesive proteins (called PfEMP1, for Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1) are exposed to the immune system, they do not serve as good immune targets, because of their extreme diversity; there are at least 60 variations of the protein within a single parasite and even more variants within whole parasite populations.[39] The parasite switches between a broad repertoire of PfEMP1 surface proteins, thus staying one step ahead of the pursuing immune system.
Unfortunately, it seems that this won't change anything. Parents will still easily be able to opt their children out of getting vaccinated, and still get the money.
There's a good article about it here:
http://thinkingisreal.blogspot.com/2011/11/govt-fail-win-for-anti-vax-lobby.html
proof of intelligence and a genuine mature understanding of freedom is deciding wisely when one freedom gives way to another. to choose freedom of religion, selfishly and idiotically, over the freedom to live, and for others to live, free from disease, is proof that you are morally and intellectually immature and have not given much thought to the nature of freedom or are unable to give much thought, period
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No such thing as vaccine resistant.
Yes there is - vaccines can be weak strains of a bug which provoke an immune response without causing the disease. If the original bug diverges enough from the weak strain used in the vaccine it could, in theory, become "vaccine resistant". Of course I would imagine that it has to diverge more than it would for a simple anti-biotic because your body can adapt (an expert would have to confirm this) but I don't see why divergence away from a vaccine strain would not occur.
You don't actually *have* to immunize for this rule. You can opt to go to your doctor and have them sign something saying you've fronted up and refused.
What you can't do is just 'forget' to do it and expect to recieve benifits.
I think that's fair, even to the loonies that are anti-immunization because it kills whales.
The smallpox part is true. And while polio should be gone it's eradication is being stopped in Nigeria because some idiotic fundies have decided it is a western plot to make people infertile.
Not sure about the current scheme, but previous immunisation schemes in Australia allowed you to submit an objection (on medical, religious, or any other grounds) and still get the Social Security / Tax benefits. Most people don't really care, but now that there is a financial incentive, the proportion of people fully immunised have gone from about 50% in the 90s to over 90% now. It is easier for these people to get their kids immunised than to write a letter. For anyone who has a real objection, or is just nutty, there is an alternative.
Not a failure of vaccines, but a failure due to ignorance and superstition.
As a child brought up as a Jehovahs witness (Not one any more) I had all my vaccines and never heard of any problem with them from the religion.
Once those antibodies attach, your done. No passing go, no collecting 200$, no passing on your genes so that the next generation can evolve to fight back.
Once they attach – the next generation evolves from the few that survive because the antibodies didn't attach ;)
No they don't.
Look, your immune system is keyed to murder every non-self thing in your body. It's why implants and organ transplants are so hard to do.
Infections depend on overwhelming the immune system - infecting enough cells that by the time the immune response is mounted (i.e. by the time an antibody which can attach to the pathogen is generated via our natural mechanism for permutating them) that there is an enormous number of virus or bacteria to deal with (i.e. you're sick). Usually, the immune system wins under these conditions (if it doesn't you die and game over).
Vaccination shortcuts the process - exposes the immune system to the pathogen so that the antibody type needed is already known and remembered (i.e. some base amount of it is always in your blood). When the first pathogen hits, an antibody finds it, binds to it, and the immune system almost immediately produces a huge amount of the exact right antibody - the infection never takes hold.
But that isn't all that happens: because the infection can't take hold, the infection never gets a chance to mutate from reproducing. And any mutations present are unlikely to be dramatic - that is to say, while surviving 1% longer might be the start of an evolutionary path way to resisting the antibodies (say, taking slightly longer to bind, or producing a weaker binding) - if that mutation never gets a chance to become an established infection then it simply doesn't matter - it's just as dead. And because the immune system is also permutating around the core motif, any minor variation is incredibly likely to be just as easily destroyed.
Most viruses and bacteria simply can't rapidly change their structure - there's a big energy cost to it, or it's too great an evolutionary gap to jump (i.e. there's no pathway which lets them have 100% resistance immediately - which means that, without becoming established infections, they might as well be completely non-resistant).
Well, I suppose you might, but the cost-tradeoff is usually an organism which can't survive any sort of competition, or possibly can't live outside that environment.
Most of the exotic extremephiles that live in hot vents or the like, when you put them in a normal environment actually do far worse because they're very bad at competing with species adapted for the purpose.
Or are you laughably admitting that 'vaccination' doesn't actually WORK?
It's almost like across an enormous population, individual variability might mean there's a set of people for whom vaccines do not work - in which case, the herd immunity protections from disease are their only defense.
Assume:
A vaccination prevents you from getting a disease that I may carry.
You bought a vaccination.
Prove :
Why you should care if I carry said disease in your presence or not?
Logic! Logic? Logic has no place where pharma's profits are concerned. "It's too big to fail."
It is common to see these types of responses every time vaccines are mentioned. I am hoping at least some of you on both sides of this argument will take some time and read up. This site is a bunch of doctors and researchers who evaluate medical interventions (not just vaccinations)
http://www.cochrane.org/
I spend countless hours reading there since I came across the site a few years ago. Not all vaccines work. Most of the "research" has serious design and methodology flaws. Having the government decide which vaccines you have to get is having the large corporations who make the vaccines decide. A huge conflict of interest.
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004879/vaccines-for-preventing-influenza-in-healthy-children
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD005187/influenza-vaccination-for-healthcare-workers-who-work-with-the-elderly
The biggest problem is the faulty assumption that all vaccines work. They do not. So once people find that out they assume that all the vaccines are worthless and throw the baby out with the bathwater. If the vaccine makers and medical establishment would quit refusing to address the concerns raised by serious researchers, on the influenza vaccine for instance, then they would have to answer why they pushed it so hard for so long.
Follow the money.
Cheers all and happy reading over the holidays
PS. Remember to take your vitamin D as it does work better than vaccination against the flu.
you seem to be completely ignoring the nonexistence of sanitation and underground sewage systems in the past, which lead to the spread of disease.
I don't think you understand how immunization is supposed to work.
the key here is "supposed to" work. When my daughter was pregnant they checked her for titers (immunity) she had none even though she had all the shots and boosters.
then we see newborns being innoculated when the medical texts say their immune function is not yet developed and the child relies on antibodies from the mother.
The idea of what innoculation is supposed to do is nifty but the practice seems inperfect,
We need a double blind study because in actuality you dont KNOW without it.
Freedom is not doing whatever you like, freedom is the absence of oppression.
If everyone understood that, and understood respect (for self and for others) then our world would be much less dysfunctional.
(In short: Yes, I agree with you.)
"annoy the target but don't annoy it enough to be considered a primary threat"?
aren't colds caused by a variety of similar viruses? so immunity to one doesn't protect you from the rest?
P.S.
I wouldn't go into work with a cold. infectiousness aside, I figure I wouldn't be clearheaded enough to focus on work.
half-effort sometimes isn't better than nothing at all.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Then the law would simply require everyone to be immunized.
That they take this backdoor route shows that either they don't think they could survive a challenge by the rich, or that they don't think their constitution would allow for a straightforward mandate.
Neither is good. The first shows they don't mind trampling the poor as long as they don't piss off the rich. The second shows they don't mind violating their constitution by backdoor means.
This is so much garbage. Evolution doesn't know what species are. Evolution cares for no-one. Evolution acts on genes eliminating those that find themselves in a bad situation and, on average, favouring those that in some way act to improve their own survival.
If an individual member of a species finds a way of dominating other members of that species, that individual will be favoured in the short term even if, in that way of domination involves destroying the species environment. Long term, the entire species may be wiped out (this is extremely common; "evolution" is not worried by this at all), or the other members of the species may evolve a way of countering that individual to ensure their own survival, but that is never a sure thing.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
We are actively changing the fitness function for diseases to include "must be resistant to antibiotics, must be resistant to antivirals, must be able to infect even immunised people, etc", this will inevitably lead to bugs that fulfil these criteria... eventually.
So where's smallpox now? Polio will hopefully be there some time soon too.
But you are right in some ways, if the immunisation is only mostly effective and not completely effective, you risk allowing evolution of the disease to happen... if we could immunise everyone against mealses we could wipe it out very quickly. If we only partially immunise then we give the disease long term exposure to immunised people (via non-immunised people) and every time that happens there is a small chance a small variation in the disease could develop into a new strain for which the current vaccination is not as effective.
Once they attach – the next generation evolves from the few that survive because the antibodies didn't attach ;)
The topic in this discussion is the influence of the Australian policy of ensuring that almost everyone is immunised. The main point here is that by not leaving islands of people who can harbour disease and allow it to evolve, there is a much lower chance that that disease gets the chance to evolve because it is not left over. In other words the Australian policy actually reduces the chance of immunization immune bugs evolving.
Look at the effect, for example, of smallpox vaccination. The smallpox virus is not in the wild. This means that, given that it is dead, it is not evolving.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20547-fishing-has-driven-evolution-of-smaller-alaskan-salmon.html
If the anti-body to bacteria battle could produce a super-germ we would have seen one by now.
Not necessarily. There is a certain probability of it happening. If the probability is small enough, it may take long enough before it happens on average, that as a result, it's not happened yet.
The bacteria/virus VS immune system battles have produced seriously powerful germs that defeat the immune system
Examples: Anthrax... the immune system is so impotent against it, that some countries have devised versions of it for use as a bio-weapon.
Examples: HIV, turns the immune system against itself....
The saving grace is although HIV is quite virulent, its limited infection vectors have damped the spread of the disease. If a virulent HIV strand were to mutate and add a bit of common cold DNA so it could spread more like TB, to gain the ability to spread over-the-air person to person, or as an arbovirus, borne by mosquitos, that could be a superbug.
So far the "super bugs" that have been seen either don't spread far because they kill so quickly they don't spread (Ebola), or they kill slowly but have limited infection vectors compared to highly-communicable disease so don't really spread widely enough to be a threat to human race's survival, HIV; however, matters can change.
There's really not a question if "Do these mutations arise," almost certainly they will eventually, unless 100% of virus can be eradicated. The question is a statistical one.... how likely will they arise in a certain amount of time, how many years or decades of intervening time can we expect before the superbug apocalypse?
Actually, the best infections are those that cause no symptoms. The bug/bacteria/virus gets in, replicates, and gets out with you and your cells being none the wiser. It is often the infections that cause extreme immune responses (e.g. haunta virus, SARS) that are deadly. The immune system goes haywire and ends up killing you.
Resistance to antibiotics is "easy" - just give the bacteria the chance and they will eventually evolve (that's why you need to be sure your using the right antibiotic and the right dosage to kill everything before selection screws you). Resistance to a properly immunized adpative immune system? Remember that what you're doing with a vaccine is showing your white blood cells an assortment of identifying molecules to select the clones that can recognize *any* part of any of those molecules. So unless the bacteria learn some way to hide all of those molecules, they're kind of done for (even Plasmodium, the parasite responsible for malaria, which is well known for hiding out in blood and liver cells to avoid detection, can be decimated by the immune system).
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I think national health benefits should be available only to those who do not smoke and whose weight is below the obese BMI threshold. Smoking and obesity by far are the number one causes of health problems and thus health costs. I am not saying smokers and obese cannot buy their own health insurance. The government should also ration every kind of sweetener. Call me a communist. Diabetes is a huge contributor to health costs and it's growing.
"The only criterion they don't meet is that they sell out to the wealthy capitalists too often, but if they continue to embrace the Tea Party, they'll end up meeting that criterion as well."
If you look up the actual classical definition of "fascism", you will find that this meets the definition very closely indeed. In fact, it probably fits even more closely than other items in your list. You see, fascism is the government working hand in glove with business. In fascism, government does nothing that business does not like. It doles out generous tax breaks and eliminates regulations.
"Not much can be done evolutionwise to become net-resistant,"
Actually there is! Fish can get smaller to swim through the gaps in the net.
They would get better reception if they raised taxes across the board, and then offered a tax break for families with immunized children. Exactly the same result, but it's phrased as a reward rather than a punishment.
Same scheme would work in other contexts too:
If Obama's health care plan gave people a tax break to people with health insurance, instead of fining people without it, then there would be no danger of a constitutional challenge.
Airlines are always aiming for the smallest list price, but given how people feel about them they could really take an alternative tack: include everything in the cost, but give discounts to people without checked luggage, people who sit in the cramped seats, people who are willing to board the plane last, etc. All of a sudden, you're the airline that is *giving* money away, instead of nickel-and-diming everybody, so that even if your prices are a little higher you will have built up goodwill.
Actually, bacteria ARE resistant to alcohol. It depends non-monotonically on concentration; pure alcohol can sort of cauterize the cell membrane, allowing the organism to survive. Solutions with water are much more deadly, but even optimal mixtures (I think ~75 - 90%) can take as long as ~15 minutes to sterilize completely (though most normal bacteria die in seconds). That said, it seems like strong alcohol solutions would be very effective in removing bacteria from surfaces, an effect which most studies don't separate from actually killing them. If microorganisms couldn't build at least some resistance to alcohol, we wouldn't have alcohol... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinfectant#Alcohols
.: Semper Absurda
In the event everyone else vaccinates their children, there's little to no chance of one unvaccinated child contracting the illness that the vaccine confers immunization against. On the other hand, historically, some vaccines carried real risks, which were nonetheless far preferable to, say, smallpox. In the case of potentially dangerous vaccines (ignoring for the moment whether or not such dangers are real), if widespread vaccination reduces the risk of disease to a certain threshold, it would at some point be optimal to refrain from vaccinating one's child. The important thing to notice is that while this may be optimal behavior for each concerned parent, it might result in higher risk of an epidemic.
The government's role is to enforce coordination so that no one cheats by refusing vaccination and everyone benefits from the reduced incidence of disease.
You anti-vax retard.
Go peddle your pseudoscience someplace else, dipshit.
Wow that was idiotic.
Surely you don't believe you can compare those? There is a mechanism for selection of stronger bacteria due to vaccination, there is not one for cattle being shot or wheat being cut.
Zomg, think of the children.
Your freedom to protect your children using any means necessary, my freedom to walk down the sidewalk without some zealot mother/father shooting me;
Your freedom to post on the internet, my freedom to not have my bandwidth stolen by invalid posts;
Your freedom to make invalid arguements, my freedom to not have my time wasted;
Your entire post is predicated on invalid arguements (think of the children) and invalid logic (your active freedom doesn't trump my passive freedom).
The persons who voted you insightful failed predicate logic.
...The latter typically contain 60-70% alcohol, and you're not going to be developing resistance to that.
I bloody well hope not!
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion
There would be no backdoor if:
1) the government were honest
2) it thought it could get away with it without the rich punishing those in power
3) it were constitutional
In other words, this is something the government knows it shouldn't be doing.