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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
1. No vaccine is 100% effective. You can be immunized and still get sick. Less likely, and it's likely to be milder, but it could still be fatal.
2. Not being immunized raises the chance you will get sick, and expose those around you to the disease.
For many of these major diseases, if less than a certain percentage of the population gets immunized, the disease still runs fairly rampant through the population - including the immunized population. You need basically everybody to be immunized so that when the disease strikes one person, it doesn't have any convenient vectors to other people, and stays contained.
Besides, we have a certain hesitancy to allow survival of the fittest to take it's course where humans are concerned. Partly out of fellow-feeling, and partly because we've found that 'fittest' can have multiple meanings, and that someone who can barely talk and can't get out of their wheelchair can still give humanity as a whole great value in understanding the how the universe works. (Through their own work.)
'Sensible' is a curse word.
On this one the government should just take the kids from the parents.
Immunization doesn't take for everyone. Immunizations can't be used on everyone due to things like allergies. Immunization can wear off and become ineffective over time, or in between booster shots. When everyone is vaccinated according to schedule, you only have a small percentage of the population that is at risk to those diseases. Since there are only a couple percent that will become infected when exposed, the likelihood of the virus being passed between two of these people is very low. It is a condition called "herd immunity" that makes unchecked spread of the virus unlikely.
When people are willingly forgoing vaccinations, you aren't just putting yourself at risk, you are dropping the total percent of the population that is at risk. As that number drops further and further, the easier it is for the virus to spread into an outbreak. The more a virus spreads, the higher likelihood it will have a chance to mutate into a form the existing vaccine does not protect against. In other words, when they chose not to get vaccinated, they are putting all the rest of us at risk out of their own stupidity.
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,
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."
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
You right-wingers really do live in your own little reality, don't you... Fascism has and always will be a progressive/liberal creature? What fucking planet are you guys on?
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
Immunization does not work for everyone, and some immunizations get weaker with age. So it's important to immunize a large enough % of the population to achieve herd immunity.
Think of it this way:
a) There is a school where 99% of the kids are vaccinated. One of the non-immunized kids somehow contracts a disease the others are immunized against. He/she goes to class, likely does not come in contact with anyone at risk and gets symptomatic after a few days, stays at home and lives/dies, no1 really cares.
b) There is a school where just 50% of the kids have been vaccinated. That same one infected kid would infect most of her class, and those kids would go on to infect up to 50% of the school. With so many germs flying around, even some of those kids that were vaccinated would likely get sick, as well as many partens whose vaccinations have failed with time. Now all those people not just get sick but they all continue spreading the disease to the rest of the community. Pretty soon you have a pretty massive death toll, and people demonstrating about how the government failed them by not protecting them.
You see those flu vaccines, how they are good for a couple different strains, and there are tons of others they don't protect against? Viruses mutate, and do so very rapidly. Give them something to survive in, and eventually they will mutate into something that no longer resembles the vaccine sufficiently closely for the vaccine to be effective. At such time, a new one must be developed.
If you inoculate the entire population, or a sufficiently large percentage, you effectively eradicate the virus. If instead, you let those periodic outbreaks flush though the unvaccinated, your probability of a mutation continues to grow.
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
I agree! No government is going to tell me how to live. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go take a shit in my back yard. The tyranny of government mandated indoor plumbing stops here!!!!
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
Sounds like you need a visit from Lt. John Pike. He'll nip that nasty attitude you've got in the bud.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
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!
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...
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...
I'm not sure what your point is?
Those same taxes are also taken from families with no children, and with grown up children, and whose children have died due to not being immunized too....
Everyone pays taxes, that's how government is paid for. Deal with it. Your point is at most a distraction from any rational discussion.
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
Fascism is authoritative conservatism, always has been. You need to get a basic political education.
Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and '30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems. The leaders of the fascist governments of Italy (1922 – 43), Germany (1933 – 45), and Spain (1939 – 75) — Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Francisco Franco — were portrayed to their publics as embodiments of the strength and resolve necessary to rescue their nations from political and economic chaos. Japanese fascists (1936 – 45) fostered belief in the uniqueness of the Japanese spirit and taught subordination to the state and personal sacrifice. See also totalitarianism; neofascism.
--- Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
The only ones that will suggest to you that fascism is somehow progressive or liberal are those that have been brainwashed by the truly ignorant/stupid talk radio crowd.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Like not shit in the streets!
lol!!!!!!! you are too funny =0 =0 =0. Perhaps you should move to Somalia, where the government doesn't tell anybody what the fuck to do. If you have enough money, you can buy some guns, and shit on any street you want! Completely legit opportunity for you there.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
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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I have to vaccinate a newborn against an STD? (Even my staunchly pro-vaccine doctor disagreed with that one!) Seriously people.
If you're talking about hepatitis C, you should know that sexual transmission isn't the only vector by which it can spread. If you come in contact with the blood of an infected person (and yes, this *does* happen), you can also become infected. If you have an infected kindergarten teacher chopping up food who unknowingly cuts themselves, you can end up with a whole bunch of people infected. The same goes for used syringes, improperly sterilised equipment, etc.
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
1. And those "mainstream numbers" only remain relevant as long as vaccination rates remain high.
2. Measles is still a relevant disease. There were 164,000 measles deaths in 2008 and at least 10x that number of infections.
3. Which STD do you refer to? If it's HPV, that's not a infant vaccine, it's not given until age 9 or so.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The also don't get disability benefits if they aren't disabled. Oh the unfairness!
The don't get a pension if they are young or have to high an income or have too many assets. Oh the unfairness!
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
Some people can't get vaccinated, for some the vaccination might not work, and for some the vaccination wears off over the years.
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.
Medicare handles the certification. Medicare is a Federal Government agency. You want to fake a Federal Government document to get more from the Tax Office? Have a nice time in prison.
Those disease rates are so low because of vaccination. If everyone decides not to get their kids vaccinated, those numbers will go up to millions. So why not keep vaccinating kids for a few more generations, any maybe those diseases will be wiped out forever.
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
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.
The CDC certainly does not say that people should not vaccinate due to vaccination risks. The reason various disease rates are so low, is due to the successful use of widespread vaccination. The recent outbreaks of measles and mumps in various places around the world in where vaccination rates had fallen gives some indication why health care systems need to be watchful.
As for vaccinations against human papillomavirus, getting the vaccine before being exposed obviously makes it more widely effective. I suspect that infant vaccination programs are more successful than at later ages - one tends to take small kids to the doctor's more regularly than older kids. Guessing when the "average" kid is first going to be sexually active wouldn't be very useful, since you would end up missing a bunch of "early bloomers" - so you probably want to be early enough to catch at least 95% of the kids - but are there any non-sexual-contact vectors that are common? If the vaccine has no increased risk or decreased effectiveness when administered to an infant, why wouldn't you want to vaccinate the newborn? Just because the virus can be transmitted by that dirty word "sex"?
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.
OK - The process is that the documents in question are sent by a medical care provider to the Medicare Australia Department of Human services.
Anytime a human being is forced to something against his/her inner conviction/believe, steps against this force have be taken into account.
If the force is caused by a governmental law and steps against it are taken, the law may be broken.
In this Australian Childhood immunization campaign there seem to exists a procedure to get exempt and have no financial disadvantage (as previously posted):
http://www.medicareaustralia.gov.au/public/forms.jsp#N10009 :
Conscientious Objection form [PDF, 131Kb] – used to record a parent's personal, philosophical, religious or medical belief that immunisation should not occur. This form must be signed by a doctor or immunisation provider and sent to the Immunisation Register.
The sensationalist ABC report quoted and parts of it pasted in the original post lack that information.
Too many people don't understand how antibiotic resistance works: there's no problem with using antibiotics if you use them as a full-course and thoroughly eradicate an infection. However, since you can't always do this, every time we use them (and in the idiotic ways they've been used previously) what we've done is not wipe-out whole infections, but only kill off say, 99% of them, leaving a harbor of 1%.
The 1% that survive, then end up restarting the infection - but now, it's the 1% that were, for whatever reason ever so slightly more resistant to the antibiotic used then the entire population. They don't have to be completely resistant - just a little. But now, the next time you use the antibiotics it's just that little bit slower to kill off the population - and if you again leave a harbor, well, now you've just selected for even more resistance.
Vaccines are very different, because the immune system itself is designed to be able to vary it's response to target mutants. The immune system has a built in evolutionary system to permute through antibody combinations, so it's very good at wiping out not just the things it's seen, but any subtle variants it hasn't. Only a very few organisms can elude the immune system, and they do so by expressing a similar behavior - having a library of proteins they can rapidly shuffle.
The whole point of a vaccine is that since the immune system is initially primed to the disease, it wipes out most of it before an infection can be established, and natural immunity then quickly destroys variants. No resistance can be formed, because the organism never gets a chance to create off-spring with mutations before the immune system has annihilated it from the body.
Not a failure of vaccines, but a failure due to ignorance and superstition.
As a proud Australian, I think your entire post is unmitigated bullshit. No wonder your getting laid off-you are a moron!
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.
Not if the vaccination didn't take (there is no way to know until you GET sick). Sometimes the vaccine simply doesn't work for some people (I've seen estimates of only between 90% to 95% work).
This has been bugging me...
Did we all forget the social contract? Your rights end where mine begin. If your right to parent your child however you want interferes with my ability to keep my kid safe, your rights are forfeit, especially when your argument for potentially harming my child has no credible authority (empirical, logical, or otherwise). You don't have the right to risk my children's health, or anyone else's. Rights are different than egotism, but many people in America have forgotten this. Rights has become a codeword for "I want this, screw everyone else, and screw the consequences".
This is one reason why I have a hard time taking 90% of (capital "L") Libertarians, and Republicans seriously anymore. They blather on about their rights, but completely forget about their responsibilities, and the rights of others. Well that and the fact that anyone who claims to know the the truth 100%, and is willing enough to force it on others is automatically suspect, especially when it manages to coincide with some proper-noun dogma. Yes, many of the left are guilty of this too, but it seems the right is much louder, and much more wanting to inflict their dogmas on others.
Don't take this as an attack, it isn't quite aimed at you. This whole conversation reminds me of this point.
Furthermore, according to TFA and TFS (summary), you can opt out, but you must also opt out of some benefits. This doesn't mean force, this just incentivizes making the correct decision, no problem with that. If you don't want to do it, fine. You also have the right to nor work, but don't expect a paycheck, is anyone bitching about this?
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
From wikipedia:
More than 2 billion people have been infected with the hepatitis B virus, and this includes 350 million chronic carriers of the virus.
Do your own reading.
So let me get this straight, a disease that has infected 2/7th's of the ENTIRE world population, which has millions of chronic carriers, who's acute form can result in death and - oh yeah - the chronic form can give you liver cancer which is pretty much untreatable.
Oh - it gets better. The disease is far worse in children. Young children only clear the virus at 30%, compared to 95% of higher for adults. Newborns - 5%. That means if your newborn gets Hep B, they have a 19/20 chance of becoming a chronic carrier, with a 40% lifetime risk of then getting liver cancer (and dying of it).
But no, you continue spouting off your ignorant opinion, in a world where 5 minutes of Google could have properly informed you.
I hope to fucking christ you don't have children - for their sake.
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.
I also now realise it is impossible to get fake immunisation certificates. Since you don't show the Tax Office the proof of immunisation, Medicare does and the Tax Office talk directly to each other. The only way around it is the Conscientious Objection Form.
you seem to be completely ignoring the nonexistence of sanitation and underground sewage systems in the past, which lead to the spread of disease.
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.
I'm an Australian - I don't believe that isn't how it works - it is a confusing name. It is called the "family tax benefit" and it is a tax reduction, but I believe you get the payments even if your income is zero, and you probably get it (or a reduced amount) even if you are living off government benefits (welfare). The family tax benefit is available in the form of cash payments to families every fortnight, or families can choose to take it as a lump sum each year too. There are different parts to it - Part A, B and C - and you get part/all depending on your family circumstances - if you earn too much you don't get it at all, if you have a disabled child you get extra, etc.
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.
Influenza is a bad example because it has multiple non-human hosts (pigs, birds, maybe others?)... wild birds would be particularly difficult to immunise, and even trying to immunise enough wild pigs to make a difference would be pretty tricky. It's a pretty clever virus :)
But for anything that only survives because a small number of humans refuse to vaccinate, I think you are right.
Because vaccination isn't 100% effective, there are some people for whom vaccination won't help (e.g. people with certain diseases and illnesses that leave them with a compromised immune system), and there is such thing as Herd Immunity
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();
To elaborate a little more...
The risk of a young child getting infected with hepatitis B in Canada, in low risk circumstances (ie: average middle class, non-infected parents) is *extremely* low. (In my particular case the risk is even lower). The risk of adverse reactions from the hepatitis B vaccine is (comparatively) much higher.
My own doctor (prestigious and staunchly PRO immunization) agrees that the infant hep B immunization is not necessary in most cases. If you took the time to look into this topic a little deeper, you'd know this to be true.
And all of those things are only true because the vast majority of people are vaccinated against Hep B.
When do you plan to give your children the Hep B vaccine? Ever?
How about you stop vaguely fearmongering about vaccination and cite your statistical sources that brought you to these conclusions. You trotted off a list of things you felt were a waste of time to vaccinate against - measles - as in, the disease which is spread through aerosol contact and is highly contagious? And kills 3 in every 1000 people who get it, and frequently has complications? Mumps? Another highly contagious disease spread through aerosols that causes pain and suffering to children? Rubella? A highly contagious disease, spread through aerosols, skin contact - well pretty much everything really, that can cause pregnant women's children to be born with a range of serious, incurable conditions?
So go on, tell us about the serious side-effects you think vaccination might have that justifies putting your children and others at risk of these diseases. Vaccination doesn't work everyone, herd immunity is vital, and most of these diseases are not the kind which one simply eradicates like polio (which amazing, is resurgent yet again).
Big Pharma is not really part of the vaccine debate for the very simple reason that there very little money in vaccine. At the last conference i was at, there generic aspirin brand made more that 5x what there vaccine department made. Hence there is not much direct money from pharama coming in either. It is mostly government grants.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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.
It seems that replying anonymously also undoes moderation. I guess that we have to log out to reply anonymously, while keeping the moderation in effect.
testing out my trending skills
"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.
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.
Eh? "Liberal"? " The drive and desire to control what other people do"? That word - it does not mean what you think it means.
Liberals do not want to control who you can or cannot marry
Liberals do not want to control what you can do with your own body
Liberals do not want to control the books your children's school library carries
Liberals do not want to control your religious beliefs
From dictionary.com:
liberal
liberal pronunciation[lib-er-uhl, lib-ruhl]
adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
Yep, all about control.
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
...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
In my opinion, vaccinating is at least as risky as not vaccinating, based on mainstream sources. (I'm not going to get into the herd immunity discussion). The fact that vaccines can have serious side effects is not disputed by anyone. I wasn't vague at all; I cited a the Canadian public health website and the CDC website. Take a look for yourself. I'll reprint my post below which uses measles as the example.
"Between 2002 and 2010, a total of 327 confirmed cases of measles were reported in Canada".
That's 327 cases in 8 years. "1 of every 1,000 reported cases" have serious complications, 1 in 3000 resulting in death. Canada's population is about 34 million.
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/vpd-mev/measles-eng.php
And the risks of vaccines, according to the CDC website:
Yes, it's almost like widespread vaccination programs mean the disease is not epidemic.
From the CDC:
Before measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, an average of 400,000 measles cases were reported each year in the United States (8). However, because virtually all children acquired measles, the number of cases probably approached 3.5 million per year (i.e., an entire birth cohort).
Moderate Problems
Seizure (jerking or staring) caused by fever (about 1 out of 3,000 doses)
Temporary pain and stiffness in the joints, mostly in teenage or adult women (up to 1 out of 4)
Temporary low platelet count, which can cause a bleeding disorder (about 1 out of 30,000 doses)
Wow, it's almost like these risks are utterly minor compared to you know - death due to complications from getting measles.
Severe Problems (Very Rare)
Serious allergic reaction (less than 1 out of a million doses)
Several other severe problems have been known to occur after a child gets MMR vaccine. But this happens so rarely, experts cannot be sure whether they are caused by the vaccine or not. These include:
Deafness
Long-term seizures, coma, or lowered consciousness
Permanent brain damage
And all of these are so rare, no one's even sure if it's the vaccine that causes it!
You don't want to get into the herd immunity discussion, yet the only reason you can get away with not vaccinating is because of herd immunity.
And all of these are so rare, no one's even sure if it's the vaccine that causes it!
The serious allergic reaction is unequivocally linked to the vaccine.
No it isn't. Your post on the matter states it isn't. The scientific community is definitely unsure of it. You have posted nor cited no evidence that this is the case.
As far as herd immunity goes, that is another discussion, but note what I wrote in my very first post: "Vaccinating is at least as dangerous as not vaccinating due to low disease rates..."
So far we've only talked about non-controversial data. It gets even more interesting once you allow for doubt and start seriously investigating the more controversial claims (which I did when I had kids). It's not always as clear cut as you might think. (Ideally you would seek out the most intelligent discussions rather than satisfying yourself with Jenny McCarthy!) But that's another discussion as well.
J
You mean like peer-reviewed research with solid statistical and data collection methodology? Of the type which has found no evidence that vaccines are linked to your vaguely alluded to "serious complications" and can find no causative agent which could conceivably be linked to such?
You know we don't give polio vaccines anymore, nor smallpox, because both those diseases are effectively eradicated in the western world. Of the diseases we do vaccinate against, most either have natural harbors in the environment, or are highly contagious, or both - and have not been eliminated.
And will not be eliminated while idiots like you continue to push your unscientific, reactionary bullshit. I find it interesting that since there's so much clear evidence, you haven't bothered linking to any of it at all, and yet are apparently completely unfamiliar with the basics of the diseases you think its "just ridiculous" to vaccinate against.
But no, I'm sure we should trust unsubstantiated claims about the dangers of vaccines over the statistically proven effectiveness of them in preventing disease. I'm sure your kids will think you made the right decision if they contract Hepatitis B and get to worry about liver cancer decades later.