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Lack of Vaccination Sends Babies In Oregon To the Hospital
First time accepted submitter dmr001 writes "In its fortnightly Communicable Disease newsletter (PDF), Oregon Public Health officials note increasing cases of pertussis (whooping cough) in infants, with 146 hospitalizations noted in the 2 year period ending March 2011, and at least 4 deaths since 2003. Most cases are attributed to lack of vaccination, with 86% of those due to parents declining the vaccine. 'Most of our cases are occurring in under- or unvaccinated children, so getting these kids vaccinated seems to the most obvious approach to reducing illness. In principle... pertussis could be eradicated; but we have a long way to go.'"
but I don't want my kids to get Autism. So I will risk a deadly disease instead. /trolling
Today Vermont state will be voting today on taking away the philosophical exemption for vaccination.
You can show your support for this smart idea by contacting
Patti Komline (802) 867-4232,pkomline@leg.state.vt.us
Paul Poirier (802) 476-7870 paulpoirier33@gmail.com
There is a massive anti-vax push here, be sure to show your support if you live in Vermont.
Trolling is a art,
Anyone who's more willing to listen to a centerfold model/actress for medical advice deserves what they get.
I do feel bad for their children.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Right, because figuring out how to squirt his jizz into her snatch makes them better qualified than anyone else to make this decision.
I work in the NHS in the UK and it's amazing how some people don't want to get their kids vaccinated, solely because of the infamous Wakefield study and the subsequent media scare. I saddens me deeply to think that we could eradicate these diseases, but through ignorance and fear a minority of parents decline vaccination for their children. Children die of pertussis, children die of measles. These are achingly preventable, and no child ever asks for the disease. The parent is immune however.
I trust Government regulation based on scientific research more than other kids' parents' rumors, religion and pop culture when it comes to my kids health.
E pluribus unum
Parents are not give some magic ability to know science, or understand medicine.
Mom aren't magic and there gut feelings are wrong more then right. Fortunately on most matters there isn't an immediate effect.
That parents decision is killing children. When it comes to vaccines, I would welcome back the days where all the children got there shots at the school.
Don't confuse politicians with the agency doing the science.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The only people I trust less than qualified, vetted, officials is uneducated jackasses pretending to understand the world around them when really they are just ignorant twits. There is a mantra from conservatives "They think they know better than you!". Um, yep. I think the scientists and knowledgeable health professionals "know better" than the backward backwater assholes who raise their children as if it were the year 1512. Obviously that isn't a general rule -- bureaucrats make all sorts of boneheaded decisions -- but I basically reject the notion that only you can know what is best for you in all circumstances. No; no, no, no; often, others know what is best for you, and people should be open to that possibility.
If we lived in a perfect world, then parents would be rational, intelligent, and informed. Yes, we would all "rather" live in that world. But we don't, we live in a world full of hysterical ignoramuses. (Same basic argument against libertarianism.)
Public Health is a funny thing -- individual actions impact the health of our entire society.
The libertarian in me says that you should be able to make health decisions for your own [and kids] body, including unbelievably stupid things like declining vaccines. However, disease is hard to track -- if your action or negligence causes me physical injury, the libertarian philosophy suggests that you pay the bills. It's hard to employ that tactic for communicable disease. If it's very difficult to measure who is giving the disease to whom, how do we apply libertarian philosophy?
I'd remind you that
(a) this is by and large a state issue, not federal. You're blindly attacking the wrong people, and
(b) this is a generally a bureaucratic and technocratic issue, not a political issue. Public health experts recommend policies, not politicians seeking votes, and
(c) most government folks working for government are civil servants, not politicians. They're just interested in doing their job well, earning a fair wage, and leading a comfortable middle class lifestyle, just like nearly all of us. This idea that "they are sick (control freaks)" is really nonsensical and based on absolutely nothing but your bias. Are individuals troublesome in any organization? To be sure. But you're painting with a remarkably broad brush.
From where I sit, failing to vaccinate a child is reckless endangerment, and social services should get involved. It's easy and inexpensive to reduce your kid's chances of dying from whooping cough to almost zero. Vaccinations. In fact, I submit that since every adult was once a kid, we ought to just cover everybody's vaccinations at childhood 100% by medicare. No insurance, no co-pay, no out of pocket, for both poor and middle class and rich Americans. Hell, I'd include non-citizens too, since the public health costs to citizens can be very high whereas prevention is relatively cheap. Since most parents do this anyway, the net cost for individuals is a wash. Yeah, some old folks end up cross-subsidizing young people, but its a relatively small expense for a good and sustainable public policy.
If I'm going to have my kids near your kids, you damned well better have them vaccinated. If you're willing to keep them out of public, vaccinated events and areas (stadia, soccer leagues, public schools, the private school _I_ go to, public parks, my private club, etc.), then have at it.
Just as I don't want you to come into work with the flu, or shake my hand if you've got an open wound on your palm, please don't force your kids to infect the rest of the world with your 19th century diseases.
Did you know that after 50 years, we were almost rid of Polio? The International Rotary Foundation, and now with the help and massive warchest of the Bill Gates Foundation (to the historical combines tune of something like a Billion dollars) is trying to get rid of the last pockets of Polio on this planet. All it takes is one small village, mostly isolated from everyone, to keep this stuff around - destroying lives and families.
Please excuse me if I take this opportunity to say a hearty "FUCK YOU, GET YOUR GOD DAMNED KIDS VACCINATED" and quit perpetuating these diseases. This doesn't come from the government, it's from your next door neighbor, a parent who cares about his kids. Trust me.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
And he is a murderer. It was a fraud.
Being stupid is no defense, but preying on the stupid is something worse: it's evil.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For those that want to give the anti-vaccinators something to argue about, the summary title is misleading. From TFA:
"Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular-Pertussis vaccine (DTaP) is recommended for all children at 2, 4, 6 and 15–18 months of age, with a pre-school booster between 4 years of age and entry into kindergarten."
"Infants too young to have completed the primary vaccine series account for the lion’s share of pertussis-related complications, hospitalizations and deaths (at least four in Oregon since 2003). We reviewed data on infants hospitalized with pertussis during a two-year period from March 2009 through February 2011. One hundred forty-six infants with pertussis were reported during this time, and 62 (43%) of them were hospitalized for a median of 3 (range, 0–32) days. The median age at onset for hospitalized cases was 8 (range, 2–25) weeks."
So in other words, many children hospitalized for whooping cough were too young to have been fully vaccinated.
In principle... pertussis could be eradicated; but we have a long way to go.
Ummm .... no. Unlike measles or polio, pertussis is a bacterial disease. Bordatella Pertussis can live without humans. The only way to eradicate it is to sterilize all of its potential habitats (unlike viruses, bacteria don't need hosts per se) and clear the disease from any human carriers.
Ain't gonna happen.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
This far into a post about sickness in Oregon and there have been no comments about dysentery or loss of oxen ... thought it was just an odd day in the office, not on /. too.
but 14% had been vaccinated
No, what the article actually said was, that among the _completely unvaccinated_, the _reason_ for lack of vaccination in 86% of cases was parental refusal. That doesn't say that 14% were vaccinated: it says that in 14% of unvaccinated cases the lack of vaccination was _not_
assigned to parental refusal as the cause.
I'm afraid this is how numerical data gets mashed into garble.
After considering the other numerical data the authors of the report concluded that "declining the vaccine carries a whopping risk for pertussis" (p.2).
-wb-
There was a time when that was the mainstream belief.
The odd thing about the anti-vaccination movement is that nobody benefits from it. It's happening without eccentric billionaires funding doublethink tanks to push their economic interests.
Unless it's part of the general anti-science movement, which benefits people who owe their leadership to the ignorance of their followers.
So, two problems with that line of argument:
1. This IS a matter of public safety. Your choice to not vaccinate your kids can potentially increase my own risk of getting some disease. I might not be vaccinated against something due to an allergy, or other contraindication. Or, maybe I was vaccinated but I was one of those rare people that did not receive immunity from the vaccine. With vaccination there is safety in numbers, so these small corner cases don't have much impact as long as everybody else gets vaccinated.
2. I don't see the point in letting parents make a choice without punishing them, but then punishing them if that choice results in a bad outcome. If the risks that choice brings are unacceptable, then outlaw the choice, not the consequences. This is like telling people that they can drive drunk as long as nobody gets killed, or letting somebody off the hook for a botched assassination attempt because they missed their target.
Thanks for the link. It's pretty clear:
Pertussis (booster) vaccination is indeed recommended (by the CDC) for all adults in the United States, ages 21-65, and for adults over 65 if they have contact with small children (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/adult-schedule.htm#hcp). Recommendations are similar in Canada, and Australia, and, I imagine, elsewhere.
everyone seems to blame mccarthy for this madness, wrong
mccarthy is just an idiot, the loudest, dumbest soccer mom
but this whole madness was started by this evil asshole:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
being stupid is no defense. but this guy isn't stupid. his action is an intelligent calculated preying on the stupid
it was a calculated fraud. andrew wakefield is an evil mass murderer
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't vaccinate my kid. Not because I'm afraid of autism (as noted before, the autism link is flat out not there). But because the risks on either side are so minimal that I don't see the point.
.01%. The odds of having a major allergic reaction to the vaccine are about .008%. The odds of having brain swelling, fever that causes brain damage, or other severe outcomes is about 0.005%. And the odds of death are about 0.00005%. And even with the vaccine, the odds of her still contracting the disease are about 2%--with all the odds of the above multiplied by a factor of .02.
The odds of my kid being exposed to, say, pertussis are about 10%. The odds of her contracting the disease (ie the bacteria taking hold and causing symptoms) is about 0.5%. The odds of her having a serious case of the disease (involving hospitalization) is about 0.01%. The odds of her having any sort of permanent disability/harm are about 0.005%. And the odds of death are about 0.0001%.
In contrast, the odds of having a mild reaction (mild fever, cold/flu symptoms, localized swelling) to a pertussis vaccine are about 1%. The odds of having a major reaction (lengthy illness, actually getting pertussis, etc) are about
In short, the risk involved in either course of action is ridiculously small--similar odds with winning the Lotto. BUT getting the vaccine costs me money, time (a trip to the doctor), possible fear of the doctor (something I don't want her to be afraid of) and discomfort/pain to my child.
I've weighed the risks. I've done a cost/benefit analysis for both courses of action. And I (and my wife) choose not to vaccinate. And yes, we have done similar comparisons for each and every vaccine that is offered, from the Diptheria, Pertussis, Tetanus (DTaP) vaccine to the HPV vaccine to the Chicken Pox/Varicella vaccine. And none of them make a definitive case that vaccination is orders-of-magnitude better than non-vaccination.
I have not ruled out the possibility that I will reevaluate that cost/benefit and risk analysis at some later stage in her life (say, when she goes to pre-school) and come to a different conclusion.
So again, I ask, what in all these odds and risks and everything, makes me evil for not vaccinating my child?
People do benefit from it. Ex-Playboy models can sell books and go around talk shows. Discredited doctors can get grants from people desperate to find an autism cure. Alternative Medicine companies can sell sugar pills... I mean, Homeopathic remedies for diseases. There is money to be made here. Probably a lot more than to be made by selling vaccines.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Yes. For example a world-wide effort to eradicate polio is stymied by Islamic fundamentalists in Nigeria who spreading a rumor that the shots are really intended to sterilize male children.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15819797
Ignorance spread intentionally for political reasons has to be the most evil of all human activities.
Don't be a smartass; it doesn't help the conversation.
1) No one is more familiar and in a better position to understand a child than their parents. Parents spend huge amounts of time dealing with their child and learning their quirks, emotions, and knowing their history.
2) Parents expend vast, enormous amounts of resources raising their children, and are directly and massively affected by the decisions that affect their children.
3) Without a doubt and by orders of magnitude, parents are most invested and concerned about their children's well being. There is simply no comparison to the love and care a parent feels towards their children. If there are people who can be trusted to do their best for a child, it's their parents.
4) Parents are legally obligated to provide the resources necessary for a child until they are 18, and to deal with the results of that child.
5) Parents MAY not always be the most rational decision makers concerning their children, and MAY not be the most expert on the decision at hand.
The obvious conclusion from this information is that PARENTS, by large orders of magnitude, are the ones who should be making decisions for their children. They are the defacto most trusted, invested, and authoritative people capable of making the decisions. In my opinion, the government should only step in when it is clear that the parents are giving worse general and long term care than the alternative (IE foster homes, etc.). That line is very, very low.