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Chicken Vaccines Combine To Produce Deadly Virus
stoilis sends this quote from an article at Science:
"Vaccines aren't supposed to cause disease. But that appears to be what's happening on Australian farms. Scientists have found that two virus strains used to vaccinate chickens there may have recombined to form a virus that is sickening and killing the animals 'This shows that recombination of such strains can happen and people need to think about it,' says Glenn Browning, a veterinary microbiologist at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, in Australia and one of the co-authors on the paper."
How glorious it is to be chicken!
To hatch from an egg; To grow feathers!
To scratch the ground with my claws and beak!
To cluck!
Soon the gods themselves will consume my juicy flesh, and they shall exclaim:
"Behold, this chicken is good!"
As in most complex issues the truth is somewhere in the middle. The "anti vaccine" fanatics who are rabidly against all vaccines are probably wrong. So are people like you who are pro vaccine to the point of being blind to the risks.
Injecting vaccines, usually involving complex genetic material, preservatives, etc. in to people who are also composed of complex genetic material, is a not a no risk endeavor. Most of the time the benefits out weigh the risk, BUT. . . the more careless and cavalier the vaccines makers and advocates are the higher the risks become. Especially beware of vaccine makers who have a financial interest in everyone being injected with their vaccine.
When the pro vaccine crowd become completely blind to the risks and start pushing every vaccine under the sun to everyone for everything its just begging for trouble. Vaccines should be used appropriately to deal with real risks. If the risks of the vaccine outweigh or approach the risk of the pathogen, or the risks of exposure to the pathogen are very low, you pro vaccine bigots can do as much harm or even more than the anti vaccine fanatics. Performing science experiments on millions of people isn't a particularly great idea unless you need to deal with a real risk, and have a well understood solution.
@de_machina
The problem with your position is the fact that vaccines don't work unless a large percentage of the population is vaccinated.
Look what has happened in Nigeria with the effort to eliminate polio.
Cumulative decisions to not vaccinate have significant consequences to the rest of the population.
It is very unlike abortion.
Yet another person who doesn't understand how vaccines work.
If everyone takes a vaccine, it doesn't need to make them all completely immune to the disease.
All it needs to do is increase resistance enough that each person, on average, infects less than one other person. At/after this point the number of people with the disease will decrease until noone has to worry about it anymore.
I'm a parent. My kids happen to be old enough to have gotten some vaccinations (and are up to date on them), however at one point they weren't old enough to get them yet. Why do I care if someone doesn't get vaccinated? Because if enough people don't get vaccinated, herd immunity breaks down and babies (who aren't old enough to get the vaccinations), the elderly and those who can't get vaccinated for valid medical reasons (e.g. allergies) will get sick. If it was just a matter of only the unvaccinated getting sick, I'd agree with you and would argue for vaccines to be voluntary. However, since people's choices not to vaccinate can lead to the death of other people, I think it is well within the rights of the government to require them for all people (except for those with valid medical reasons).
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.