Congressional Committee Casts a Harsh Eye On Vaccination Science

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Congressional Committee Casts a Harsh Eye On Vaccination Science

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 4, 2012 @05:42AM from the are-you-or-have-you-ever-been dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "A recent hearing of the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform became a bully pulpit for antivaccination rhetoric when Representatives Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Oh.) made speeches connecting vaccines to autism — a connection that medical experts have shown does not exist. Although there were actual medical researchers there as witnesses, they were mostly berated by the Congressmen on the panel. Vaccines are one of the most successful medical advancements in human history, having saved hundreds of millions of lives, and after copious studies have been shown to have no connection with autism. Despite this, a vocal antivax lobby exists, including, clearly, members of Congress. In part this is why preventable and potentially fatal diseases like pertussis and measles are once again on the rise."

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Congress Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-04 05:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Enough said...
1. Re:Congress Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-04 05:55 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  No, instead we get people denied life-saving treatments because the insurance company bean counters refuses to pay for it and people going in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars since the other choice is death.
2. Re:Congress Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-04 06:14 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yes, when the system is not deliberately setup to fail by one party's ideological motivations. People in pretty much all other first-world countries with single-payer system do not have to chose between death and crushing debt from medical bills.
3. Re:Congress Sucks by Desler · 2012-12-04 06:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Nope. Contrary to what the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys would have you believe almost no one in other first-world countries would trade their health care system for that of the US. And, yes, this is even with the errors that happen.
4. Re:Congress Sucks by AK+Marc · 2012-12-04 06:52 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  We already have death panels. The difference is that under the "old" system, your death panel makes more money the more people they kill. But the people that are (indirectly) paid to kill you are ok because it's "private."
  
  Or are you asserting that there aren't thousands of dead people who were denied treatment (usually with the excuse it was "experimental") by their private insurance?
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
5. Re:Congress Sucks by Bengie · 2012-12-04 07:14 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The NHS example is just another extreme, which is effectively a strawman for the universal healthcare as an idea. NHS is just a poorly implemented version.
  I was in the ER recently and while waiting around, I got to talk to a nurse who told me that most of the people they see in the ER are just people who could not afford their regular check-up, so they just come to the ER claiming to have a problem.
  
  The hospital is ethically and legally obliged to take them in and run tests, which cost A LOT more than a regular check-up. Because the price is too high for the patient, the hospital just soaks the loss and raises the prices for everyone else who does have insurance, which causes insurance rates to go up, which causes more people to lose insurance, which causes more people to come into the ER instead of getting regular check ups.
  
  Do you see the problem? It's a positive feedback system that reduces efficiency and increases costs.
6. Re:Congress Sucks by Trepidity · 2012-12-04 07:15 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Yeah, I typically have to wait in the US to see a doctor for anything non-emergency. And definitely to see a specialist.
  I guess there might be some super-premium service where you pay tons of cash out of pocket and get concierge-like service. But if you're a normal person with a normal health plan from your employer, you play by their rules to get scheduled.
  
  --
  10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
7. Re:Congress Sucks by cptdondo · 2012-12-04 07:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  And that's not rationing? If you have money, you can get it. If you don't, die. That's pretty severe rationing in my book.
8. Re:Congress Sucks by Just+Some+Guy · 2012-12-04 07:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  We already have death panels. The difference is that under the "old" system, your death panel makes more money the more people they kill. But the people that are (indirectly) paid to kill you are ok because it's "private."
  Maybe it's a good idea to take out a life insurance policy with the same insurer. "Oh, $100,000 is too much for a new lung? OK. That works out to $735,000 for my widow."
  
  --
  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
9. Re:Congress Sucks by interkin3tic · 2012-12-04 07:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Who modded this troll? Honestly, it's hard not to go into hyperbole when talking about anti-vaxers. They're killing children. Literally, albeit less directly than slitting their throats. And these people have ears on congress. It's not enough that congress protects banks above the national interest, protects industry's ability to pollute over the interests of it's citizens and the rest of the world, and erodes our rights to make people think they're doing something to stop terrorists... NOW you have these people spreading lies about an invention that does nothing but save lives?
  
  What about that doesn't suck? If there's a better example of congress sucking than this, what is it? The patriot act's passage? At least there were two sides in that debate. With anti-vaxers, they've got nothing. Papers which were proven bad, gut feelings, and a lot of movie stars vomiting into the media. That's all there is. Compared to this, the patriot act is a shining beacon of logic from our legislature.
10. Re:Congress Sucks by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-12-04 07:49 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Is Germany going broke? What about Finland, Sweden, Norway? Canada, Australia, NZ?
  Countries that are broke are not broke because they have public healthcare. They're broke because they didn't balance their books. You can do that with overspending on healthcare, but you can also do that with e.g. overspending on military while fighting pointless wars all over the world *cough*.
11. Re:Congress Sucks by ilsaloving · 2012-12-04 09:09 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Cite sources? Look north for pete's sake. As a Canadian, you will take my socialized medicine from my cold dead hands.
  It's not perfect, but at least I don't have to worry about being bankrupted by the cost of cancer treatments because insurance wouldn't cover it, saying that that wart I had when I was 5 constituted a 'pre-existing condition'.
  Honestly, the entire *world* looks at America as a fantastic example of how NOT to run a national health care system.
12. Re:Congress Sucks by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2012-12-04 09:41 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  My mother-in-law was begging her insurance company for 19 months to get the MRI her doctor authorized, as her hip painfully disintegrated. The insurance knew better than the doctor -- hey, surely another round of painkillers will be good enough.
  When the insurance company finally relented, I think it only took a few weeks to get that MRI. So under the statistics about the awesome American health care system, her "wait" was ~14 days. Yet from her doctor's POV, her actual wait was, oh, 570 days. If only she were in the crappy land of Canada, her wait would have been, oh, 400 or 500 days less.
  Lo and behold, her MRI showed such a dangerously disintegrated hip that she was ordered bed ridden until she could have an emergency hip replacement.
  But WE do not ration in the USA. Oh, no, no, no, not evil socialist rationing. We just worship at the altar of the Free Market (and pretend that rationing is not rationing, even to the point of lying to ourselves.)
Hey! Now we know by phantomfive · 2012-12-04 05:45 · Score: 5, Funny

Pundits have been asking how we can overcome the deadlock in congress, and finally get things done.

Now we know. There is full bipartisanship on stupidity.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
1. Re:Hey! Now we know by Lurker2288 · 2012-12-04 06:49 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  You're a little off. It is possible to be vaccinated but not immunized--the vaccines aren't perfect, after all, so maybe you got the shot but you're still susceptible to infection if you're exposed. Herd immunity protects you by decreasing the odds that you'll be exposed. The same goes for people who are vaccinated, but who are immunodeficient for some reason--even though their immune systems might recognize the pathogen it may not be able to mount a robust response. So it's not just the people who aren't vaccinated who benefit.
Understanding Burton by kadams54 · 2012-12-04 05:52 · Score: 5, Informative

This is mostly a side note, but I grew up in Dan Burton's district. He has a grandson with autism and has made the anti-vaccination a personal cause. That's not to excuse his ignorance, but rather to help provide understanding. Powerful emotions are at work here, which is why confronting them with rational logic will not work. To be honest, I wish his constituents would vote him out of office; his district includes a number of employees at the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (headquartered in Indy) and his anti-vaccination stance puts him at odds with their best interests.
1. Re:Understanding Burton by T.E.D. · 2012-12-04 07:50 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Burton actually is retiring at the end of this session (this month). Kusinich lost his election, so he's leaving too.
  Basically this is just a bunch of tinfoil hat screeching from a couple of loonies who no longer have to tone down the crazy because they know they won't have to face the voters again.
this is an old, old, story by crgrace · 2012-12-04 05:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Anti-vaccination rhetoric is nothing new... in fact at the turn of the 20th century there were huge struggles regarding the smallpox vaccine. It's a fascinating instance of the struggle between liberty and social responsibility and the rights and the responsibilties of the individual with respect to the state.
There's an amazing book about the early-20th-century smallpox vaccination campaigns and the associated anti-vaccination campaign called Pox: An American History.
I can't recommend it enough. Says so much about the United States and how people's opinions have change (and how for some, they haven't!).
Anyway, here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Pox-American-History-Penguin-Life/dp/1594202869
1. Re:this is an old, old, story by T.E.D. · 2012-12-04 07:55 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Actually, no. Both of those men will be out of office next month. "We" chose others to represent us. Both are being replaced by women, as a matter of fact.
  So essentially this is a couple of stupid people on the street, minus about 3 weeks.
Re:Hasn't this been solved? by MightyMartian · 2012-12-04 06:00 · Score: 5, Informative

More than debunked, Andrew Wakefield (I refuse to use the epithet Dr. for this vile repugnant and thoroughly evil man) has been outed as a con artist who was attempting to undermine the use of MMR vaccines so he could push his own vaccine combo.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:5.4.3.2.1... by Andrewkov · 2012-12-04 06:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Yeah, don't they know autism is caused by wifi??
Re:SAY NOTHING by Jason+Levine · 2012-12-04 06:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

Exactly. If only children of anti-vaccination parents got the diseases, I'd say this was the parents' personal call and keep the government out of it. But when a parent says "I'm not vaccinating my kids", they expose other kids (too young to get the vaccine, vaccine didn't "take", or has a valid medical condition keeping them from getting the vaccine) as well as senior citizens who grew up pre-vaccines to the disease. People DIE because of this. All caps just seems too small to emphasize this. If you don't vaccinate your kid, you might be responsible for someone else's baby dying.
And, even if you are heartless and don't care about anyone else's kids, get your kids vaccinated. To quote Penn and Teller: Even if vaccines caused autism - WHICH THEY DON'T - but even if they did, it would be much better for your child to get autism than to DIE from the disease.
(Note: I'm a parent of a child with autism, albeit high functioning autism, and I likely have autism myself.)

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Re:One sided by MozeeToby · 2012-12-04 06:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

A child's immune system is well established in the months after they are born, else the vaccines wouldn't do anything in the first place (since they rely on the immune response to actually do anything). We vaccinate children as young as possible because young children get sick! Pretty much the only "STD" that a young child is vaccinated against is Hep B, which is also transmitted any number of other ways and has huge repercussions for the rest of the child's life if contracted. Not to mention that every single "well baby" visit is less likely to be attended than the one before it, especially by the poorest people who are at the highest risk for these diseases.
This isn't rocket science! Vaccinating children, even newborns has zero detectable health costs (despite the anti-vaccine crowds looking for them for decades) and provides enormous benefits.