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Uptick In Whooping Cough Linked To Subpar Vaccines
sciencehabit writes "Whooping cough, or pertussis, has exploded in the United States in recent years. A new study (abstract) confirms what scientists have suspected for some time: The return of the disease is caused by the introduction of new, safer vaccines 2 decades ago. Although they have far fewer side effects, the new shots don't offer long-lived protection the way older vaccines do."
If neither vaccine was effective, there would have been no change. However, there was an observed uptick, indicating that the previous vaccine was definitely having an effect.
Or, maybe vaccines aren't effective period. Just a thought.
I guess that would explain all these horrible outbreaks of polio, mumps, and measles we've been having....
Oh, wait, we aren't having large outbreaks of these diseases? Well, then I guess vaccines work.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Or maybe people should stop refusing to have their child vaccinated because of $CONSPIRACYTHEORY. Just a thought.
The vaccine debate is a religious one on both sides and your statement is evidence of that. The data suggesting that vaccines are working is overwhelming and trying to deny that they have worked is ridiculous. There is also risk to vaccines and they can cause harm and trying to deny that is ridiculous. The bigger question is whether or not over use of vaccines is creating a similar problem as the overuse of antibiotics. And in the process are we actually reducing our ability to adapt as a species to environmental pressure and stress.
With population exploding, shouldn't we return to an era where the weak were culled out?...
Unless you live in Africa, population is not exploding. The population growth rate is slowing, the UN predicts that the world population will stabilize around 2090 and fall afterwards. Most (more recent) predictions think that this estimate is pessimistic - it's looking like population will stabilize around 2050 and decline afterwards.
Most industrialized nations have negative population growth already, the US *would* have negative population growth if you discount immigration. Even with immigration, the US population is slowing and will turn the corner sometime in the next couple of decades.
... back in the day old people had the grace to die of diabetes or a heart attack, now they live until 90, but don't work the last 30 years of their lives, effectively eating the seed corn of the new generation.
I think the problems you are seeing is due to a lack of an evolved sense of morality. On your part.
Be that as it may, the problem isn't the lawsuits themselves but the culture that fear has created in the medical community. I've worked in the field, and am now in IT support in that field. I can tell you right now that a lot of what goes on in the American medical system is people covering their arses in one way or another.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Do you get your children vaccinated?
It's much more likely that your child will have a bad reaction to the vaccine than to actually get the disease. And if everyone *else* gets vaccinated, there's no need for any specific child to take that risk. That's the dilemma facing parents nowadays - from their individual viewpoint, there's a higher risk from the vaccination than there is from the disease.
Taking polio (about 30 years ago) as an example, the chance of getting polio from the vaccine was about 1 in 750,000. Polio became largely non-existent in the US during the later years of the vaccination program, so individually it's easy to see why parents might not want to take the risk.
And yet if everyone makes the best choice for their personal welfare, polio runs rampant in the country with 35,000 cases per year.
This is a variant of the Prisoner's dilemma, where if everyone does what's in their immediate best interest then everyone suffers needlessly.
We must accept the fact that sometimes we forced to take risks, and sometimes those risks will go badly. The risks are structured such that by taking the forced risk we are lowering everyone's total risk, and in the case of diseases, lowering it to a point where eventually no one will have to take the risk in the future.
"All natural, no dyes. That's a good business - all-natural children's toys. Those toy companies, they don't arbitrarily mark up their frogs. They don't lie about how much they spend on research and development. And the worst that a toy company can be accused of is making a really boring frog. Gribbit, gribbit, gribbit. You know another really good business? Teeny tiny baby coffins. You can get them in frog green, fire engine red. Really. The antibodies in yummy mummy only protect the kid for six months, which is why these companies think they can gouge you. They think that you'll spend whatever they ask to keep your kid alive. Want to change things? Prove them wrong. A few hundred parents like you decide they'd rather let their kid die then cough up 40 bucks for a vaccination, believe me, prices will drop *really* fast. Gribbit, gribbit, gribbit, gribbit, gribbit."
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Kaiser Permanente introduced the vaccines gradually, and have children of the same age with one or the other (or both). This is the source of the 5.6x more likely to get it number.
The older one has more antigens. The older one also had more lawsuits, even though science to this day cannot prove it caused the other problems.
And statistically we'd still be better off with the old one, unproven problems and all, compared to the new one. But there was a telling comment by a scientist -- western societies would no longer "accapt" the old one.
Thank your lawyers. They got rich (Congress even set up a fund for "victims", even though no connection was shown) and people died in increased numbers because of their actions.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Please don't confuse vaccines with medication (antibiotics). There is plenty of evidence that antibiotic use leads to resistance. There is plenty of evidence that vaccine overuse leads to less disease, and extinction of the pathogen. Completely different situations. Completely different conditions. Completely different theories. There is nothing they have in common. Don't worry. Common mistake.
in the past 100 years expeted lifespan has jumped 30+ years in the western world.
our quality of life, relatively disease free, was previously unknown. it's still unknown in the parts of the world where they cant get vaccines.
100 years ago being crippled by polio was so common one of our greatest presidents was one such victim.
100 years ago becoming deaf from mumps was common; how many deaf kids do you see today? ya. almost none.
we live longer and better. and vaccines are a huge part of that.
if you want to think differently, i suggest you google smallpox, or visit pakistan or northern india where they still have polio cases.
look at old history photos of what disease wards used to look like, the myriad different diseases and the pain and sufferign caused by them.
or just look at the number of measles (one of hte msot contagious diseases in human history; a person with measles walks through a room, that room remains contagious for 4 hours afterward) cases in our own country. prior to the vaccine in the mid 60's there were >500K cases every year. Within 5 years it dropped to fewer than 100 cases per year. It's been declared effectively eliminated in our country and the rest of the western world.
the people who think vaccines are bad, or overrated, have no clue what they are talking about, and would be shocked to death by the difference between todays world and that of just 100 years, and the amount of disease and suffering that people had to put up with.
TLDR: you're an idiot. vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of mankind.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.