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Pro-Vaccination Efforts May Be Scaring Wary Parents From Shots
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Thomas Kienzle reports for the Associated Press on a study which found public health campaigns touting vaccines' effectiveness and debunking the links between autism and other health risks might actually be backfiring, and convincing parents to skip the shots for their kids. 'Corrections of misperceptions about controversial issues like vaccines may be counterproductive in some populations,' says Dr. Brendan Nyhan. 'The best response to false beliefs is not necessarily providing correct information.' In the study, researchers focused on the now-debunked idea that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (or MMR) caused autism. Surveying 1,759 parents, researchers found that while they were able to teach parents that the vaccine and autism were not linked, parents who were surveyed who had initial reservations about vaccines said they were actually less likely to vaccinate their children after hearing the researchers messages. Researchers looked at four methods designed to counter the myth (PDF) that the MMR vaccine can cause autism. They gave people either information from health authorities about the lack of evidence for a connection, information about the danger of the three diseases the MMR vaccine protects against, pictures of children who had one of those three diseases, or a story about an infant who almost died from measles.
At the study's start, the group of parents who were most opposed to vaccination said that on average, the chance they would vaccinate a future child against MMR was 70 percent. After these parents had been given information that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism, they said, on average, the chance they would vaccinate a future child was only 45 percent — even though they also said they were now less likely to believe the vaccine could cause autism. Vaccination rates are currently high, so it's important that any strategies should focus on retaining these numbers and not raise more concerns, tipping parents who are willing to vaccinate away from doing so. 'We shouldn't put too much weight on the idea that there's some magic message out there that will change people's minds.'"
At the study's start, the group of parents who were most opposed to vaccination said that on average, the chance they would vaccinate a future child against MMR was 70 percent. After these parents had been given information that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism, they said, on average, the chance they would vaccinate a future child was only 45 percent — even though they also said they were now less likely to believe the vaccine could cause autism. Vaccination rates are currently high, so it's important that any strategies should focus on retaining these numbers and not raise more concerns, tipping parents who are willing to vaccinate away from doing so. 'We shouldn't put too much weight on the idea that there's some magic message out there that will change people's minds.'"
This recessive gene would be removed from the gene pool in one or two iterations of viral infections.
People need to be educated in a general sense to evaluate this stuff rationally. If you take a bunch of uneducated redneck hicks and have an authority figure tell them how it should be they're going to be suspicious because they don't have the tools to evaluate the claims and for most of their life authority figures have FUCKED them.
This study basically says that people get pissy when you prove them wrong, making them dig in their heels even though they may grudgingly agree with you.
That bit of information reduces the problem to a much, much easier one to deal with than the previous hypothesis of willful ignorance - These people just need us to give them a way to save face.
Disclaimer - I write what I write next as someone who loathes government intervention. But just make vaccinations mandatory. Simple as that. No more BS opting out on religious grounds, no more opting out because Jenny said not to, no more trusting in herd immunity while actively undermining it. Get your kids vaccinated, period, end of story; don't like it, too bad.
That way, no one needs to "back down" - Parents can gleefully shrug their shoulders, swear at Uncle Sam while quietly breathing a sigh of relief, and we can all move on as though none of this ever happened.
I can't speak for anyone else but I'm always more skeptical of those who insist they know what is right and correct for me - even if they are correct. I know if a government program would start exclaiming how X must be done, even if it is vaccination, I'd start to avoid X just out of natural distrust.
The more effort you put into telling people something is safe and the more visible this effort is, the more people will naturally question just why they're having to make this effort.
When you order a burger from McDonalds you probably wouldn't be too happy if worker who gives it to you said "don't worry, the chances of you having got a burger that has been spat on are tiny so it is very unlikely I spat in it! Enjoy your meal!"
Jenny McCarthy needs to be impoverished and imprisoned for the huge disservice she has done the human race.
To debunk a conspiracy theory, you need to shine light on the misinformation, not on the correct information. The correct information (in most conspiracy theory cases) is out there and easily available--the point of the misinformation is to make you distrust or ignore the correct information when you see it. More correct information doesn't help.
In the case of vaccinations, the way to fix this would be to put up billboards, run commercials, and hand out leaflets letting people know about the scientific fraud committed by certain researchers which led to the anti-vaccine madness. Lots of things people can look up themselves, exposing the misinformation campaign, not providing more pro-vaccination stuff they are already trained to ignore.
Admittedly that may open up a can of worms as those fraudulent researchers sue to get their names off billboards, but that's another issue.
Same thing for anti-evolution too, BTW. One of the common anti-evolution myths is that evolution can't explain how the eye evolved, because there's no survival value in a partial eye. You don't even have to be arguing about evolution--just casually mention that the evolution of the eye is one of the best-understood topics in biology, because it actually evolved independently in several different an interesting ways--and certain people will say "Really?!?" That's the opening for shining the light on misinformation right there. Talk about fossil records and carbon dating and their eyes will glaze over and they'll ignore it.
This sounds all edgy and clever, until you look at who actually dies. Hint: Not just their kids.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Translation: I'm a fucking moron who fears and doesn't understand science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They claim the skeptics are just crazy, but then things like this (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/02/the-return-of-whooping-cough.html ) happen.
I am not anti-vaccine, but I am cautious around people profess to "practice" on me and think everything can be solved with a pill or needle. For example, I think there is a problem with our healthcare system when we end up as a nation (USA) consuming 80% of all painkillers prescribed worldwide.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
I believe that one factor (don't have any idea how significant) may be that recent revelations entirely unrelated to vaccines have caused an increased suspicion amongst the population about anything the government tells us. It's become almost a meme that whatever the government says, the opposite is likely to be true.
(I'm not saying that's actually the case, just saying that may be what people are feeling.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Doesn't saying that just give you a warm fuzzy about hiring me as a babysitter?
Your premise seems to be that anyone that doesn't agree with you is a moron, what a complete and thoughtful scientific basis for an argument.
They gave people either information from health authorities about the lack of evidence for a connection, information about the danger of the three diseases the MMR vaccine protects against, pictures of children who had one of those three diseases, or a story about an infant who almost died from measles.
What if people were given some combination of the above information? For example, connection information and picture of children with the disease. The outcome might be different than either information alone. Given alone "connection information" may be detrimental but combined with other information it may be beneficial. All this study shows is that relying on the lack of evidence of connection alone is incorrect.
I would have liked to see the effect of giving a group all the information. I realize we are not all the same but, for me, the more information the better.
People are generally not rational in the classic economic sense. Not even close.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I agree with this. Scientists are becoming so unbelievably political that it gets more and more difficult to trust that they actually have your best interests (or even the truth) at heart.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
That stupid bitch.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
.
It is far easier to remain ignorant and wallow in your collection of misinformation, than to understand the scientific evidence.
Normally, I don't have an issue with ignorant people choosing to remain ignorant. Unfortunately, in this instance it means more disease for all of us.
... my "people are idiots" theory.
Can we just take all the anti-vaccine people and put them on an island, and wait for them to die out? Antarctica is a research area, right?
People do not trust science. They are more apt to believe that the numbers are made up fill some agenda.
On the Right you got them having issues with Climate change and evolution. They see it as fake science made by their opponents to force their agenda of taking things away from people and a push towards atheism, figure with "God" out of the way they can push their agenda with impunity.
On the left you have GMO food, and non-organics food. All the science points that there isn't any danger to these foods, however they will stick to their guns as the science is obviously have been altered by corporations as to keep their profit up.
In short if you tell someone that they are wrong, that means you are part of some conspiracy to hide the truth.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Translation: I'm a fucking moron who fears and doesn't understand science.
You know, I don't usually support insults like this, but SuperKendall's post shows such a level of willful ignorance and misinformation that I think in this case MightyMartian isn't actually insulting him but stating a fact.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Actually, uhm. They're pretty fucking lethal and debilitating. One of my friends has a sibling who's been hospitalized for a big chunk of the last six months from whooping cough, which exists today only because of anti-vaccine nutjobs.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
WTF? So AGW is just an unscientific cult, foisted on us by evil scientists? Y'all forgot to include the scientists lying about evolution, and aborshuns, and gay marriage and other things the bible says is true. Talk about your ignorant rednecks...
Translation: I'm a fucking moron who fears and doesn't understand science.
Unless you've done the research and experimentation yourself, you don't understand the science either, you just choose to believe it.
This has nothing to do with science and everything to do with people not trusting the government.
Generally flu shots aren't for you. They're for the people you hang out with.
I'm a healthy early 30something guy. I can get the flu, I've had the flu, I made it out just fine. I also only hang out with people in the similar demographic, I'm psychologically allergic to kids so I'll never be seen around one, my friends overall don't have kids, my grandparents are in another country. There's a small chance I may get the flu and before I notice, I transmit it to someone at the restaurant, but realistically, it won't happen.
Now, if you're the parent of 3 toddlers, have your 80-90 years old grandparents coming every other day to help out, 2 of your toddlers go to daycare all the time... you could seriously get someone killed if you get the flu and spread it around. Thats why you want the shot. If its not the case? Sure, skip. The flu won't kill you.
Everyone else can ignore this issue... unless you live in an area prone to insane viral outbreaks every other week.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You can win with morons. If you don't debunk the whole autism thing, parents won't get their kids vaccinated. If you do debunk it, they decide that they can't trust the scientists and they don't get their kids vaccinated. Does any other developed country have to deal with this kind of idiocy or is it unique to the USA?
I disagree. They way I see it, you have a political party populated by folks who view reality as merely an opposing (and invalid) viewpoint.
Due to the US's 2-part system and the "if you're not for us, you must be against us" line of thinking, anyone who doesn't agree with the viewpoints of such a political must be part of the opposing side.
It's not the scientists that are politicizing science, it's the science-deniers.
Not really, no. I believe strongly in making rational choices based on sound knowledge. Because of that, I have found that about 90% of what the pharmaceutical industry would have me believe these days is 100% pure crap. Many people have noticed that.
Once you degenerate to that point, even when you tell the truth, people will assume you are lying. It's a simple heuristic that is more often right than wrong. So the more you talk up the jabs, the more people assume you're lying.
To make that stop, we're going to have to quit seeing drug ads where they talk about how [minor annoyance] will be all gone and then blip up the bit about liver failure, hair loss, blindness, cancer and death so fast you have to record it and go frame by frame to pick it out (or, just as bad, they try to say those things in a soothing almost bedtime story voice). We'll have to stop the $500 drugs that are no better than the $5 drugs for the vast majority of patients. We have to stop urging people to switch from mostly harmless foods to toxic foods "for their health" based on wild-ass guessing or a need to pump up profits.
Do those things, wash off the big business stench, and there's a chance the public will start believing western doctors again.
We need to stop telling parents that they need to make a "informed decision" and instead drive in the message that getting their children vaccinated is absolutely necessary to protect their life and well being. Posing it as a decision simply provides an opening for anti-vaccine quacks to employ their fear-mongering and to many fear is more powerful than the truth.
I lost a perfectly healthy friend to the flu within the last year. Flu shots are like seatbelts. If you decide to abstain, the odds are, it won't kill you. You can even get the flu/have an automobile accident and come out just fine. But proudly stating you refuse to use them is just showing that you don't actually understand the risks, you don't make rational decisions about your own well-being, or your value of your own life is sadly low.
Tens of thousands of people die every single year from flu. My wife is an ICU nurse and watches people die every year from it. Yes you might be healthy and perfectly capable of handling the flu virus. But when you get it, for the three or four days after you are infected and before major symptoms set in you are spreading virii around like typhoid Mary. And when you go to the grocery store and stand in line next to the guy that just had a transplant and is on immune surpressors you might just kill them.
Sometimes getting the vaccine isn't about you. So next time you get the flu spend the time thinking about all the people you interacted with while you were a walking virus factor and wonder just how many of them your stupidity killed.
Non-lethality? Only for the grossly misinformed. Practically all of the diseases for which there are vaccines can be lethal to people especially for the very young, the very old, people with weakened immune systems. A healthy person might be able to fight off rubella with little problem but the vast majority of deaths of rubella are young children and fetuses. Pregnant women are the most sensitive group as a number of defects can occur including blindness and congential heart defects.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'm sorry, but you're a fucking moron. There's really no polite way to put it. The flu is traditionally the most lethal contagious disease in world history; more people have been killed by it than pretty much anything else. That's because nasty variants trigger a cytokine storm which is a positive feedback loop where your body kills itself because it thinks something is killing it. Even worse, those storms are most dangerous in people with a strong immune system. That's right: the bad flus kill young, healthy people in much greater proportion than those with weak immune systems.
Go ahead and brag at how tough you are at resisting the flu. While doing so, pray to your god that you never get a bad one and join the ranks of millions who've died of it over the years.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You can't cure stupid... ...sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections.
No it shouldn't. Children are individuals in their own right, not property of their parents to be abused on a whim.
The person being forced is the parents. The person whose good it's for is the child.
You're a fucking idiot and a total asshole.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've heard of a pig in a poke, but never one up a chimney. And I know about these things.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Perhaps if you want them to be trusted, you should start trusting them and stop spreading your anti-AGW lies. And while you're at it, perhaps you should try to distinguish the latest fad diet from some idiot who wrote a self-help book, or whatever some "science reporter" has tried to pass off as science to sell magazines, from the actual peer reviewed articles in journals that comprise actual science.
I think it is less about not trusting government specifically, and more about trusting vague sources that come with plausible sounding explanations.
Look at the hand waving BS about vaccinations, they are almost always centered around a grain of truth, a grain that is then added to and changed. Some great examples are "mercury" in vaccines or "hormones" in bovines.
The thing is, it is always presented as something "they" don't want you to know about, or are claiming is safe, so when you hear from an expert the 'truth' which is a) this is a real thing (just like they said!) and b) its safe (just like they said you would say!) - they have already been innoculated (is that a pun here?) against the truth.
Of course you think its safe, you were looking at all those fake studies done by researchers in the pocket of big pharma/big agriculture etc.
Certainly there are coverups and conspiracies and things people in power don't want us to know about, but most of those things can be much more complicated and messy.... people like a nice simple story...one they can remember and repeat.
OTOH the answer here is nothing really new. There were some surveys that asked people about vaccination programs. What they did was take the same information, same number of lives saved, same number of deaths etc, and wrote them up in two different ways: one which emphasized the decision based on lives saved, and another which emphasized the decision based on lives lost.
What was the outcome? Quite simply, people were more moved to support the vaccination program based on figures which put it in terms of avoiding losses than when put in terms of lives saved.
This seems like a very similar case. Talk all you want about benefits and safety on their own; you get people's attention by focus on losses. In the end, I think that is why the anti-vaccination stories tend to be more powerful: They focus on (imaginary) losses and avoiding those losses.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
On one side: Miss October '93. On the other: a million scientists, an airplane, and a hypodermic needle.
Caption: "If you trust SCIENCE to keep your kids safe when flying in an airplane at 600 MPH, five miles off the ground, why don't you trust it about medicine?"
Sub-caption: "Would you rather your kids be autistic, or DEAD?"
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
This message brought to you by the American Institute for Homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Vaccination Choice, Climate Change Denial, AIDS denial, Rejection of Evolution and Chiropractors.
And if you provide supporting evidence of your point, that's obviously part of the scam too; I mean, if you were right you wouldn't need it. Whereas if there's no evidence of a conspiracy, that's proof that there's a cover-up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That's bullshit, frankly. It's possible to understand the science despite not having done the research and experimentation personally. SuperKendall's pretty much 100% full of shit.
No, it has everything to do with people unable to think critically about the messages being directed towards them and choosing to place all blame on the government, right or wrong.
Or you could go exercise.
The answer is to give them both the benefits *AND* the dangers. Full disclosure. Then let them make up their own minds.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It sounds like your issue is with marketing. Not science.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Congress?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This is the correct response. Educate and let each live or die according to his own conscience.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Maybe people too stupid to understand science would slowly weed themselves out of society by these types of actions.
Ok .. that was intended to be sarcastic. But part of me really wishes it were true.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
FYI the flu shot question is part of medicare/medicaid funding. If they don't ask you, then it doesn't count as a completed examination, and since they don't really know/care if you are medicare or self-funded, they ask everyone. They aren't pushing it, but if they don't ask they get a paddling from the government.
just lock up anti-vaccine people for practicing medicine without a license.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Give the survey. If they act like idiots, euthanize the parents & vaccinate the kids.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
You have no idea how the flu vaccine works, nor do you understand how the immune system works.
"I refuse to get a flu shot "
That makes you a danger to others AND a vector for mutation.
"- I'd rather my immune system had a natural chance"
That statement is nonsense, wrapped in the naturlistic fallacy
" at defending me against it, "
Please learn how the fuck the immune system works
" and it's not likely to kill me."
depends on strain, and you may kill others.
" doctors and nurses try their hardest to convince us that these flu shots are necessary to remain healthy."
Yes, you lame ass know best and curse those actual experts fior trying to keep you and the people around you as healthy as possible.
"and those that just prevent a standard illness that almost everyone gets and naturally overcomes."
Standard illness? WTF does that mean?
over 200,000 people are put in the hospital every year and 3000 to 49000 DIE.
A lot of those people get the flu becasue of people like you.
Yes, YOU not getting vaccinated hurts others, you selfish jackass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You should learn how to read and understand reports and studies.
Ignorant people like you who refuse to learn how to understand data, and can't seem to understand risk analysis, are what scares people way and leads to more deaths.
\\
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I've had the flu - I have 3 kids, the eldest in high school. I know what the flu is like, and, yes it's miserable.
But, I choose not to get flu shots.
For those with compromised immune systems, that feel like they must have a flu shot, by all means, get one. I will still laugh at you when you complain that you feel like crap for several days after getting said shot, and you can laugh at me when when i'm incapacitated for a week after getting the flu. We'll call it even.
Use reverse psychology: tell people "Obama, the deviant puppy-eating communist, does not want your kid to get vaccinated."
Table-ized A.I.
People aren't shy of vaccines because some idiot said they caused autism 10 years ago. They're shy/scared of them because vaccines are created by companies who have yet to convince an intelligent public that they have the public's best interest at heart instead of their wallet.
Do companies make money from vaccines? Yes. However, they only make their money once per person. I think that supplying treatment to a chronic condition (like some of the side effects of the diseases of the vaccines) would make a lot more money.
There are doctors out there who tell every parent who comes in "get your vaccinations" and yet they won't vaccinate their child because there are risks.
Tin foil hat thinking at its finest. So you're saying that the vast majority of doctors who advocate for vaccines would not use it on their children. Please cite some evidence for this claim.
I guess what I'm saying is that people have valid fears. There are real risks with any medication. Corps do not care if they make children sick. Doctors are salesmen for corps. THESE are the issues. Not autism.
Doctors have always said that every medication comes with risks and side effects. For vaccines, there is a risk but the chances of those risks are far less than the disease itself. In cases of problems with the vaccines, there is a special court for these cases.
If you aren't a doctor, a scientist studying it or the parent of a child, you have no right to speak about things you know nothing about. (wait I guess that's the best description of slashdot ever)
Then by your admission, you should probably not speak again.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I think they were mostly apathetic or had never heard of issues with vaccines before. So when told that there was a controversy suddenly they had to stop and think about the issue. Some may have gone from thinking vaccines were completely safe in all respects into now having some doubts. Because scientists aren't lying here they're never going to say 100% safe with no side effects, which is probably what the average parent is assuming.
"It's much less dangerous than crossing the road" causes people to ask "wait, crossing roads is dangerous??"
I disagree. They way I see it, you have a political party populated by folks who view reality as merely an opposing (and invalid) viewpoint.
You mean two political parties.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Sometimes the health of the individuals has no effect, or an inverse effect, on the survivability of the flu. Case in point, the Spanish Flu of 1918 killed more healthy young men than any other demographic. The healthy older people didn't generally get as sick and the small children seem to be made to survive fevers high enough to kill adults.
The way it was worded, the participants were 70% likely, not 70% of the participants were likely. How you determine that someone is 70% or 45% likely to do something, I don't know... maybe through various questions that led them to say yes or no based on particular circumstances.
Whoa now, that attitude is definitely not going to convince people to get vaccinated. The only thing it'll do is make them hate kids and people with kids even more. I have no responsibility to your children. That's on your own shoulders. If you're that concerned about me standing in line next to them at the supermarket, don't bring your kids to the supermarket and make sure you get your own vaccine.
I am, by no means, anti-vaccination (very pro, actually) but you need to sell this on the benefit to the individual getting that vaccine, and not try to put responsibility on their shoulders for everyone else around them. How many times have you met someone who responds positively to being called an asshole to their face?
1.) People trust idiots they know over scientists they don't know.
2.) People don't respond well to being informed they are wrong.
And I have a right to be a selfish jackass. Thank you very much.
" From nutritional advice"
dactiors have been giveg the follwong advice for decades: Exercise and eat better.
"the AGW cult,"
Ah. You just assume scientist are wrong when the data goes against your narrative and then project that to others.
"But science is now so intertwined in politics "
it isn't, but again, they are telling you things you don't like, so ad hom away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes, but we're not talking about everything and anything here. We're talking about the common flu that happens every year, in which case the health of the individual absolutely DOES matter.
I'm pretty certain all of the responses to my comment have proven the story in this article.
After reading all these righteous people claiming I'm the ignorant asshole causing the world to die, I'm pretty much dead-set against ever getting a flu shot at this point.
Maybe I'll die, maybe you'll die, but you can all go fuck yourselves for telling me what I must stick in my body.
Try watching your kid die of a disease that we had mostly wiped out half a century ago. Polio, Measles and Whooping Cough are making a comeback! We just need to find one isolated tribe that never got rid of Smallpox and it'll be as if the last century and a half of scientific achievement never happened!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
As this clearly shows. Sad, but true.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Was your friend's sibling vaccinated?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Vaccines have had numerous concerns over many decades, so the latest batch does not make people sinister it makes them cynical and skeptical. Start here.
As much as vaccines help the majority of people, other people have been crippled and killed by the same vaccines. The latest MMR vaccine is linked to a couple hundred (237 last I looked) of narcolepsy, the latest polio vaccine is linked to numerous deaths and various levels of paralysis. Sometimes these are blamed on contamination in the vaccine, and other times we have no explanation.
If you are a parent and know about the potential for harm, you may not wish to give your kid a vaccine. Especially for something generally not life threatening like chicken pox.
Why not educate people to both sides of the argument and let them make an educated choice?
There is middle ground on normally nonlife threatening diseases like chickenpox and the average flu bug, the problem is dumbasses that won't vaccs their kids against anything for fear they might be one of the couple hundred out of billions that would have a reaction then insted their kid get a disease and spread it to the immunocompromised that genuinely cannot get vaccinated. They are endangering their children and society over a risk lower than the odds of you getting hit by car tomorrow on the way to drop them at school yet they do drive their children.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
A high fever can cause permanent damage to your testicles.
Good enough reason?
Oh gee, I wonder who this anonymous commenter might be??
weinersmith
No vaccination? No public school.
Work with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other youth organizations and have them adopt vaccination policies as well. So that unvaccinated children are not interacting in large groups.
Then on top of this when someone's baby goes blind from rubella or dies from measles, open a class action lawsuit against every parent in that county that failed to get their child vaccinated.
Folks, we need to be hard asses about vaccinations. We need serious social and financial consequences to people who fail to participate. If you want to live in a society with high infant mortality, then find some poor horrible place to live far away from me.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There is middle ground on normally nonlife threatening diseases like chickenpox and the average flu bug, the problem is dumbasses that won't vaccs their kids against anything for fear they might be one of the couple hundred out of billions that would have a reaction then insted their kid get a disease and spread it to the immunocompromised that genuinely cannot get vaccinated.
So you are saying that a person should have the choice over a non life threatening disease vaccine? If so we agree on the first part but not completely because your odds are absolutely wrong. Here is an interesting read for you, but the odds for becoming critically ill from a vaccine is dependent on the vaccine. None of them are in the 1 in X00,000 range, more like 1 in 10,000.
To the second part about life threatening, I don't get it. Polio is has been removed in the US due to both vaccination and increased sanitation. Even so, it's not "life threatening" it was crippling. Very few of the diseases we are told to get vaccines for are actually 'life threatening'.
Then you have a completely false statement. A person can not leave the US and head anywhere without vaccines. Any country can require people coming in to have X vaccines. This prevents the "you exposed us to X" issue from happening. And good grief, if you head into a foreign country with a disease and someone gets ill you probably end up dead pretty quickly (especially those areas that can't afford vaccines).
Now, back to my first paragraph. If I have to choose for my kid to be 1 in 10,000 with death from gardasil do I get my daughter vaccinated? Maybe, but then we have a 1 in 100 chance of becoming permanently damaged in other ways from the vaccine, a 1 in 1,000 chance of becoming sterile, etc..
My point was and is that because the risks are real, there should be a freedom of choice. Your point regarding travel is understood, and I agree that if you are going to a remote place with risk you should be vaccinated. That is not the real reason to force people to get vaccines.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Ignoring AC's 'ASSHOLE' remark below, you were doing ok in paragraphs 1 & 2 ((statistically; it is possible for virii to be a greater threat to 30-y.o. men) . Hell, even paragraph 3 is mostly good. But the last dozen or so words swerved into the fallacy of it being safe or prudent to not get the shot.
Vaccination and flu shots are about protecting everyone, including coincidental spread, and including outlier events. GP is misconstruing good medicine into something absurd in the name of toughening his immune system.
GP, try rationalizing that you're being 'tougher' by getting immunized. Your body gets forced to generate the antibodies even if you never get infected. Beyond that, if you need to live your dream of making yourself strong, try eating food that hit the floor or is past it's sell-by date. Lick coins and the handlebars at the supermarket for all I care. But don't get contagious. That's not a strengthening thing at all.
Get the shot, regardless. Advocate it at work. Spread good science. Anything less is enabling the dumbass Jennymac's of the world.
Free birth control that doesn't put all the responsibility on the woman? That actually sounds pretty good.
Wait, what side are you on anyway?
You must work in the medical industry.
No. I'm just capable of reading and understanding the news.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Maybe it's the part where he makes unsubstantiated claims of bias and corruption against every scientist ever?
You only have to look back through his post history to see it all stems from his personal (and equally unsubstantiated) belief that AGW is a massive, money-grabbing hoax that all those "so-called scientists" have foisted on the unsuspecting public, no doubt at the prompting of the current liberal gubbermint (you know, despite similar research for 30 years). Seems clear to me that the cynicism resulting from climate science not saying what he wants to hear has spilled over into science in general.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
As much as vaccines help the majority of people, other people have been crippled and killed by the same vaccines.
True but the rates of serious, life changing reactions to the vaccine are far, far smaller than the risk of serious, life changing complications from a disease like measles that can leave you blind brain damaged or 0.3% of the time dead. This horrible consequences of diseases is why we invented vaccines and why they were so widely adopted. The problem is that vaccines are now a victim of their own success because nobody gets measles now so there is no understanding of how horrible these diseases can be.
If we want to persuade people to get vaccinated educate them about what the disease the vaccine protects against will do to them. The choice is not whether or not they want to risk the vaccine the choice is whether they want to risk the disease or the vaccine. It's a lot easier to judge a relative risk like that than some nebulous promises that the vaccine is pretty safe.
A variant on this middle ground is when a problem is found. My daughter is current on all vaccinations but my son had immediate swelling in his head as a baby right after his first vaccination. His fontanel (aka the soft spot on a baby's head) went from slightly dimpled to slightly curved outwards and stayed that way for several months. For him, there won't be any additional vaccinations. On the whole vaccinations are helpful and I support them. However when you start getting evidence of being a "rare case" where complications exist it doesn't make sense to continue. I feel that if the vaccination debate becomes more nuanced rather than just being either 100% for or against vaccinations it would be helpful to everyone. Vaccinations are not a one size fits all but rather a one size fits most. If effort was made identifying the cases where problems exist then I think more people will be onboard with the idea.
...and yet there is no one single vaccine for the entire influenza virus family. Thus even getting the vaccine can be completely useless, and needs to be given seasonally even. And even if you're not immunocompromised, if you have egg allergies that can be a problem too.
And then let's not forget the whole "I'm healthy and young..." argument brought up by the GP... Spanish Flu about 100 years ago killed predominantly young, healthy adults.
According to the article, the people were given information that basically said. "You can't prove autism is from vaccinations" and the rest was scare tactics. Photos of kids suffering from the afflictions the vaccines purport to prevent.
How is this any different than the religious argument?
You can't prove God doesn't exist. This is what happens in hell.
My body belongs to me. You shouldn't worry if I don't get vaccinated if you have been vaccinated... Right? You shouldn't worry if my child hasn't been vaccinated if your child has been vaccinated... Right?
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
Three points:
1) What about your friend's and coworkers' toddlers, grandparents, etc.? What about society in general? Herd immunity and helping stop the spread of disease is a good thing.
2) Actually, it might kill you. In Alberta this past season, we've had a strain of H1N1 that reportedly hits people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s harder than seniors, with a number of deaths. GlobalNews article
3) Even though you'll probably live, it still sucks to get the flu. Personally, when I weigh getting the shot against a somewhat higher chance of getting the flu, I'd rather get the shot.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
I believe so. The whooping cough vaccine is a temporary thing; it only protects you for maybe 20-30 years. But as long as people give it to kids, adult immune systems are usually resilient enough that it had just about completely died out, so it didn't matter. But now, thanks to the anti-vax people, it's common enough that adults get it, and spend months in agony.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
But here's where you are better than any anti-vacc'r. You actually did vaccinate your child, but found it introduced other problems. And I'm willing to guess that had that not happened, you would have continued to do so. Most anti-vacc'rs won't even try. They think that their inaction has less of a risk than actually taking an action.
You are an idiot. Let us know how that measles works out for just your kid since you're probably vaccinated. Don't worry, only one or two kids die a year from it in the US and 164,000 worldwide. You won't take a chance with your anecdotal belief there is a small risk from vaccinations but ignore the proven small risk of death from measles.
I have no responsibility to your children. That's on your own shoulders.
Not specifically to his children, but generally, yes, you have the responsibility to minimize the harm you do to others to a reasonable degree.
If you're that concerned about me standing in line next to them at the supermarket, don't bring your kids to the supermarket and make sure you get your own vaccine.
He didn't say his kids were coming to the supermarket, and vaccinations aren't 100% effective. By willingly becoming an incubator for disease you are raising the risk to everyone. Unless you live in a hermetically sealed bubble or something.
but you need to sell this on the benefit to the individual getting that vaccine, and not try to put responsibility on their shoulders for everyone else around them
The problem is that the most important benefits (herd immunity and eventual disease extinction) *only work* as a group. They do not have nearly as much individual benefit.
Moreover, the general idea that you can only sell things to individuals and never to groups is very short-sighted.
How many times have you met someone who responds positively to being called an asshole to their face?
Here I'll agree. Though I will call someone an asshole if they come to work sick (provided your company has a reasonable sick time policy). That's going out of your way to infect your peers.
The idea that you need a flu shot everytime a politician signs a deal with a major pharma company could be very detrimental to your health. Primarily because everytime you get a flu shot, you introduce inflamation into the artery system of your body because the immune system gets jacked up from the shot.
If you do this every year for the rest of your life....well, you probably will get heart disease.
The only time you should get flu shots is when you see them piling up bodies from the plague, and you want to stay alive.
Then yes, I would get a flu shot.
Also, jacking the immune system up on developing children every year for seasonal shots is also probably a very bad idea, for obvious reasons I think.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
If more doctors kept the industry honest that way, healthcare might not be such a disaster.
"group immunity remains a major factor in the effectiveness of vaccination." [edited for clarity]
Thanks for saying that. I didn't see anyone else making that point.
The ability of a disease to spread depends on the availability of hosts. Vaccinated people aren't hosts. If a large percentage of people have immunity, someone who is not immune is unlikely to get a disease. But vaccination depends on a large percentage being vaccinated, so everyone who isn't vaccinated is weakening group immunity.
So, why isn't it your friend's sibling's fault for failing to get a booster vaccination?
I have and will most likely continue to vaccinate my children because I prefer the tradeoff of that risk over the other but it's everyone's choice. The primary responsibility of the parent is to the well being of the child, not to the society. I spend a lot of resources on my own offspring and not on the offspring of everyone else. It's in my and my offspring's best interest for me to do that even if it's not necessarily in society's.
Herd immunity is less important to me than keeping my kids from being crippled by polio.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Vaccines are now mandatory, because screw your selfish ignorance putting everyone else at risk.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Chicken Pox is usually not really harmful, just not very pleasant, however there is a significant risk of developing shingles later in life and that is a truly nasty condition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... I had my children vaccinated against Chicken Pox before it was free (Australia has a large pharmaceutical benefits system) as I watched older family members suffer with singles.
The editor has data to reach its conclusion , the "fucking moron" (a term I disagree with BTW) on the other hand trusted an authority under the form of a "model" which did not have any medicine training and a corrupt doctor which not only did unethical test, but also sold coincidentally an alternative product and he has long been discredited. Those people *decided* to trust people which were not expert over the quantity of expert. To give a "redneck" equivalent, it would be like trusting some random internet "hindu" poster over issues of christian faith rather than ask their local parish.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
That is because you are confusing scientists with policy-makers and spokespeople trying to interpret science. We are quite far removed from politics and care deeply about the subjects we spend all of our professional lives on. It's sad bordering on insulting that you think that we don't care about the truth and are somehow connected to politics. It's true that we don't care about your best interests, that has nothing to do with science.
"The latest MMR vaccine is linked to a couple hundred (237 last I looked) of narcolepsy" - out of how many people who have had the MMR? 237 is a nonsense figure of no importance in the scale of things. The only link (just a quick search) i can find of a narcolepsy link is to the Swine flu vaccine.
"Why not educate people to both sides of the argument and let them make an educated choice?" - what are both sides of the argument? don't get vaccinated and you can get a disease that can spread to others or risk a minute chance of a side affect (of which you may have got anyway because the stats are so low that they are insignificant and it was just a coincidence)
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Herd immunity is less important to me than keeping my kids from being crippled by polio.
Herd immunity is what keeps your kids from being crippled by polio.
Vaccines are not 100% effective. Learn how they work, at least for your children's sake.
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
... is virtually meaningless. You can cite all the statistical blah-blah you want but take a look at margins of error. Yes, it is interesting that in this sample they observed what they observed. Extrapolating from there however is a bit misguided or disengenuous.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
You are missing my point.
I immunized my children because it was the best way to protect them. There may be the added benefit that they will be less likely to infect your immune compromised granny with some communicable disease but that was and is not my primary motivation.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yeah that's a real credible-looking source you've got there.
I suppose that's true in some sense, thanks to fabulous iron lung technology. Ain't science grand?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The exact flip side of that is that herd immunity is the primary reason we care whether you vaccinate your kids.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
True, convincing assholes that they're being assholes and should stop is a touchy thing and has to be done carefully. But that's a human psychology issue. It doesn't mean they're not being assholes. We could use the same argument for giving able bodied people grief for parking in handicapped spaces. If their worldview is 100% self-centered with no room for reasonble concern for others (like, I don't know, "I have no responsibility to your children"), you either have to tactfully get them to realize they're being assholes or just live with the fact that assholes make the world a worse place to live.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Just tell them it helps prevent acne. Parents and kids will be falling over themselves to get vaccinated. Problem solved!
To your first point, did I not state that the statistics would vary for each type of vaccine? If you wish to argue the points I made, at least argue the complete point instead of a fragment. I gave Gardasil as an example which for years was touted as completely safe by manufacturers, the CDC, and the US Department of Health. It was not, but took years to prove otherwise. Meanwhile many young women have become sterile and permanently damaged by the vaccine.
To the second point again you choose a fragment to argue instead of what was actually said. We know that there are risks from the vaccine just like there are risks from the disease. Therefor a person should be able to choose their own fate and not be forced to vaccinate. Interesting that you take one very rare extreme condition as the only argument to the Polio disease yet ignore the other side of the equation where people had debilitating impact from the vaccine. You can find both ways if you look, but the pro-vaccine crowd certainly gets more air time. Censorship is not new.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Google search it, you will find more. You can even find leaked audio recordings from a scientist admitting it. No, I can't prove it but it's interesting to contemplate and compare cancer rates before the 1940s and after. Sure, pollution played a role as did nuclear power and weapons but there potentially much more involved.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Similarly, we could deal with speeding and drunk driving by presenting information and letting people make up their own minds. That doesn't seem to be a popular option.
I'd be all in favor of education and no coercion if it just affected idiots who are against vaccination. It affects lots of people, though. In crowded environments, we need herd immunity from the nastier diseases.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The numbers show that the Chicken Pox vaccine should only be used on adults, yet when someone wants to skip that vaccine, they get the
information from health authorities about the lack of evidence for a connection, information about the danger of the three diseases the MMR vaccine protects against, pictures of children who had one of those three diseases, or a story about an infant who almost died from measles
speech with chicken pox replaced with Measles. In other words, they are lied to by the various health organizations. It is no wonder that people become more skeptical when they are being told horror stories that if not always outright lies, are often half truths designed to make them make decisions out of emotional fear instead of reason.
I have been saying for a long time that the pro-vaccine people are their own worst enemies when it comes to convincing people to get vaccinated. For example, the MMR vaccine. Instead of trying to convince people that Wakefield had been discredited, (which looks mighty suspicious on it's face), they should be pointing out to the parents that don't want the MMR vaccine that Wakefield did not recommend against Measles vaccines. He just advised against the mixed vaccine. Then offer individual vaccines for the same diseases that Wakefield did not accuse of causing autism. And outright stop telling parents that chicken pox will kill their children when a home cooked meal is more than 3 times more likely to kill your kid than if no one ever got immunized against the disease. Getting caught lying removes all credibility.
Let's dig into that a little bit. Where are you getting your data? Because the VAERS data seems not to show anything of the sort. It looks like we're talking about something that has the potential to prevent tens of thousands of cases of cancer per year and weighing it against a moderate to low probability of such scourges as "headache" and, granting your claim some credence, a vanishingly small probability of sterility.
Sure. The problem is that we're talking about real numbers that can be compared. And your numbers are total nonsense. That means that while your reasoning is valid, your conclusion is simply wrong. If you had to choose between a 1/1,000,000 chance of death and a 1/1,000 chance of death, there's really no sensible argument for choosing the latter, all else held equal. In 1952, there were 58,000 cases of polio in the US, which is 3.7 in 10,000. From what I can find, the vaccine causes anaphylaxis at about 1/1000 that rate (worst case). It looks like vaccine derived polio is, what, 1 in 10,000,000-ish? So what factors are we considering here?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
So after showing and discussing horror stories, with photographs no less, the person was less interested in the subject of your discussion? Big surprise. Welcome to cognitive dissonance.
No matter what the collateral damage, right?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The citation you mention did not have anything to do with the statistics I mentioned, but something to read regarding the industry as a whole. Unless you meant a citation outside of what you replied to. That source mentions released information from CDC which you can go read for yourself.
Like most of life, vaccination vs. anti-vaccination is not a clear black and white issue. If you are educated you may change your opinion and that is your right. I'm not claiming vaccines should be outlawed as you seem to be implying, I'm claiming that people should have a freedom of choice to make educated decisions.
Lets go back to Gardasil. First, there are many potential permant side effects with the vaccine. Chronic permanent migraine headaches are one, sterilization is another, and chronic fatigue syndrome is another. A complete list is here. When you separate them out the numbers look pretty low. However if you have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting any one of these things the risk from the vaccine is really 3/10,000 and not 1/10,000. Extrapolate that out further, and suddenly it's not a 1 in a million chance of something happening. This is basic mathematics and should not provide any challenge to you.
To go a bit further, the vaccine only prevents certain types of cervical cancer and not all cervical cancer. Claiming any number of saved lives due to the vaccine is simply fallacy.
Sure, numbers can be skewed in either direction to try to make "my way" should be the rule. I have not argued that "my way" should be the rule, I have advocated educated choice. You on the other hand are advocating no choice and no education.
Again, that does not mean vaccines are evil and should be banned. That means that people should be aware of the risks and be able to choose whether or not they want to get the vaccine. Let me extract that same advocacy and question from a different source here.
The HPV vaccine is at least as safe, if not safer, than the other recommended vaccines in use today in the U.S. Is it 100% safe? Of course not. No medical intervention is. And anybody demanding (or offering) absolute guarantees doesn't understand medicine. Because like it or not, all medical interventions have risks. There will always be someone who is allergic to something or doesn't respond properly or who has something going on that we don't know about. Medicine is not one-fits-all, and so there will be risks for some people. The big question is: do the benefits outweigh those risks?
Since those risks are not _yours_ why not drop the "do it my way" nonsense and let people choose?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Shame the stupidity gene that not vaccinating would remove from the gene pool takes useful people with it.
If parents prfer the vacuous to the sensible then they should be isolated until they can't kill sensible people with their stupidity.
Wolja Future Tombstone: Shit happened then I died
That's the kind of thing you are advocating.
Uh, no, it's not, which is why I used the phrase "valid exceptions". I have yet to see anyone argue that people who are legitimately allergic to the vaccines and/or immune compromised should be forced to take something that is very likely to cause harm. What we're against is allowing just anyone to opt out (and risk becoming a disease vector) because they heard on TV that vaccination might give their child autism.
I'm trying to find any citations that go back to anything like the CDC to support your x/10,000 claims. They're just not there as far as I can tell. The undergroundhealth.com link, for example, just looks like a crackpot rant with no citations. A few of the things that it references that I'm familiar with appear to be distorted or untrue, and others sound very strange and I can't find support for them outside of the self-reinforcing bubble of the "underground" health sites.
Yes, let's go back to Guardasil. Because the NHS link provided says no such thing There's no mention of sterility or chronic permanent migraines. There was mention of one case of chronic fatigue syndrome--a disease we really don't know much about and a disease which doesn't appear to happen more often in vaccinated teenagers than in unvaccinated teenagers. There may be some serious adverse reactions, but they don't appear to be common enough to have ended up on the NHS web site you linked to.
That's a great thought experiment to do with speculative numbers like "maybe 1 in 10,000" but it would be a lot better to do with real numbers like the ones we have from the trials and deployment of the actual vaccines. And I'm not seeing much in the way of real data to support the notion of a serious risk.
The number I mentioned is the estimated number of cases attributed to HPV, not cervical cancer as a whole. This has the potential to be a big deal.
I'm advocating no choice in severe cases (say, polio). And I'm all for education. Like, show me the data that supports you claims. Not "my sister's friend talked to a guy on the Internet who got a vauge and difficult to diagnose disease whose cause is uncertain right after a vaccine." If that's the burden of proof, I just just go looking for a geocities site that claims that the polio vaccine gave a guy super powers. I'm sure there's one out there.
That link just reiterates all of the things I said (plus more) and notes that all of the evidence points to the HPV vaccine being very safe and the minimal risks are vastly outweighed by the benefits. In fact, it specifically knocks down the arguments you made above about Guardasil.
Those risks aren't always just yours. Polio is out there. It's almost extinct. Gone forever. We could conceivably never have another case of polio again as long as the last remaining folks get their shit together (with our help) and vaccinate again
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Easy for you to say. I hope someone close to you dies from Gardisil.
Your not very good with statistics are you? Please say you don't buy lottery tickets too.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
..and who don't exercise. And who don't eat large quantities of fruits, vegetables, and beans (and some nuts, seeds, and whole grains). And don't get enough vitamin D or iodine. And who don't breastfeed infants for at least two years if a mother (WHO recommendation). And who are frequently stressed. And who don't get enough sleep. And who don't work at home. And who don't homeschool their children (to avoid illness spread via compulsory schools). And who don't buy as much as possible online to avoid stores. And who smoke. And who are promiscuous. And who don't buy all organic food and organic cotton bedsheets (just in case). And who bring other stuff with toxins into the house (like formaldehyde off-gassing composite wood products). Because all these things either reduce your immune system or increase your risk of getting sick.
So, are you in prison for poor health choices yet? Following your plan, you can leave when you agree to do all of the above...
A starting point:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/libra...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I'm trying to find any citations that go back to anything like the CDC to support your x/10,000 claims.
I have no confidence that you are trying to find anything at the CDC, but merely trying to claim that I'm wrong and people should have no choice in the matter.
I don't require the CDC to have a stat especially for a vaccine. The CDC would have a report for the diseases but not issues with the vaccines. Vaccine problems are reported in numerous ways, and often the vaccines are outright refused as the cause of medical problems even when problems occur right after the person requiring attention has received a vaccine.
I provided a link to the Gardasil issue which are admitted to. From this page the reports are roughly 25,000 reported serious problems from the vaccine. Looking at the total of 600,000 vaccines given that is a 4% chance that a person can have a serious side effect. The numbers I provided were actually being extremely kind to Gardasil.
It's really not difficult to Google "gardasil vaccine harm" to find all kinds of reports on the vaccine. Problems from Gardasil on many medical sites shows a 1 in 10 chance for the most minor side effects and scale upward based on severity. Are some cases inflated? Sure, but other cases are simply ignored and discounted before any evaluation is done.
Claiming 1 in a million chance for problems is way more exaggerated than what I gave. And as mentioned before, we don't know that the vaccine is truly effective. We know it does not prevent all cases of cervical cancer and a recent doctors report claims that it does not even prevent cancer from HPV but simply masks the Pap smear. We have no realistic method of knowing if Gardasil helped more than it hurts, and the class action lawsuits against the company seem to discount any claims of superior benefits. Or did you not know about these? (and these are only US cases, not the non-US cases that have sued the same company) .
I'm advocating no choice in severe cases (say, polio). And I'm all for education. Like, show me the data that supports you claims. Not "my sister's friend talked to a guy on the Internet who got a vauge and difficult to diagnose disease whose cause is uncertain right after a vaccine." If that's the burden of proof, I just just go looking for a geocities site that claims that the polio vaccine gave a guy super powers. I'm sure there's one out there.
I really should not have to argue with you that Polio vaccines should be subject to the same freedom of choice as any other vaccine should I? Can you see without me telling you how absolutely irrational that perspective is since we know that there are risks for _ALL_ vaccines? It would be different for society if our tax money paid all medical expenses. They don't, and many families lose their life savings every year supporting loved ones. that won't change even with ACA.
If you educated someone, as you claimed you were "all for", they could learn the risks Polio vaccine really does have a 1/50,000 chance for problems. That risk is much different than "Flu" vaccines, Gardasil, or Plague where more people would probably decline the vaccine.
That link just reiterates all of the things I said (plus more) and notes that all of the evidence points to the HPV vaccine being very safe and the minimal risks are vastly outweighed by the benefits. In fact, it specifically knocks down the arguments you made above about Guardasil.
I think you should read it again without your bias goggles on. The words don't say 1 thing, they state a couple things because the author was intelligent. Such as "all medical procedures have risk".
Those risks aren't always just yours. Polio is out there. It's almost extinct. Gone forever. We could
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Adding some clarity to my 2nd to the last paragraph since I realized that this was worded in a misleading way. The US has been "free" of wild polio for a couple decades. Other Western countries report similar success with the vaccine and sanitation. That said, insects and animals can carry the virus without our knowledge as can human waste though the virus would not replicate. Flies can carry the virus and contaminate humans even though the virus would not replicate in the fly. Organic material could hold the disease indefinitely under the right circumstances. This is an interesting read on that.
To further add clarity, I have repeatedly stated that I'm not anti any vaccine. I can surely seen benefits in some vaccines. Polio, Measles, Rubella, and Small Pox have all been what I consider to be successes for society.
What I have repeatedly stated is that people should understand the risks and rewards of a vaccine and be able to make an educated choice. Just like any other medical procedure, people should be able to have a choice of when and what to receive vaccines on. Companies making vaccines should be forced to provide real data on those benefits and risks instead of what we have today. What we have today is cover up, censorship, and smear campaigns so that people can't hold a rational dialogue on the subject.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Don't be stupid. Taking a topic like this to a sufficiently far away extreme always results in idiocy and serves only to muddy the waters. You're smarter than that, and so am I.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
If you're not vaccinated because you can't afford to be, then get Obamacare quickly.
I wish I could. But it appears my current income is greater than my red state's Medicaid threshold but less than the federal poverty threshold. Therefore I don't qualify for a subsidy, and I'll have to pay a substantial chunk of my income for health insurance. Or what did I, and others in my position, miss?
What part of the United States Constitution (or even the Constitution of one of the 50 States) authorizes the Government to compel vaccination?
Article I section 8 grants Congress several enumerated powers, one of which is power "to regulate commerce [...] among the several states." Someone who carries a contagious disease across state lines is interfering with commerce, especially if this disease is one that impairs driving enough to cause a collision on a post road.
I imagine that a lot of Christians believe that mandatory RFID in human beings represents the mark of the Beast, and a "free exercise" argument to justify exemption would have a good chance in court. Is the RFID tag's response 666 bits long too?
Let me try to explain it to a child: A needle stick hurts for one minute. Getting sick hurts for days. When you fall on the playground, it hurts for a minute, but then your boo-boo goes away. The doctor is going to do something that hurts for a minute, and it goes away the same way. Do you want it to hurt for one minute and then get back to the playground/video games/whatever, or do you want to be stuck in bed for days?
OK, let's look at the data carefully. Start with the CDC summary: 57 milion doses, 22,000 reports to VAERS. Of those, 8% were serious. That works out to about 3.5 in 10,000. Given that VAERS is self-reported and doesn't require an actual diagnosis or necessarily any evidence that the issue was vaccine related, even that data is pretty overstated. Hopefully, we're using the same definition for "serious" (which for these purposes is typically "hospitalization, chronic injury, or death"). I suspect we're not, because anything with a 4% chance of serious side effects would be considered straight up poison and ripped from the shelves.
On to the NHS site. It gives no numbers for such "serious" side effects, but does gives other stats:
>10% for redness at the injection site or headaches.
>1% for fever, nausea, painful limbs.
~0.01% for hives
Self reported and without statistics (more like VAERS) are a series of disorders, most of which are not especially serious, but a couple of which are moderate to severely serious (Guillain Barré syndrome). Of course, the HuffPo site you linked notes that the statistics thus far have shown that those serious disorders appear to occur in the HPV vaccinated population at the same rate as the population at large, so it's rather hard to claim that the vaccine was the cause.
It's amazing to me that we're using the same sites and you're coming up with numbers that don't appear to be anywhere in those sites. The best I can come up with is that your methodology takes all possible reactions including "redness at the injection site", takes the 10% probability of that, notes that there was an unconfirmed case of Dutch elm disease in there, and says "Dutch elm disease (or similar) in 10% of cases!"
Here is a link to the Google search results of alien abduction cases. You'll note a variety of sources with a lot of different anecdotes, as well as more serious academic sources. Depending on which site you go to, you get very different results. My concern here is that your idea of "education" is reading all of the sites and averaging what you read.
From the FDA in 2013: The vaccine is effective against HPV types 16 and 18 which cause approximately 70% of cervical cancers, and against HPV types 6 and 11 which cause approximately 90% of genital warts.. Maybe there's some cutting edge research (or web site rumor mills) that indicates otherwise. Maybe those unnamed sources are even right. But they're usually not.
200 cases out of ~60 million doses? I'm definitely willing to believe that. But not 4%. I'd say that's an excellent result and that compensating the rare problem case is perfectly reasonable. I mean, giving peanuts to 60,000,000 people is likely to cause adverse reaction
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Want to take a good look, and tell me what the collateral damage would be for not having herd immunity? Some of these diseases are really nasty.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So are some of these vaccines. In fact, for some of the weakened-virus instead of killed-virus variety, some of these vaccines *are* the disease they are hoping to prevent.
What are the real risks of vaccines? Incredibly hard to tell when even the CDC uses weasel words like "risk of death is extremely small" instead of giving us a percentage from the study- and the original white papers are always paywalled and copyrighted. You can't calculate risk without knowing actual numbers.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
So now we change the whole topic from "Freedom to choose" to simply "Gardasil is good" and "I don't like your statistics. Got it. No, I'm not writing a new thesis or dissertation on a vaccine. My summary was not based on statistics, it was based on a freedom of choice and education which you falsely claimed to agree with. If I were writing a dissertation I would surely spend many months gathering different and distinct sources. Google what I gave and do research if you want, I don't care.
That said, stop lying and claiming to be fore something which you are obviously against.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I think of it far more generally than that. I'd say if I were to summarize it's, "People who claim to be trying to educate you by getting you to look at potential side effects of vaccines are often wildly overstating the case, and their claims often fall apart under scrutiny." Your Gardasil claims are simply an example case of that. In any case, there's no "your statistics" in this case. Statistics come from data. The numbers you're throwing out don't seem to have that property. They appear to just be made up on the spot. They're just numbers without anything to justify them. That's what I don't like. That's not "education." That's just pissing in the pool of human knowledge.
Surely there's some middle road between "PhD dissertation" and "numbers I pulled out of thin air for a Slashdot post" isn't there?
Facts, shmacts. You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!
-Homer J. Simson
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Surely there's some middle road between "PhD dissertation" and "numbers I pulled out of thin air for a Slashdot post" isn't there?
I gave a method of finding alternative statistics which you choose to ignore. You will only believe what the CDC reports even when it can easily be shown by medical professionals that the numbers reported by the CDC are not accurate and don't cover the topic you are demanding CDC numbers for.
More hand waiving, and "la la lah I'm not listening".
Followed by more attempted ad hominem and riducule.
All to defend you being a liar...
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
OK, I'll bite. You referenced the CDC and NIH and I pointed out that their numbers totally reject your numbers. Now you're not happy that I'm using the CDC and NIH and failing to use your unnamed alternative knowledge sources that are, like, totally better than the CDC and NIH that you referenced earlier. OK. Let's do it.
Should we just google 'gardasil vaccine injury' and see what we get?
First link is something pointing out that Gardasil is safe by any reasonable measure. Probably not a kosher source of alternative knowledge from your perspective, so I'll skip those. Moving on.
There's this, which has numbers but no references. Here's one with references, so that's a good start. 48 deaths! Wow! Wait, the reference is just to VAERS, which we talked about earlier. Just the VAERS root site, not even the actual document. Well, let's try again.
Lots more stuff, just going back to VAERS. Did I mention that the VAERS analysis has been done to death? Lots of web sites with personal anecdotes (probably also reported to VAERS, so thank goodness that's covered). Some (most, maybe) of those may be very true. But again, we're talking about roughly 60,000,000 doses, and we're not accumulating anything like a significant probability of serious reaction. Which is why we use statistics. Like so:
National Geographic gives the odds of being hit by lightning in any given year as 1 in 700,000. That means that we'd expect 85 of those women to be struck this year. If they all reported "hit by lightning" to VAERS, "hit by lightning" would surpass a bunch of the other things they've reported as "side effects" that people are panicking about.
That's a gorgeous juxtaposition. Dude, I'm attacking your data, not you. If you want to reduce the amount of damage, bring better data next time.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
and studies on the subject often glaze over the possible contributors to disease spread in the vaccinated population (going to work while infectious instead of staying home)
I don't understand - are you saying they ignore the risk of infection vectors or do you think that most people stay home immediately they become infectious - which is generally before they are symptomatic, somehow they just 'know'.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
OK, I'll bite. You referenced the CDC and NIH and I pointed out that their numbers totally reject your numbers. Now you're not happy that I'm using the CDC and NIH and failing to use your unnamed alternative knowledge sources that are, like, totally better than the CDC and NIH that you referenced earlier. OK. Let's do it.
Nope, I never mentioned the CDC you did. Go back and read the thread again. I never mentioned the NIH either. You demanded that any report regarding a vaccine harming someone had to come from the CDC or you would not believe it. You are completely fabricating claims which can be invalidated by simply scrolling up.
Should we just google 'gardasil vaccine injury' and see what we get?
First link is something pointing out that Gardasil is safe by any reasonable measure. Probably not a kosher source of alternative knowledge from your perspective, so I'll skip those. Moving on.
Got it! The only thing you can do in Google is read the top links, and those links are the only things that matter. Further, anything you can't learn in 5 minutes or less on Google is worthless information. Sarcasm aside, wholly shit I'd hate to see how bad you can slaughter a concordance or bibliography.
Finally, again you are simply arguing about statistics. The numbers, again, were never the subject of my posts in this thread. Why do you continually divert from the topic I presented? Either you claimed to be for people being able to choose and you lied, or you can not grasp that basic repeated theme.
Simple logic. "Medical procedures" have risk, risk should yield a choice. True or false? If you say "True" then we agree and there is nothing further to discuss on that point. If you say "false" then you lied early on.
More simple logic. Either education solves the problem or it does not. If you back your claim that it does then again we agree, if you simply nitpick who's source for numbers again you lied.
Sure, we could sit after that agreement and come up with numbers from all kinds of sources to build material to educate people with. Build a curriculum to give people the best education possible so that they make the best choice. From the very first post I stated very clearly that any numbers depend on what the vaccine is for because they vary drastically. Following that I touched on the common misinformation method of splitting risk and only advertising the number someone wants, instead of providing a real number which is a summation of all problems.
If there are deliberate adjustments to the facts, omission of facts, or fabricated information to sway people's freedom of choice then you don't care about education. You care about manipulation. As an advocate for the Socratic method in addition to his definition of Philosophy, I despise that Sophist line of thinking.
What we currently have is a manipulated system. It is nearly impossible to have a rational debate on vaccines, medications, or even climate change and pollution because of the mountains of misinformation being spread around from both camps (those that profit from other peoples misfortune and ignorance, and those so fed up with people taking advantage that they lie to attempt to force changes). Yeah yeah, lofty goals, but education and honesty are the keys to bettering society. Dishonesty and forced ignorance are major causes in societal collapse.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The first mention of the CDC in this thread is your post here, preceded by a link in your previous post that you later note is supported because it "mentions released information from CDC which you can go read for yourself." Which I did. Which was not supportive of your position on Gardasil.
My bad. I meant to write NIH. Which you linked to here. Which notably also does not support your statistical contentions.
OK, so you spout factually questionable claims. I challenge you on your sources and you are offended at the very notion that you should spend time doing such a thing. Then you tell me to search Google to support your ridiculous position. When I do so and the initial results continue to crap all over your claims, you're annoyed that I don't spend vastly more time and effort than you have to support your position. Or is the problem that I googled "guardasil vaccine injuries" instead of "guardasil vaccine harm" like you explicitly told me to do in as many words.
If you had given me anything remotely resembling a bibliography, I'd have been all over it. The links you gave either didn't support your position or didn't bother to list where they got their data. The few links that I started to chase down from my quickie Google that did have some footnotes turned out to have bullshit footnotes. I'm going to jump out on a limb here and say that if one of us is doing vastly more bibliographic leg work than the other, it's me.
Your first post in this thread that I responded to is here where I noted that your statistical claims in that post are unsupported nonsense. We're still holding firm there. If you're in favor of people making educated decisions based on real risk analysis, don't spread bad numbers. Spread good, well-supported numbers.
True, but so general as to be totally meaningless. Drinking water from your tap has risk. Eating ice cream has risk. Playing miniature golf has risk. That's why we use numbers to quantify that risk. I don't see people leaping into threads about mini golf pointing out that people should carefully evaluate the risks of mini golf before playing. This tells me that either vaccines are really a lot more dangerous than mini golf (a position I don't see a lot of support for), or that people are badly misevaluating the measured risks.
If your grand philosophical point is that medical procedures have risks and that anybody who disagrees with the specifics of your arguments is arguing that medical procedures don't have risks, I don't really see how you can claim the high ground by taking a stand against sophistry.
I'm right with you there. That's why I'm calling out your bad statistics.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I never gave the CDC as a statistic source, I said the CDC claimed that the vaccine was safe. I should have clarified, perhaps, but so should you since you keep claiming to want statistics from the CDC and claiming that I provided statistics from the CDC. That quote is below and has no claim of statistics. If you did any research at all on what I gave you to search you will find numerous ad campaigns from various sources in addition to manufactures attempting to get legislation passed to force Gardasil vaccines on women. As mentioned previously there are numerous class action suits against the maker currently in action and many more already closed. The sad part is that most of those closures come with gag orders.
Here is that quote verbatim: I gave Gardasil as an example which for years was touted as completely safe by manufacturers, the CDC, and the US Department of Health. That statement is very obviously not a statistic but a statement regarding released opinions on a vaccine by certain sources (which are still searchable).
OK, so you spout factually questionable claims
I stated up front that the odds for becoming critically ill from a vaccine is dependent on the vaccine . You continue to omit this sentence while claiming I gave a wrong number. Later, you gave a single statistic for a single problem as the whole of the vaccine statistics. I used simplified numbers in that post to show how what you were doing was mathematically unsound for claiming a vaccine's rate of issues.
Care to claim that your numbers were fabricated and that you were presenting biased information? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Your first post in this thread that I responded to is here where I noted that your statistical claims in that post are unsupported nonsense. We're still holding firm there. If you're in favor of people making educated decisions based on real risk analysis, don't spread bad numbers. Spread good, well-supported numbers.
See above. Will you deny that lobbyists exist and pass bad laws protecting pharmaceutical companies? Will you deny that claims of problems with vaccines are blocked, misreported, and not reported even though medical professionals will tell you otherwise? Will you deny that people are bullied into silence by court proceedings so that the truth becomes buried at least a measurable percentage of the time? We know that cases happen and are settled without a public ruling, and we know that people are forced into silence in order to get treatment or receive damages. Those things can be proven, but the frequency is not provable.
Your first post in this thread that I responded to is here where I noted that your statistical claims in that post are unsupported nonsense
WRONG! You read what you wanted to read and ignored a key sentence! See the first item!
True, but so general as to be totally meaningless. Drinking water from your tap has risk. Eating ice cream has risk. Playing miniature golf has risk. That's why we use numbers to quantify that risk. I don't see people leaping into threads about mini golf pointing out that people should carefully evaluate the risks of mini golf before playing.
This just about ends the discussion because it portrays exactly what I was looking for. People have a choice of drinking tap water and are not forced to drink from the tap. People have choices about eating ice cream or not, and even who to buy ice cream from or make their own. People have a choice about playing miniature golf or not, driving a car, choosing an employer, eating potentially risky foods like wild mushrooms, who they marry, whether or not they will own a dog or a cat or both. Either people are free to be educated and have a choice, or they are not. It is impossible to believe in a mixed mode without being extremely delusion or simply a liar.
If you believe in freedom for you at the expense of others,
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
And talk about your ignorant lemming liberals following blindly along believing everything they're told.
We hear this often from the drooling ditto-heads on the right, and yet again, nothing to substantiate it. No, "studies" conducted by energy industry shills do not count. Produce credible citations to support your assertion, or STFU.