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Measles Outbreak In NYC
sandbagger writes "New York City may have to deal with a measles problem. New Yorkers are being urged to make sure all household members, including young children, are vaccinated. To date, there have been 16 confirmed cases and four hospitalizations. This follows news from the CDC in December that 2013 saw triple the average number of yearly measles cases. 2014 is off to an even worse start; there have been cases recently in the Boston metropolitan area and more than a dozen in the Bay Area as well. Vaccinations seem to be a victim of their own success — people look around and see no polio or measles and wonder why they should bother. Others repeat bogus claim about vaccines causing autism. How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?"
Thanks a lot you dumb bitch.
We should present to them the facts! That will sway their minds. /sarcasm...
http://www.followingvaccinations.com
As long as trends like this happen, you won't get through to them.
Hmm was there a major outcry by people who knew **** all about vaccines regarding MMR and the unfounded notion that it might cause Autism? We had a large outbreak of Measles in the UK recently because people had stopped getting their kids vaccinated. Perhaps the same thing happened on your side of the pond.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Tell these people a story about a kid that got sick and nearly died because of not being vaccinated. It was recently shown to be effective, which makes sense, since these people seem to think emotionally rather than rationally. Evidence does nothing to convince them.
You can't get through. The more you tell them they are wrong, the more they double down.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effect
"Well my kid died of measles, but at least he didn't get Autism"
People need to realize that Andrew Wakefield, the father of the anti-vax movement as we know it today, was discredited and disgraced for the shoddiness of his so-called "research".
Oh yeah, and he had a vested interest in kids not getting MMR vax - I think he had ownership of a patent on a different rubella-only vaccine. Herp derp.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Sure the Amish might have exceedingly rare cases of autism & some may point fingers to the MMR which is garbage...but do they get measles?
I cannot wait to find out.
As a start they need to get all vaccine research out from behind paywalls in the public interest.
Trying to reason with an anti-vaxer is impossible, its like trying to talk to a fanatical person of any stripe they don't listen to reason, especially if your facts discount what they believe.
- free vaccinations
- no insurance coverage for treatment if you are not vaccinated
- fines for not vaccinating your children
That leaves stupidity as the only reason not to get vaccinated. Hopefully the money collected from those fines is then used to do something about the stupidity.
If the fines then become an incentive for parents to not treat their children, there should be child abuse laws for not giving your child required medical care that kick in. You could also reverse it, i.e. a tax deduction for vaccination, in case the psychology works better that way.
*blinking cursor*
I don't see how we could get through to them, they've already jumped the bandwagon on at least one dubious claim, facts and research clearly aren't swaying these people. Letting them contract the disease and then tell them why they can't be cured of it, and may die, might have a much larger impact. Sucks that it has to put the rest of us at risk first though.
... whatever
Maybe we'll have the capability to cheaply trace each confirmed case back to the source through the DNA of diseases. Turn a few ambulance chasing lawyers loose on folks causing outbreaks for whatever reason and a few people might change their tune.
"How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?"
Let them all die the way nature intended.
Hope you're proud of yourselves.
It's easy. There's usually hospital or school records of people being vaccinated. If they're not, pin them down and vaccinate them. What would you be charged with? Protecting their life?
How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?
Unfortunately, I don't think anything will get through to them until their kids and loved ones start dying from very old and highly preventable diseases.
Their mindset is one much like the followers of creationism, etc where they believe that:
1) All scientists have been bought out by "big pharma" or
2) That the consensus among the scientific community is some kind of organized ploy to sell more and more drugs.
Because of this, no matter what scientists or public health officials say, they just plug their ears and go "LALALALALA".
How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers
Let their kids start dying of these things again, it'll get through. You can't convince stupid people, especially when they have a vacuous celebrity spokesperson.
Another way of looking at this is that this is a self correcting problem. The retards who don't vaccinate their children end up having their progeny eliminated from the gene pool and thereby preventing the proliferation of their foolishness. Poor kids though.
"How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?"
Easy... ever heard of the phrase "I say we take the safety labels off of all products and let the problem sort itself out"?
I know several people that refuse to vaccinate their children. They don't care what evidence you provide. They will argue until the day they die that vaccines cause autism. You can't argue with that level of conviction(or stupidity).
Yes, there's a good chance we're going to lose people that were vaccinated and still caught the (insert any vaccinated disease here) but that's the breaks when you deal with society. They won't always agree with you. And their stupid mistakes will sometimes cost you more than you are ever willing to pay.
http://i2.listal.com/image/4300557/600full-jenny-mccarthy.jpg
The best way to handle this is for the original author of the paper that started this anti-vaccination mess, Andrew Wakefield, come out and give a public statement indicating that:
1. Apologize for the fact that his study was flawed, and explain why.
2. That no other study has established any material basis in any respect for a link between autism and vaccines or their components.
3. The original funding for this supposed research was made by lawyers who were attempting to find reason to litigate against vaccine manufacturers.
4. That many people will now die of diseases that were nearly eradicated a mere 15 years ago similar to smallpox a few years before it was eradicated.
Put that as a public service announcement on every major TV and radio channel, and online as well, as widely as possible. Show pictures of what happens when people don't vaccinate, particularly to children, the elderly and immune-compromised individuals (e.g. transplant saved his/her life, now they die). Have him make this appeal over and over again until people get this.
Even if we don't get to 100%, we owe it to everyone around us. The public health costs are staggering, and the stupidity is mind boggling.
It's a shitty solution and totally unfair to the kids, but I think it's the only solution.
Trying to reason with an "anti-vaxxer" is like trying to reason with the contrail folks. Just not going to be productive.
The only way this movement is going to die is when a sufficient number of parents watch their non-vaccinated children die or become horribly disfigured from long-since dealt with diseases.
Just tell them that the vaccine is fully organic, low sodium, fat free and gluten free.
Also, it's got Electrolytes.
I'm serious. This is a public health issue, and they're reducing the effectiveness of health initiatives for everyone around them. I'm not keen on giving the government the power to say, "let us stick this needle in your arm, or we're going to toss you in prison," but, as a society, we're quickly reaching a point at which we need to decide whether we have the right to protect society itself from the stupidity of the vocal minority. Slippery slope, I get it, but it's no false dichotomy to point out that the only other real option is to ignore them, and accept the consequences thereof.
Point fingers at "anti-vaxxers" all you want, that's not the root of the issue (not to say that it's not an issue). So long as we keep cramming more and more humans into smaller and smaller areas, we're just begging for a pandemic to come through and wipe out a fair amount of the population.
Think about new "super-diseases" like MRSA, or H041 Gonorrhea, which some experts are saying is a worse STD than AIDS.
No vaccination is going to save you from disease-related death if you're all crammed together like cattle in a slaughter shoot.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
As far as I'm concerned, the message should be:
"Here's the only link between vaccines and autism: if you don't vaccinate your children, they might die before they can even be diagnosed with autism."
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I've heard it said before that preventable disease outbreaks like this happen because children who are typically not yet old enough to be vaccinated come into contact with a more mature individual who was never vaccinated.
If so, it seems to me that the only reason this kind of thing keeps happening is because of THEIR choice... and their choice is directly affecting the lives of other children that they could communicate the disease to.
As for how to really get them to support vaccinations? I can only suggest something that is at least mostly preventable through vaccination, but particularly virulent and lethal as what may be the only thing to have any impact. It won't necessarily convince them to do anything about it if they succumb themselves, but the memory of the incident will stick around for at least a couple of generations in the survivors.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Simply make them criminally liable for any other people who catch measles from them or their children.
Also revoke their health care coverage. And eliminate excused exemptions from vaccinations except when approved by a panel of doctors.
... meanwhile on anti-vax FB pages that I have gotten into, they are having measles-parties, mumps-parties, and the like. Intentionally exposing their kids to disease.
Trolling is a art,
Ok, so *you think* your kid might become autistic, if vaccinated.... Better to have a live autistic child than one that is dead from whooping cough.
When it came time to discuss this with our DR, she said to us, "You don't want to see what it's like to watch a child die from whooping cough." It took about 2 seconds for my wife and I to process that, and decide what the larger risk is.
--fatboy
Its sad, but if the kids of parents who only think on a base emotional level die then its clearing out the human gene pool. We should thank them.
Yea, more likely to die from a bee sting because we vaccinate against it. Statistically, you are more likely to die from measles than a bee sting if you haven't been vaccinated against measles. These stupid douches are endangering their children's lives; it is child neglect/child abuse and they should be prosecuted as such.
If you don't vaccinate your child, fine. But if you reject society like that then expect society to reject you.
No vaccination? Forbidden from attending school. Forbidden from visiting a doctor. Forbidden from visiting any public facilities like libraries, train stations, or airports. Forbidden from riding a bus or train or taxi.
PDP-11's forever, baby!
Easy - let them die of measles. If they chose not to be vaccinated they can choose to die of an easily preventable disease. Then throw a big party celebrating them being gone.
It may not be possible. The anti-vaccination movement has taken on full blown fundamentalist religious zeal. It's like trying to talk about evolution to a fundamentalist christian. In the end you have wasted your breath talking to an ignorance re-reinforced brick wall.
Personally, I think the government needs air strongly worded PSA's during the commercial segments in primetime television with powerful and sickening imagery combined with stories of kids that died becaue they did not get vaccinated. Yes, we need a campaign stronger than the opposition.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
The only thing that gets through to people who run their lives based entirely on emotions is ....wait for it.... emotions.
Sadly, this will require the deaths of a few infants from vaccine preventable diseases. Once those hit the news parents will be more afraid of the disease than the vaccine.
An artificial vaccine shortage will help. If parents are afraid they might not be able to get vaccines before "the supply runs out" they will panic and stand in line for hours to get their kids immunized.
Mod this "Sad, but true"
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Shunning might work. Unvaccinated kids don't pose a medical danger to vaccinated kids, but they are a potential emotional liability since they may die for a tragically preventable reason. If we say we don't want our vaccinated kids to get close to unvaccinated kids to avoid a possible emotional wound, then that places a lot of social pressure on the issue. Shunning is one of the cruelest things to do, so we ought to be sure the problem is really worth taking such steps. It's been working for smoking though.
Er... Not rubella. Pertusis. Rubella is only immunized against because it can cause problems with pregnant mothers, who get it due to partial immunity from immunizations.
Can you provide any science to showing that vaccinations are not as effective as building up a natural immunity?
But the problem is you still thought there was an autism risk and it took you an extra 2 seconds to do it. This is the underlying issue. Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent paper on the subject stating that vaccinations cause this and got a celebrity to basically endorse it because she (Jenny McCarthy) was looking for a reason why her child was autistic. If it wasn't for JMC being desperate to find an excuse that doesn't include any self blame this would never have gotten even a tiny fraction of the attention it has.
How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?
Require mandatory vaccination. The only exemption being for children who cannot receive the vaccine for medical reasons. And if an unvaccinated child is subsequently harmed by contracting measles prosecute the parents for child endangerment.
If one person tells you that you are irresponsible and a bad, even dangerous parent, I'd say don't listen. But when dozens, hundreds, millions tell you? Everyone who has their children vaccinated doesn't have to ACTUALLY say the words to you do they?
You are a bad parent. Your children would be better off with someone else. I don't particularly care for you or yours one way or another - people die every day. But you decided to put your own children at risk? You have failed the number one principle of parenting.
Even relying on herd immunity is unhelpful. Herd immunity is there for those who cannot have the vaccinations, for one medical reason or another.
This doesn't make sense, the childeren that are vaccinated shouldn't be influenced by the children that are. Otherwise why vaccinate at all if it's not even effective stopping you from getting it.
1. Not everyone can be vaccinated. Persons with immune system conditions, allergies, etc.
2. Not everyone is ready for vaccination. MMR, for example, can't be given until 12 months.
3. Vaccines aren't 100% effective. There's always a small percentage who simply fail to acquire immunity.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Children too young to be vaccinated are affected by other unvaccinated people who have come in recent contact with the disease. If the latter people had instead been vaccinated, the likelihood of passing on the disease to anyone who hasnt't been is immensely reduced (in addition to the fact that they will not get it).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I've always known some people that were stupid enough to fall for this garbage. And I always told them how dumb they were being. But now I have my own kid. Now, I ask... "Is your kid vaccinated?" and if not they are not allowed in my house, and not allowed around my kid unless mandated by law (school) One couple got mad at me, and I finally just told them to go screw themselves. The life of my child is not worth maintaining your pseudoscience addled minds fantasy. I'm sick of it, and everyone else should be to. Ostracize these people and their kids. Do not allow them near you. The only thing that will fix this insane fad is peer pressure.
How is it you have the brains to learn to read and write, but in other respects appear to be an ignorant halfwit?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Make their kids wards of the state until they pull their heads out of their asses.
Yea, more likely to die from a bee sting because we vaccinate against it. Statistically, you are more likely to die from measles than a bee sting if you haven't been vaccinated against measles. These stupid douches are endangering their children's lives; it is child neglect/child abuse and they should be prosecuted as such.
I am pretty sure you are just making stuff up with this statement. And this is why the anti-vaxxers don't believe you pro-vaxxers. You keep lying all the time.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
So... the "anti-vax'ers" the article mentions... they're only a small subset of the population, right? Last I checked, according to the CDC they only account for less than .2 percent of the population. I understand the numbers are growing, but they're still a small subset. So if the other 99.8% of people are getting their vaccinations then this really only affects the non-vax'ers, right? In other words, they're getting exactly what they understand they'll get by not being vaccinated. So how is this a huge problem again? I'm confused. Granted, no one wants to see anyone, especially children, die unnecessarily when a vaccination could have kept them alive. But those who reject the vax's over fears of autism, etc understand that if they do get it, they're facing a different risk and they're basically playing the odds. In most cases, whether its measles or chicken pox, they get it, they get over it, and they'll never get it again and their immune systems are the better for it. In rare cases, they or their children will die. But they believe the odds of them dying from measles or pox is less than the odds of having a bad outcome from the vax and getting something like autism. Its all about risks the anti vax'ers are willing to take (and to take for their children). But being such a small subset of the population.. I'm not sure how this is a problem for the rest of us that are already vaccinated and can't get it anyway...
my pediatrician's father died decades ago via heart failure. he told me all about it
a normal bacterial infection spread and destroyed his heart. before widespread use of antibiotics. that's real immunity for you.
It was for polio, and the vaccination wasn't fake. A CIA agent posed as a doctor, likely the others didn't even know. The CIA hijacked the goodwill effort (doctors without borders I believe) for use in spying. The agent got caught (or at least discovered), and it got into the media. This sparked A) Distrust of the vaccinations so people didn't show up, and B) Bombings to kill the doctors (who might be CIA), also manage to kill people trying to get vaccinations, will also keep people away. All of these things hinder the distribution of the vaccine.
However:
1) It was just normal helpful vaccine, not nano spy bots or whatever.
2) It was, apart from the one jerk CIA agent, a bunch of innocent doctors trying to help.
Sounds like "the science is settled" from the globular warming lemmings. A million people can claim that two plus two is five, and it remains steadfastly four.
You don't get to decide ANYTHING about my children. Ever.
Herd immunity isn't. Plenty of vaccinated people get Measles. Almost nobody who has gotten Measles gets it again.
My son is grown and very healthy. My daughter has Lyme, which sucks balls.
I maintain that so many vaccinations are destroying the natural immunity of the human race. At our great peril.
Yup, it's evolution. Soon all those 'book smart' people are going to find out their books weren't so useful when dealing with reality. All hail Idiocracy.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
This person actually know what they are talking about. It is quite strange to see so many people who usually appear to be quite intelligent acting so stupidly every time the issue of vaccines comes up. Autism isn't even the issue, it the over use of all drugs. If we were discussing the overuse of antibacterials that create the super bugs would people be demanding that we make a law requiring everybody to bathe in the antibacterial chemicals?
There are useful vaccines. Some of the ones they want to push into very young children are to stop an illness that is as harmful as getting a cold. And you are accepting the possible harmful effects from the vaccine as well as the weakening of that child's immune system in the bargain. And some of the new ones, Gardasil, can actually increase your risk of cervical cancer by 44% according to the maker Merck. But that's an acceptable trade off so we can ensure more money makes it into the hands of the elite and powerful.
The best you can do is look at each vaccine independently to see if it looks worth it. Balance the risk and effects of the disease against the particular vaccine and it's effects. Once vaccine's are mandated by law then where is the line. Are we going to end up with everybody forced to get vaccines against something almost impossible to contract where the side effects from the vaccine itself is quite high? The vaccine maker would not care, it's money in their pocket and they are immune from lawsuits to boot!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I just read the wiki page on tetanus. You very specifically can not get immunity by exposure. It's caused by a bacterium which makes the toxin that messes you up.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
She's a stupid douche because the fewer people who take the vaccine the more likely people are to catch this disease, increasing the number of people who die from it, making it far more deadly than bee stings. You're not very good with this whole "science" thing, are you?
that would mean demanding vaccination records for all kids in public schools
We got that around here. Want to go to public school? You must show your vaccination records. Don't want to send your kids to public school? You'd better be using an approved home school system or sending them to private, because you'll get fined or have your children taken from you if you don't educate them. We won't tell you how to educate your children, you just need to have proof that you've been using some form of acceptable education.
Except that anti-vaxxers can (and are) causing people to get sick who can't vaccinate due to valid reasons such as illness/allergies or age (i.e. babies too young for the vaccine). Some of these cases result in death. If person A doesn't vaccinate and that kills person B's 6 month old baby, how is that evolution in action?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Can't we just let the diseases spread as widely as possible? That way the problem will sort itself out....
Too bad it is unethical to deny medical treatment to people who refused to get vaccinated.
ACtually, there are plenty of cases when parents and guardians have had their rights over their children stripped. REad up on JW's and blood transfusions.
Your children are not your property. You are entrusted with your well being, until such time as you demonstrate that you cannot be trusted in this manner.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oh Noes! it has 1 part in 10,000,000,000 of mercury. It must be toxic!
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I get what you're saying, but I don't entirely agree with it. I think the ubiquitous presence of all things anti-bacterial is screwing us up pretty badly, but exposing someone to weakened or dead disease causing agents is doing no harm to their immune system; it's helping it build without damaging the rest of the body. That said, I 100% support your right to make those kinds of decisions for your own kids regardless of how I personally judge those decisions and I'll gladly stand against the crusading fascists who'd happily employ agents of the government to bust down your door, strap your kids to a gurney, and jam needles full of drugs into their arms.
That kind of thinking has killed tens of millions more than any lack of vaccination.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Does NYC have a lot of illegal immigrants? They don't have to go through the health checks and vaccinations that legal immigrants do.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
He is making it up. While measles can indeed kill, it typically doesn't. Every grandparent and parent I had had measles as a child.
Yeah, so if I told a bunch of people to jump off a cliff and they did it, that would make me a mass murderer. Of course, you're going to be modded to +5, and since your viewpoint is so trendy around here (influx of Diggers like rats running from a flood), Dice will probably uncap the moderation to make a +6, Trendy! mod.
And perhaps that is why nobody will believe the people who say how safe all these shots are. Next thing you will see is vaccine for toe nail fungus. And these pro-vaxxers will still be claiming it is child abuse to allow them to possibly get toe nail fungus because they didn't get a vaccine.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
My wife and I home school our two daughters. There is a home school support group in our area that is frequented by several anti-vaccine families. My daughters are up to date on their vaccines and we don't associate with the anti-vax nut jobs. Please don't assume that all home schoolers are anti-vax.
I Don't Work Here
Measles is spreading in the Bible Belt of Canada, the Fraser Valley ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
People like you make the rest of us libertarians look stupid. One does not have a right to walk around pointing their gun at people, shooting it in the air, and twirling it around with the safety off. Senselessly putting people's lives at risk is aggressive _before_ that risk turns into grief.
"Stupidity, ignorance, religious preference (which I know a lot of people 'round these parts will lump in with stupidity)"
Now if only we had a vaccine for stupidity...
Remember, everyone. Mama McCarthy says that the toxins in vaccines are bad, but injecting yourself with botulinum toxin is just fine!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Do you even know how vaccines work? They present the body with a "pseudo-virus" (either a dead one or proteins that the real virus would have). The body sees the invading "virus" and figures out how to kill it. Then, when confronted with the real thing, the body will know how to respond. Dealing with a real virus is the same thing except that the body actually has to fight off the infection while dealing with the virus AND there's a much greater risk of injury or death. Plus, your children can spread their diseases to other people (especially those too young to be vaccinated or those with medical reasons not to vaccinate like compromised immune systems). In your quest for some mythical "real immunity", you are putting other people's lives at risk.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
If person A doesn't vaccinate and that kills person B's 6 month old baby, how is that evolution in action?
It is in the sense that I was deliberately assuming a grossly over-simplified model of epidemiology for comedy purposes.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If not vaccinating only harmed the children of the anti-vaxxers, I'd be right alongside you. I'd still encourage everyone to vaccinate, but I'd be against making it mandatory.
It doesn't work that way, though. If your child isn't vaccinated, they can infect someone who is too young to be vaccinated or someone who is immuno-compromised and so couldn't be vaccinated. Not vaccinating your child is putting others at risk of illness, injury, and death. At that point, it stops becoming a "personal choice" issue and becomes a public health one. You don't have the right to swing your fist if my face (or my child's face) is along that path.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Let the gun nuts use anti-vaccination idiots as target practice.
Generally, if vaccinations are widespread, those that can not be vaccinated will benefit from the herd immunity afforded by general vaccination.
Herd Immunity...
Assuming all exposures are endogenous to the group, and that inter-group mobility is small.
Otherwise, you get a grad student from U.C. Berkeley who travels to China and brings back measles, and then proceeds to take BART all over the Bay Area, exposing a huge number of people by way of others also taking public transportation, and then we have the current Bay Area measles outbreak among the unvaccinated.
Alternately, we could use relatively cheap monoclonal antibody tests when letting people through international borders based on them coming from regions of known measles, mumps, whooping cough, or whatever outbreaks, and quarantine them until they are no longer infectious.
Ironically, everyone always talks about prevention by vaccination, assuming that there *will* be a patient zero, rather than prevention by disallowing exposure *by* the patient zero. No patient zero running around in your "unprotected" population, and there's no outbreak, and your population is protected; it's just not a politically correct mechanism for said protection.
I think this probably grows out of the victim mentality that it's not patient zero's fault they were infected, it's someone else's fault, and we should have sympathy for them. It's kind of hard to do that when you have a "Typhoid Mary" Mallon who can't be cured, and is running around giving everyone else the disease because she prefers to work as a cook instead of working in a laundry. Thankfully, our fore-bearers were a little more clever than we are, and quarantined her until her death in 1938 ended the threat of her spreading the disease once and for all.
No, *I* never thought that. I was aware that there was a belief by some people that thought that. What took 2 seconds to process was the mental image of our kid dying of an illness that you only hear about in Victorian literature. Knowing I was looking into the eyes of someone that seen it happen. What I am suggesting is that this appeal to emotion may be a good method of dealing with irrational soon-to-be parents.
Yes, when it came to our kids, we asked the Dr. lots of questions. Including "stupid" questions we think we know the answer to. Our 1st child was born with a congenital health issue that is much more rare than autism. Pretty much everything was on the table. Thanks to some biomedical technology, she is thriving.
--fatboy
Thanks for the details. I said that Tetanus is an exception. You gave a better reason.
Thanks for your voice of reason. People are so incredibly afraid of disease. It's a natural part of life. I don't think we really know what we're doing trying to short-circuit so many diseases.
I know the theory. I just don't entirely believe it. Measles, mumps, chicken pos, and rubella are all normal parts of growing up. Filling young children with so many vaccines in such a short period isn't good. See Agent0013's comment.
If there is any truth at all to the risk of damage to your child from vaccination, you have a tremendous burden for life.
OTOH the odds of getting measles, at the moment, are very low. And those of us old enough to remember getting it as children (before the MMR was standard) all lived through it; and people who saw it in other countries presumably also lived through it.
So the problem is selling people on an unknown risk of tremendous harm, or an apparently low risk of low expected harm. All you gamer-geeks out there, min/max this, and see if you don't come up with the same decision. You can't expect the average person to understand this as a "tragedy of the commons" issue - that the only reason the measles risk is low is that most people are vaccinated, and that if more people make the selfish decision to avoid the damage risk, then the measles risk goes up.
As it happens, while I am in favor of vaccination, I also think we're giving too much to children too early, before their bodies can handle it, and we have no idea whether we're shaving a percent or two off the whole population's IQ by giving so many babies high fevers. I'd like to see better blood tests before pumping babies full of crap made by the lowest bidder.
How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?
The same way you "get through" to homophobics, sexists, religious zealots, murderers, etc.: society decides that a certain behavior is not optional (at least without penalties) and legally requires you to live within certain parameters. In this case, only in extreme circumstances is it allowed to opt-out of vaxing your children.
Hey, AC... How does me not vaccinating my child put your vaccinated child at risk?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"Despite a generally high degree of safety, vaccination still has significant risks."
A one in one million chance of having a mild allergic reaction to a vaccination is not a "significant risk."
A one in one hundred million chance of dying from a vaccination is also not a "significant" risk.
Honest question, should I have taken my newborn for allergy tests before they gave her vaccinations?
Prophylactic natal allergy tests not recommended
Unless you have a family history of various allergies, such testing is usually not done. A familial tendency towards allergies speaks to a difference in the histamine complex on chromosome 6 as an inheritable trait, and unless it's dominant (i.e. everyone who marries into the family without the allergy has children with the allergy), then it's likely not a problem.
That said, a newborn's immune system is largely a legacy from the mother until it's trained up on its own, and the child forms its own T-helper cells which are involved in IgE production, which is where histamine reactions originate. Typically we do not vaccinate newborns immediately for most things (see the CDC site for vaccination schedules for various vaccinations).
Typically, after the newborns own immune system takes over is when you want to vaccinate in any case, since doing so prior to that point will not "train" the newborns immune system to react to the protein you are attempting to train it to react to.
Childhood vaccinations vary. For example, it's common to wait until the child is no longer a newborn to vaccinate for most things. There are also exogenous training factors which should be taken into account, though most are dietary.
If you have a diet containing horse meat (for example), of which the child partakes, then you may find that the child reacts badly to horse serum derived vaccines, such as those commonly used for Tetanus or Diphtheria. You may also find that they would react badly to tratment for exposure to Botulism Antitoxin, which is also derived from horse serum. There was an entire M.A.S.H. episode based on the use of a horse-serum derived Tetanus immunization program in the Korean war that ran into the problem that horse meat was a common component of the Korean diet at the time. This episode was based on historical incidents.
For someone with a large amount of familial allergies, the typical problem is overgeneralization of the IgE response of the immune system. It's unclear whether this is a genetic predisposition, or whether it's a matter of exposure to a large degree of immunological challenges; evidence tends to support a predisposition to certain classes of allergies are genetic (e.g. peanuts, penicillin, etc.), but for them to trigger, you need a second exposure to the allergen after an initial exposure "primes" the response.
We see this same issue present in so-called "Rh babies", where an Rh factor difference between the mother and the baby resulted in the first pregnancy running to term, and spontaneous miscarriages due to the immune interaction with the mother for subsequent pregnancies. It's actually one of the original reasons for state blood tests for marriage licenses, and thus state involvement in approval or disapproval of marriages (the other state involvement reason being the close relation marriage taboo, which until allele testing was possible, didn't show up on the blood tests the way a mother/father Rh factor mismatch would).
I believe the best common practice for this, if you are concerned, is to sit down with your child's doctor *well before* it's time to make a "yes/no" decision -- i.e. don't do it on "shot day" -- and discuss the issues and your concerns and family medical history with her or him; most frequently, the rational decision, when you aren't forcing it in the heat of the moment, is usually to do the vaccination.
Hey, AC... How does me not vaccinating my child put your vaccinated child at risk?
Even if his child have been vaccinated, and thus will not become a zombie if bitten by a zombie, if your unvaccinated child becomes a zombie and bites his child, or in the worst possible case, eats his child's brains, his child suffers from your child not having been vaccinated. Even if it's just a zombie bite, it could become infected by some other bacteria (human mouths are fairly dirty, compared to say a dog's mouth, and zombie mouths are worse).
Same here, and it works, with a large "but".
I got most of the obligatory and recommended vaccines as a child. For some reason though... not measles. Perhaps it wasn't obligatory at the time and I missed it somehow, maybe there were other reasons... I'd have to ask my mother.
Anyway, I never had measles and wasn't vaccinated. I'm perfectly healthy now. I don't have children, but most of my colleagues do, so for the past few years I had contact with people who could be carriers several times. For a grown man this virus is a much more serious problem than for a child. So, let's get vaccinated!
Nope. I lost enough energy to stop trying. One doctor laughed at me. One wasn't sure if it is at all possible to vaccinate an adult. Others were more competent but still - no. You can't just buy it, not without prescription and who will give it to you? I don't get it. Are they afraid of liability if something goes wrong? Is it the result of the public funding limits on different procedures? Maybe that, but I tried it at a private clinic, paying for the visit. Still a no: "you don't need it, don't worry".
WTF?!?
All based on the premise that disease is a man-made method of inflicting harm upon others.
Sorry friend, nature's been killing people with disease since the first species we'd recognize as "people" stood upright and breathed. Unless someone is deliberately using a disease as a weapon (e.g. self-infecting with Bubonic Plague then strolling through an airport coughing on people), the spread of disease is an act of nature. You don't have the right to force drugs into my bloodstream because you think it might help you survive slightly longer. That's the most offensively invasive trampling of the rights of a human being ever conceived. Any individual of sound mind who finds themselves being strapped to a gurney to have drugs forced into their system is under attack and has every natural born right to defend themselves by any means necessary.
If that's not clear enough, let me make it just a little bit clearer: anyone trying to do this to a sane individual deserves to have that individual end them right then and there. That solves your stupid disease problem, doesn't it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
We won't tell you how to educate your children, you just need to have proof that you've been using some form of acceptable education.
So you are telling people how to educate their children.
There's nothing wrong with that, and I personally agree that we should keep doing just that, but let's call things what they are. We, as a society, do tell people how to educate their children by defining "acceptable education". They have a certain degree of freedom within those boundaries, but it's still a considerable limitation. We do it because the right of children involved is more important then the right of their parents.
From an LA Times story:
And from the story it referenced:
(The estimate was later expanded to millions. Also, this "patient zero" infected four of his family members in addition to any he infected on the BART or elsewhere.)
There's more than fuel efficiency to consider when comparing mass transit vs. private automobile transportation.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
[reference to graph with post-vaccination bumps in Measles incidences and a recommendation for a second, booster, dose at the start of the third bump.]
Maybe this is just the half-time of the shots, and it's time to refresh? I.e. "2014, third dose recommended"
I suspect the second-dose recommendation was driven by the detection of substantial numbers of Measles cases among those vaccinated a few years previously, indicating that the immunity from one dose wore down after a few years.
I also suspect that we'll get a third-dose recommendation iff a similar number of cases is detected among those who had two dosesk (of non-defectivek vaccine, properly spaced).
The proper signal comes, not from the overall infection rate, but from the infection rate among those already vaccinated.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The people who are the best in technical fields tend to have well developed social intelligence as well as being technically brilliant. These aren't either-or abilities. The lack of social or emotional skills is a cognitive deficit.
As one who moved to Silicon Valley (which looks to me like one big Aspergers ward B-J ) and socializes with many of the founders of the compter industry, I can tell you that there are a lot of unquestionably "technically brilliant" and wildly successful people who would be textbook examples of Aspergers' "sufferers".
My own opinion is somewhat between yours and that of the previous poster: I suspect Aspergers' people primarily do well with computers because it's a field where the "missing social skills" are not an impediment to success.
The various levels of social-skill blindness, and the resulting stronger focus on the functionality that IS present, may also help more with the programming somewhat (if only by reducing distriction from anthropomorphizing the machines), or it may simply be irrelevant. I suspect it helps some - more than lack of communication with the Pointy Haired Bosses hurts - but that any such effect pales before the "something interesting I can do" effect.
Yes, social skills can help in teamwork, organizing and finding financing for companies, and in finding problems that technology can solve and earn a profit doing so. (Example: Social media.) On the other hand, building technological prosthetics to help replace the missing functionality can also help lead to success. (Example again: Social media.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sir,
Yes, some people cannot get shots. My co-worker's child died of whooping cough. (Yes, in the US, the third world of the first world!)
She was too young to get shots, not yet 3 months.
--PeterM
Whitley Bay
St. Brides Bay
Cardigan Bay
Caernarfon Bay
Notre Dam Bay
Trinity Bay
Conception Bay
Placentia Bay
Fortune Bay
St. Georges Bay
Chedabducto Bay
Egmont Bay
Bay of Fundy
Penobscot Bay
Essex Bay
Dorchester Bay
Duxbury Bay
Kingston Bay
Plymouth Bay
Cape Cod Bay
Little Pleasant Bay
Pleasant Bay
Lewis Bay
Buzzards Bay
Mt. Hope Bay
Narragansett Bay
The people in those bay areas will just have to remember their mile marker and zip code.
Vaccines offer ~90% protection. So even if you're vaccinated, there's a ~10% chance you'll GET THE DISEASE if you're exposed.
When the vast majority of people are vaccinated, diseases don't spread, and the 10% of people who are vaccinated but for which the vaccine didn't work don't end up being exposed.
Vaccinated or not, someone unvaccinated is a personal threat to you and your children!
I get it that you can't ostracize your wife, but don't bring HER or YOUR KIDS anywhere near me or mine!
--PeterM
My co-worker's child died of whooping cough. She was too young to be vaccinated, not even three months.
It's not really a tolerable prospect when it is REAL, is it?
Instead of having babies die, how about we make it PAINFUL to not be vaccinated?
No visits to doctors because you might spread disease, no health care coverage because you haven't done the MINIMUM to protect yourself?
Should society even allow anti-vaxxers to have parental rights at all?
--PM
I'd like to see a citation as well, but a quick check of http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/... has deaths due to measles in 2012 in the UK, and deaths due to contact with hornets, wasps and bees in 2012 in the UK, both equalling 1. Looks like we'd have to do further research, but it seems we shouldn't outright dismiss "bees vs measles" as impossible. :)
Seriously though? Speaking as someone who was born aspie, and had a bad reaction to one of my vaccinations, and managed to catch the measles (twice), chicken pox and rubella despite being vaccinated against all three, I'm still pro-vaccination (but _not_ to the extent of thinking "anti-vaxxers" should be prosecuted, that's a stupid knee-jerk reaction).
Vaccinations work in the sense that they provide _herd_ immunity. Your own personal vaccination is _not_ guaranteed to work, and yeah, there's _also_ a small chance it's going to suck and a smaller chance it's going to really suck, but vaccination is the _community_ version of "a stitch in time saves nine". A little pain now, or a lot more later.
We give their children measles and polio. That'll shut 'em up for good.
So, in your view, Typhoid Mary should have been allowed to continue working as a cook and making people sick because working was her right and who cares if she gets anyone sick/kills anyone? This is essentially what you are advocating. In fact, you are essentially committing your own "self-infecting with Bubonic Plague then strolling through an airport coughing on people" example. By not vaccinating, you are making yourself a potential infection vector. You are reducing herd immunity and making people get sick and die. This isn't just hypothetical. There are outbreaks of diseases that were all but wiped out in the United States and other countries because groups of people (who didn't grow up with them - thanks to vaccines - and thus don't know about the horrors of those diseases) are allowing themselves to be infected. People are dying. If you refuse vaccination, you aren't just making a decision about your own body, but are making a decision about dozens of other people whom you will come into contact with. You are deciding that people will get sick or die because of some misplaced fear of "toxins" and bad risk assessment.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So, in your view, Typhoid Mary should have been allowed to continue working as a cook and making people sick because working was her right and who cares if she gets anyone sick/kills anyone? This is essentially what you are advocating.
No, it isn't. There's a difference between someone who's potentially more vulnerable to a disease because their immune system hasn't been trained to recognize it and someone who's a known, active carrier of a specific disease who is knowingly infecting other people. So no, that isn't at all what I am advocating.
In fact, you are essentially committing your own "self-infecting with Bubonic Plague then strolling through an airport coughing on people" example. By not vaccinating, you are making yourself a potential infection vector.
If you can't see the difference between "I refuse to utilize man-made means to boost my immune system" and "I'm going to purposely infect myself with this weaponized biological agent so I can infect others", then there just isn't any hope for you as you lack basic logic and critical thinking skills necessary for the comprehension of this discussion. If you actually believe what you're saying here - and you're not just doing it for effect because you want to make your case or make a point - then let's just stop right now because there's no rationalizing with an irrational person. If you're just trying to make your point, then you should do so in a way which makes sense as it'll carry more weight.
You are reducing herd immunity and making people get sick and die.
Reducing herd immunity? Not measurably. "Making people get sick and die"? That's patently absurd. No one is making anyone get sick and die. You wouldn't say that an AIDS patient who cannot tolerate vaccinations against diseases is "making people get sick and die", would you? They're compromising herd immunity exactly as much as someone who merely chooses not to get vaccinated. The effect is the same: one less person out of the whole of the "herd" has a potentially better prepared immune system. And in any event, unless the particular individual is actively infected, contagious, and is knowingly interacting with the public under those conditions, there's no case to be made that they're making anyone sick. A healthy person unvaccinated against Influenza who is not infected with Influenza or who is not interacting with other people while they have and are contagious with Influenza is not making ANYONE sick. Get real.
This isn't just hypothetical.
No, it really is. We're talking about a hypothetical person refusing a hypothetical vaccine which may or may not provide any immune system boost for said hypothetical person against said hypothetical disease. That's hypothetical. Even if you reference a specific, real person, a vaccine will only provide a chance of improved immune system response to specific strains of a specific type of pathogen. There's no magic shield that envelopes a vaccinated individual; they simply have a better chance of their immune system being able to quickly respond to and destroy that pathogen upon infection. If their immune system doesn't respond as expected, or if that response is later counteracted by some other factor, or even the slightest of genetic mutations takes place in the pathogen, there's little help from the vaccine. Doesn't mean vaccines are anything less than a godsend for humanity in the fight against pandemics, but there's no guarantee of any level of actual protection or contribution to herd immunity at an individual level. To claim there is is purely speculative and, as previously stated, entirely hypothetical.
There are outbreaks of diseases that were all but wiped out in the United States and other countries because groups of people (who didn't grow up with them - thanks to vaccines - and thus don't know abo
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Okay first off, I'm a born-again Christian who believes Creation by God in 7 days. Evangelical Christian. Just to clear the air when I say this: About half of my church is anti-vaccination people. They claim their "home remedies" will protect them from this crap and the spout off old studies that have long been disproved or never peer-reviewed. Despite my intense debate with them on FB and in person with study papers in hand or links they continue to believe that their roots & herbs is going to protect them from a virus. Recently one of my elders in church went to the Philippines and is due back to church today. He is an anti-vaccine person and went into an area infected with TB! The wife and I have been debating severely if we should go back to church or not this morning or wait till next week to see if he goes into active TB stage. BUT inactive TB can stay in your system for 2 freakin years! I have a new baby on the way in two months, and at any time this guy could go active and expose my new child who is too young to get the vaccination. Personally, I say let them all kill each other off with spreading these diseases among themselves, but the problem is, they expose their sickness to my children who may be too young to XYZ vaccination. Oh yeah, the same half of the church "claims" they are all allergic to gluten as well. So I feel myself qualified when I say they are a bunch of religious nut-jobs.
Let's start out with the facts. Shouldn't we be asking how many of these already received innoculations?
We all had measles when we were kids and no vaccination ever. None of us died, for goodness sake! We just had to stay in bed in a darkened room and get better. We didn't eat all the crap your kids eat nowadays and we all got well again.
So what's the fuss about? Vaccinated people also get measles, hello!? But people who had measles as kids don't get it again.
How's misleading whom here? Take your pharma propaganda somewhere else, thank you!
As I wrote here: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
"Why not do the same for those who eat junk food? 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... "
Unlike software patches, it is not as easy to "uninstall" a vaccine, or, if all else fails, "reinstall" your body.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Nothing you listed creates a severe public health threat. Infectious diseases like polio do.
The old axiom is that your right to swing your fist ends where another man's nose begins. Someone who has HIV does not have the right to spread it around by engaging in unprotected sex without full disclosure because that creates a public health threat of spreading a deadly disease. Likewise, someone does not have the legal right to refuse a polio vaccine if mandated by the state ; they are creating a public health threat and putting others at risk of contracting a deadly illness.
"Nothing you listed creates a severe public health threat."
Do you seriously believe this?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The last time I checked, poor diet and exercise was an individual choice that does not affect the well-being of others.
By contrast, lack of herd immunity can lead to outbreaks of infectious diseases that can spread rapidly through unvaccinated populations, causing widespread illness, injury, and death.
Maybe you should check again: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline...
"Exercise not only helps your immune system fight off simple bacterial and viral infections, it decreases your chances of developing heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH...
""Nutrition plays an important part in maintaining immune function," explains George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the division of nutrition at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. "Insufficiency in one or more essential nutrients may prevent the immune system from functioning at its peak.""
People with weaker immune systems are more likely to contract diseases and have them for longer and so spread them around more.
So, again, now that you know this, why not lock up those who eat junk food and who don't exercise, or force them at gunpoint to eat vegetables and do push ups? Such people otherwise pose a health risk to everyone else. That is a fact based on what people at the NIH and Harvard have said.
The same for the other things I mentioned which all affect the immune system. See also:
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-...
Many things make contracting and spreading disease more likely (poor diet, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, lack of vitamin D, lack of iodine, lack of nursing, sending kids to public school, going into a shared workplace every day, etc.). Why do you call at least some of those "an individual choice that does not affect the well-being of others" when clearly they all increase the risk of disease transmission? All of these choices affect the well-being of those around us. What of the immuno-compromised child who is going to die because your kid spread around the flu contracted in part by vitamin D deficiency, too much sugar, and not enough exercise?
Also, the fact is, vaccinations at best only protect to some degree against catching specific disease. These other things protect against catching almost any disease whether there is a vaccine for it or not. If forcing people to get vaccinated against their will for the public good is a good idea, why not force people to do these other things too?
For example, since people who eat poorly have a greater risk of contracting almost any communicable illness and spreading it around, why allow people to pick what food they want to eat each day for example? Clearly a government appointed dietitian (backed by gun-wielding police) would do a better job of deciding what you should eat each day than you could and thus do a better job of protecting the public health against widespread illness, injury, and death, right? Likewise for those who do not exercise enough. Cops should force people to exercise at gunpoint if needed, right? No less than the NIH and Harvard provide the supporting evidence,
Not laughing enough also is bad for you immune system.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/heal...
"Negative thoughts manifest into chemical reactions that can affect your body by bringing more stress into your system and decreasing your immunity. In contrast, positive thoughts actually release neuropeptides that help fight stress and potentially more-serious illnesses."
So, people who do not laugh enough are a health risk to those around them. It would seem then that people thus have no constitutional right to be dour sour pusses, since that puts everyone around them at health risk. So, why not set up a police force who force people to laugh by watching funny websites? Or do laughter yoga? And otherwise incarcerate them if they don't comply?
Although, like anything, I guess that could go too far:
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Sorry to hear about your co-worker's loss. Still: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/dis...
"Until relatively recently, only a few caught whooping cough, with less than 150 cases being reported in children aged four and under during 2007. Since then cases had been climbing steadily, until the large outbreak outlined above, which affected countries across the world, including USA and Australia. As to why the 2012 outbreak occurred in this way, opinion at the time of writing is divided.
It is possible that the bacteria causing the infection has changed in some way. Conversely, the HPA has conjectured that years of tight control over whooping cough may have led to people's immune systems not being boosted by repeat infections in adulthood, therefore leaving the population as a whole at increased risk."
And also: ..."
http://www.vaccinationcouncil....
"Prior to vaccination, infants were less susceptible to pertussis because real "herd immunity" was in place, and mothers were passing on immunity to their infants during the vulnerable time. Since vaccination, this herd immunity has actually been abolished, and infants are now more susceptible due to their vaccinated or non-immune mothers lacking specific antibody and cellular immunity for pertussis. This can be verified in the medical literature:
"Diminishing maternal immunity increases the risk of infection among the youngest age groups, who have not yet received at least two doses of the vaccine."[3]
When pertussis is left to take its normal course in the community, the supposedly vulnerable infants that the vaccinationists scream and yell about, are protected by maternal antibodies and mother's milk until they are old enough to process the disease on their own. After vaccines were introduced, this protection was vastly reduced, because the mothers were at best, having vaccine antibodies to pass along to their infants, and that defense is neither effective nor long-lasting. The reason for the diminishing maternal immunity is that vaccinated individuals tend to have lower antibody titers long-term, and breast milk antibody (IgA) is not transferred in vaccinated mothers. As we already know, two doses and even three doses of vaccine is far from a guarantee of immunity. In fact that is the exact reason there is a new vaccine in the pipeline to add to the current FAILED pertussis vaccine schedule. This new vaccine will be inhaled, and in this article [4] touting the need for the new vaccine, the authors detail the many problems with the current vaccine.
It's too late to do anything for your co-worker's family, but to prevent such tragedies in the future to others, one might ask (rhetorically, not to the real person):
* was the child breastfed from birth?
* Was the mother vaccinated against pertussis and so had no natural immunity to pass on via breastmilk?
* did they have a home birth and avoid doctors offices and hospitals which spread disease?
* was the mother eating a great diet?
* did both mother and child get adequate sunlight or vitamin D?
* Did both get enough iodine?
* DId other vaccines like HepB at birth weaken the infant?
* DId compulsory work and compulsory schooling practices force the family to be exposed to more diseases (compared to a basic income and homeschooling/unschooling)?
* Did anyone in the family eat junk food, especially with a lot of sugar?
* Were family members getting enough sleep and exercise and laughter (all immune boosters)?
* And so on for other aspects of optimum health, like Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks about in "Disease-proof your Child":
http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/...
If your co-worker was at all a typical US American, the answers to most of these questions would be unhea
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
1. Whether or not you show symptoms of a communicable disease, you are usually still infectious. Just because you might not show any flu symptoms does not mean you are not capable of spreading the disease to others. People who are healthy but still infected are a public health threat.
2. The primary purpose of a vaccination program is not to stop individuals from being infected. It is to stop the infection from spreading through a population. That is why vaccines are an effective treatment against the public health threat of infection and diet and exercise are not. Once you reach a certain level of immunity (called herd immunity) it is mathematically impossible to have an outbreak of an infectious illness. Reaching a certain level of good diet and exercise in the population would not do the same. Infected people would still spread the disease regardless of whether they showed symptoms.
Your entire comment is a false analogy. You are comparing things which are CORRELATED with good individual health (and have never been shown conclusively to be a CAUSAL factor) with vaccines, which have been shown conclusively to be a CAUSAL factor in preventing the spread of infections in a population. They are in no way comparable.
Show me a large scale, non epidemiological scientific study that shows that good diet and exercise are a CAUSAL factor in preventing outbreaks of deadly communicable diseases such as meningitis, polio, smallpox, et cetera and I will concede the point. Otherwise, you are just committing the logical fallacy of the false analogy.
The kind of studies you ask for in humans would generally be considered unethical. Even if ethical, they are expensive, and such results don't profit drug companies, so they are rare. So, in humans, we are left with small "gold standard" double-blind controlled studies and larger observational epidemiological studies. A lot of infectious disease were already greatly reduced through improved sanitation, handwashing, quarantine, and better nutrition and lifestyle/behavioral choices (such as not drinking from a common cup and bucket of water on a train as once was common) as well as some curative medicines (antibiotics, phage therapy, etc.) before vaccines came along.
However, I challenge you to supply the same sorts of studies you request for all the specific current formulations of vaccines currently in use today. If you look for such studies in animals, you may find at least some popular vaccines do not work as well as you might think. For example, consider: ... As expected, the unvaccinated baboons developed severe whooping cough, while the baboons that had been sick previously remained well, the research team reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Both groups of vaccinated animals also remained healthy. However, the germ persisted an average of 35 days in the throats of baboons vaccinated with the acellular shot, though it grew less thickly than it did in the throats of the sick, unvaccinated animals. Baboons vaccinated with the whole-cell shot harbored the germ for 18 days, and it did not grow at all in animals that previously had recovered from pertussis."
http://news.sciencemag.org/hea...
"The current vaccine for whooping cough, or pertussis, may keep you or your baby healthy, but it may not stop either of you from spreading the disease, a new animal study suggests. Baboons can harbor and spread the disease even after receiving the vaccine, researchers have found.
Note that the baboons that actually had the disease did not pass it on, unlike those who had been vaccinated. Vaccine-based immunity fades fairly quickly for pertussis. It is possible that when people get whooping cough as older children or adults (when it is more manageable) and nursing mothers pass that immunity on to their infants, there may be less mortality among infants from the disease. One problem with many vaccines is that since they fade quickly, you need life-long booster shots, which for dozens of disease could add up potentially to thousands of shots over a lifetime -- each one with a risk of being a mis-manufactured "hot lot" or being mis-injected or being worthless because the disease evolved. Even if each shot may seem to make sense, the total cost for the individual and society of getting on the treadmill of artificial immunity may be quite high. For example, consider the lifetime burden of aluminum from 100 or so annual flu shots.
Of the related research easy to find on exercise and nutrition and disease transmission, here are a few of them:
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academ...
"Children with poor nutrition are at increased risk of pneumonia. In many tropical settings seasonal pneumonia epidemics occur during the rainy season, which is often a period of poor nutrition. We have investigated whether seasonal hunger may be a driver of seasonal pneumonia epidemics in children in the tropical setting of the Philippines. In individual level cohort analysis, infant size and growth were both associated with increased pneumonia admissions, consistent with findings from previous studies. A low weight for age z-score in early infancy was associated with an increased risk of pneumonia admission
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
which have helped with her own ASD kid (whether vaccines played a role or not): http://www.generationrescue.or...
"5. Explore an Allergen Free Diet
Improvement has been seen with the removal of certain allergens such as gluten, casein, or soy from the diet. Explore a variety of special diets, including the gluten-free, casein-free diet and other allergen free diets through the following resources:
Explore the the gluten-free, casein-free diet
Body ecology diet
Elimination diet
Rotation diet
Other allergen free diet
6. Consider Supplementation with multi-vitamins and other beneficial nutritional support
Multi-vitamins and multi-minerals
Probiotics
Digestive enzymes
Fish oils
MB12
Natural detoxifiers
Anti-virals
Anti-fungals
Anti-yeasts"
See also:
http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/1...
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org...
I agree with your point about conflict of interest, which I mention in other replies. Does look like US military personnel get little choice about orders to be vaccinated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
http://thinktwice.com/military...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.