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Mutant Registration vs. Vaccine Registration
Responding to an editorial endorsing a national vaccine registry in Canada (though the same kind of registry could be and has been proposed in the U.S. with the same logic), an anonymous reader writes "Vaccine Registration makes me think of Mutant and Superhero registration. The reasons are similar. It's based on fear and misinformation. People fear that unvaccinated people will doom us all. Sound familiar? The difference is this is real. (Oh, and they probably won't use sentinels to track down the dangerous unvaccinated folks.) Thoughts?"
From the linked editorial: "A national vaccination registry would identify which Canadians have been fully vaccinated, those who have received less than a full dose of shots, and those who have not been vaccinated at all. Having a vaccine registry in place in the event of an outbreak of measles, whooping cough, and diseases like these would enable public health officials to identify the children and adults who need vaccinations. Getting them the shots they need would reduce the risk of anyone on the list getting sick, and would also reduce the threat of an outbreak in the community in which they live or travel to [and] from."
In the U.S., immunization records — at least, ones which have been put in electronic form at all — are maintained in a mix of databases, including at the state level, or maintained by cities, or by insurance companies and medical providers. Here, some people (like the reader who submitted this story) also see a potential for unwarranted privacy invasion in a national vaccination registry; however, their case isn't helped by often being tied to opposition to vaccination more generally.
Well except mutants aren't real and can't doom us all whereas unvaccinated people can.
We need to know who the mouthbreathing luddites are so we can round them up should there be a big outbreak of something actually nasty.
The government has NO RIGHT to know what will and won't make me sick. That is the ultimate intrusion. The only reason the feds would even want to know this is to develop nerve agents and other weapons knowing who's susceptible to them domestically.
Look, if you're a luddite and have chosen to not be vaccinated against infectious diseases, you are a public health risk.
If I or my children get sick due to contact with you, I want legal recourse against you.
If you are un-immunized, you really have no business going into places like hospitals where you will put the lives of others at risk.
If you solely bore the risk of not being immunized, and only you and your family might become ill -- well, good for you, you'll take yourself out of the gene pool and do us all a favor.
But, if you're a moron who hasn't vaccinated your children because you've been listening to Jenny McCarthy, I don't want you or your children anywhere me or my family.
You want to be a plague carrier? Fine, but you can't go into public.
Diseases which had been mostly eradicated which are suddenly making a resurgence are entirely due to idiots who think the vaccine is going to give them another disease. You're entitled to your stupid beliefs, but you are not entitled to spread disease.
If you choose to exercise your right to not be immunized, you give up some of your rights as far as you could infect others.
Anti-vac morons are dangerous to themselves, but more importantly dangerous to others. Their un-vaccinated children are a vector for dangerous, crippling, or lethal diseases that should not exist in modern, developed nations. Where their idiocy spreads we've already seen outbreaks of diseases that were all but eradicated decades ago.
Exclude un-vaccinated children from public contact. Hold parents criminally liable in the event of an outbreak.
There is no compromise to be had here.
The reasons are similar. It's based on fear and misinformation
No, it's based on facts. It's the anti-vaxxers who operate based on misinformation.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
A Vancouver father is calling on parents to vaccinate their children for chickenpox after his son nearly died from the disease while his immune system was compromised during chemotherapy.
Jason Lawson's 10-year-old son Beckett has been in and out of hospital for most of his life for cancer treatment, but Lawson says one of the scariest moments came when the boy caught chickenpox from a classmate at school.
People with any number of diseases are a potential public health threat. HIV comes to mind. But putting health records into one big database might allow for the types of research to identify patterns of disease that don't rise above the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 threshold that most studies are limited to. Picking on vaccinations rather than just linking all health records to a centralized database seems narrow and punitive rather that good public policy.
Try registering your kids for public school or enroll in a college in the US and you'll find that you have to have vaccination records. Many states also have public health laws that require doctors/nurses to keep records or notify the state when a patient has had a specific vaccine. If you're in the healthcare industry you also are tracked at a statewide level on your vaccination history.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Sure, the fundamentals are similar - building a list of people who are threats to the health of the rest of the population.
But, while super/mutant power are generally something innate and unselected, not getting vaccinated is, by and large, a choice.
If you are making a choice to ignore what science has earned human society, and that choice is putting other people at risk, get on the list.
Additionally, if I could not get vaccinated against something for some specific medical reason, I'd want to be on a list to be notified in case of an outbreak, so that I could lock myself away until it passed.
Go for a little walk, breathe some fresh air.
#DeleteChrome
It would be an invasion of privacy, sure. I mean, if this were any other sort of medical records, we probably wouldn't care at all. I mean, if anyone proposed a national registry of "broke their leg skiing" or "genetically predisposed to be an alcoholic", we wouldn't be having this conversation.
On the other hand, there are so many idiots (compared to, say, 15 years ago) out there refusing to vaccinate their kids because they are listening to idiot celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, that something should be done to protect people who cannot get vaccinated (like very young children).
I don't know. It's one of those things where I don't think there is a simple answer that would work.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
How did this get on the front page? Comparing vaccination registrations with mutant registration? A remotely educated person would have at least tried to compare it to the real-life events that inspired the idea of "mutant registration", which were the treatment of Jews in Europe and of the Japanese in the US during WW2.
And this:
It's based on fear and misinformation. People fear that unvaccinated people will doom us all. Sound familiar? The difference is this is real. (Oh, and they probably won't use sentinels to track down the dangerous unvaccinated folks.)
Is this a joke? Is the suggestion that they won't use sentinels sarcastic?
And it's not "fear based on misinformation", it's fear based in real risk. When large numbers of people refuse to get vaccinated from serious infectious diseases, they're putting everyone else in the population at greater risk of infection.
How can you get infected if YOU have been inoculated??? So how are they a public risk to you?
This is a sensible public health policy and a perfectly appropriate response to recent outbreaks, for example of measles in Calgary. But let's not let that get in the way of invoking poorly contrived analogies and imply that the government will harvest unvaccinated people for their superpowers. I wonder what Michele Bachmann's superpower is?
I'm trying to keep track of what kind of registries are acceptable for each (US) political party
No Fly Registry: It's Our Patriotic Duty (D&R)
Gun Owner Registry: Acceptable for (D), Unacceptable for (R)
Legal-to-work-in-US Registry: Acceptable for (R), Unacceptable for (D)
National ID card: Acceptable for (D), Unacceptable for (R)
Vaccination Registry: Acceptable for (D), Unacceptable for (R)
Superhero Registry: It's Our Patriotic Duty
Mutant Registry: Ditto
Windows Registry: Can't run Windows without it, and what else would you run?
I'd suppose the key difference between these stories, is one is a voluntary choice, one is something you are born as, and yeah I think a better analogy for fear mongering would be countries that make people register religions etc...
I know we're all supposed to buy into the mutants in X-Men as being corollaries for the civil rights movement, but actually registering mutants would be a very logical and beneficial step. A woman who can control the weather? A guy who can destroy buildings if his sunglasses fall off? A girl who can kill you by touching you briefly? People who can shape-shift, instantly teleport past security? People who can control your mind? Guess what? In the real world, having such people walking around controlling the weather on a whim wouldn't work. Gawker.com posted an editorial saying how the government should arrest Global Warming deniers. At the same time, shouldn't we arrest (or at least monitor) those that could actually make the the weather warmer? So yeah, the whole comparison in this story makes no sense. Mutants can (and in the comics are definitely) a menace and should be registered.
If we're really serious about this, governments and health agencies need to offer a variety of vaccines for a given disease, with different adjuvants, egg-free versions, etc, to accomodate those who have a nasty reaction to the most popular formulations. Then, offer people the choice between vaccine and quarantine.
Then again, this world is getting awfully overpopulated, and maybe we're due for another major culling, cold-hearted and horrible as that may sound...
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
" which were the treatment of Jews in Europe and of the Japanese in the US during WW2"
Talk about two vastly different levels.
The treatment of Americans of Japanese descent in the US was shameful.
The the treatment of the Jews by Nazi Germany was a Holocaust.
The sad thing is that treatment of Americans of Japanese descent has become so politicised that much of the history about it has been rewritten and many of the triggers are not taught because of fear that people will be accused of trying to justify it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It's always interesting to see just how many supposedly well informed adults are, in fact, essentially incapable of practicing even the most basic, natural, accepted regimens of good health (proper diet, proper activity, proper hygiene), for either themselves or their children; yet these same individuals seem all too often to also be the ones going nuts over whether or not other people are vaccinated? Listen bub, I see morons compromising the fabric of a healthy and well-functioning society every which way to Sunday; vaccination is really not among the foremost of your problems.
And this:
It's based on fear and misinformation. People fear that unvaccinated people will doom us all. Sound familiar? The difference is this is real. (Oh, and they probably won't use sentinels to track down the dangerous unvaccinated folks.)
Is this a joke? Is the suggestion that they won't use sentinels sarcastic?
Personally, I completely agree with the idea of drone strikes on the homes of anti-vaxxers.
many are not vaccinated. Far worse than the "hollywood idiot" population.
i think this is a non-issue. people that don't get vaccinated and infect other people should be criminally charged for any negative consequences that their action have on others. if someone dies, then that's called manslaughter. also, they should bear the full costs of their treatment and of other innocent victims. they should make you sign a paper with all of this when you refuse a vaccine.
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I think he's not so much using X-Men (I think the mutant registration thing was Days of Future Past, which wasn't even that good of an arc) as he is the more recent Civil War. If you use Civil War, the concept sort of, kind of makes sense.
Civil War: A bunch of superheroes/villains have a fight near a school in Stamford, CT and accidentally cause an explosion that kills a bunch of people (a sanitized version of 9/11). As a result, Tony Stark/Iron Man demands that everyone with superpowers gets registered on the grounds that people running around with superpowers isn't the greatest idea in the world because people can get hurt or killed when those powers go off. Captain America opposes registration because he feels that it would allow the government to control super-heroism and interfere with his freedom to operate independently.
Vaccine Registry: A bunch of idiots who decide not to vaccinate their children accidentally cause a bunch of people who can't get vaccinated for various medical reasons to get sick and bring back diseases long thought to be extinct in the wild. As a result, some guy in Canada calls for people who don't want to get vaccinated to register because running around carrying infectious and potentially deadly diseases isn't the greatest idea in the world because people who can't get vaccinated get sick and potentially die. Jenny McCarthy and her ilk would probably oppose it because they don't want "the gub'mint" interfering with "muh freedoms".
The only difference is that vaccine registration would make a really, really boring comic.
If I knew that specific neighborhoods were mostly populated with people who were unvaccinated, I could avoid going there. They could still have their privacy and I could have my health. While they may feel that they are better off facing the diseases that they refuse vaccination against, some of us have more to lose by contracting some of those illnesses.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
That is not at all comparable; that isn't a national registry. There are state registries for a few vaccines, and yes, medical people must record medical treatments. You also must immunize your children unless you have a good reason not to if you're going to threaten my children with the potential of your child carrying a disease. The system we have now is okay, except for allowing any nutjob to opt not to vaccinate theri children. Medical and true (nutjob) faiths are fine. The left-wing anti-science crowd, however, should be forced to home-school their children if they choose to make them threats to everyone else's kid.
The nazi's made the Jewish do registration and later the rounded them up and took them to camps.
"Getting them the shots they need would reduce the risk of anyone on the list getting sick, and would also reduce the threat of an outbreak in the community in which they live or travel to [and] from."
One major problem with that... The morons not currently vaccinated didn't just somehow accidentally slip through the cracks and missed out on getting their MMR - They actively don't want vaccinations.
In implementing this seemingly reasonable service, does the government plan to round people up, hold them down, and vaccinate them by force against their will? Hey, I might actually agree with that, because these fools endanger me by reducing the overall population's overall "herd immunity" - But let's call a spade a spade, and not pretend this will come down to anything less than forced vaccinations at the wrong end of Government Guns.
And in that regard, I don't support this plan, because the very fact that the government would gloss over the only possible outcome makes me seriously question their real motivation. We can all see the obvious slippery slope, so which angle haven't we checked yet? Hmm, we have effective vaccines against opiates, they have ones for cannabis, cocaine, and tobacco well under way (and yet we can't cure cancer yet, really great use of resources, guys!). Why fight a war on drugs when you can just make the entire population incapable of getting high? Or how about the biological threat of the week, whether that means anthrax or smallpox or ebola or what-have-you?
So just no, thank you. The government that declares it has the right to force me to modify the conditions inside my own body against my will, becomes my mortal enemy and should expect a level of "cooperation" appropriate to that.
Ok, here's a reasonable approach to the problem.
No registration needed - if you are unvaccinated and get a disease, you pay for your own treatment. If you are vaccinated, you aren't responsible for paying for someone else's stupidity, you aren't on a government database and you can feel bad about the ignorant and diseased folks if you want to.
Vaccinated people don't have to worry about un-vaccinated people, unvaccinated people don't have to worry about vaccinated people, and nobody has to worry about the government.
When did the government become responsible for protecting people from their own stupidity anyways? Stupidity used to be a self-correcting problem... now we all have to subsidize it - and the bureaucracy that surrounds it.
Australia has a vaccination registry and has had it for many years (decades even). You have to have your vaccinations up to date to attend school (unless you have a valid medical reason for not having the vaccinations, there used to be a religious copout as well but I don't know if that is still in effect).
You also:
- have to have your children vaccinated to receive any child tax benefits
- get some extra money for having your kids vaccinated (I think there is 2 lots of bonus money, 1 at 2yrs and one at 4yrs old)
- get all your required vaccinations for free if you are covered by Medicare
Some vaccinations are not covered by Medicare if you are not in a high-risk group. Flu shots are free for pregnant women, over 55(?) year olds and a few other groups.
Then, tell me you don't want your kids vaccinated.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Every time one of these articles comes about people come out of the wood work to deride this Jenny McCarthy person. Who the heck is she anyway? Some kind of celebrity I see. But I don't watch TV or go to movies, so I am not aware of her. Not that I even care to know. Just pointing out that some of us luddites might have other reasons, particularly after actually looking into the ingredients of said vaccinations.
As a Canadian I'm shocked that the government doesn't already do this. I alway just assumed that when I went to the hospital the medical staff could look up what shots I've had, what I'm allergic to, and any major surgeries I've undergone.
As a side note. I think this a good idea. I sure as shit don't want someone who isn't vacinated wandering around a hospital war full of people who's immune system is compromised.
Yeah and get the jews while you're at it! Right?
You have no choice over being a mutant. Being vaccinated (or having your children vaccinated) is a choice. There is the difference.
This is the most insane, paranoid thing I've ever seen posted on Slashdot. And that's saying a lot.
The same virus that cause chicken pox in kids will lurk in your body for decades and can come back and give you Shingles. For seniors it can cause nerve damage and crippling pain, even blindness if you are very unlucky. Chicken Pox may not seem like a big deal, but trust me you do not want Shingles.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
While not all, but several of you advocating that ALL get immunized, several of you are also actively working to keep illegal aliens (yes - illegal), within whatever country you choose, and to further allow more of them access across the border.
The reasons for immigration and immigration policy, while not always right, were started for this very reason - to not allow those who were already infected and sick with any number of communicable diseases to have access to the population at large - risking spreading the infections to others. And those of you who advocate "liquid" borders also advocate the very real spread of communicable diseases within because these illegal aliens don't get the immunizations they should, and they simply won't seek them out for fear that they will be deported once they have - again - illegally entered .
And the spread of so many diseases that is now occurring, and the rise of diseases that had been nearly eradicated from so much of the "first world" and even "second world" countries, makes me wonder if the rise of these is due more to illegal aliens - rather than Jenny McCarthy (et. al.)
Science!
If you're one of the anti-vaccination nutters and refuse to get your family vaccinated... and refuse to be put on a warn list... then how about when you do get this contagious disease, you have to stay in an internment camp isolated from society until you get better or die?
I wasn't saying those two things were equivalent. I'm saying that both helped to inspire the whole "mutant registration" thing in the X-Men. I'm surprised to encounter controversy.
I cannot remember when I had my last tetanus shot, and my doctor's records don't show it. I, for one, would welcome a national registry that could keep better records than me and my doctor.
The nazi's went to the toilet, and later rounded the Jews up and took them to camps. Going to the toilet is EVIL!
Your premise is true, your conclusion is fine, but your argument is terrible.
One major difference (besides the difference in individual's right) between Canada and the US, is that the federal government combined with the provincial governments pay for basic health care of all Canadians. Most is funded from federal level and administered provincially, but provincial taxes are increasingly being used to try to make up the shortfall between federal funding and what is actually spent. Since they pay the bills, the government do arguably have stronger justification for such a registry.
While we don't register smokers (well private insurance does) yet, there are also not a risk of a sudden pandemic spreading of cancer or emphysema outbreaks either. Having a list of people most of risk during an outbreak is worthwhile for managing their well-being. Unless the not vaccinated stop living amongst the general population, there is a real risk of how to control an outbreak.
History has, or has tried to, teach us outbreaks can be swift and deadly.
So long as the non-vaccinated people expect free public health care, while actively opting out of (in most almost all cases free) preventive care and to live among the general population, they do need to both understand and accept the real-life consequences of opting out.
The reality is if you live in northern Saskatchewan and don't vaccinate, you are basically not at risk of infecting many people outside your family or village, but in downtown Toronto or Vancouver you risk starting a global pandemic.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Thank you for that quote. It's an excellent one and very true.
I
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Marvel's stories have always been parables about racisim and homophobia, using mutants and superheroes as a cypher to teach kids that it's not okay to discriminate and to entertain old cheeto-stained adults (disclaimer: I pick up about 40 comics a month, but admit I am not actually cheeto-stained so I have not not been living up to the standard I set for our kind). They are not parables about ways to make sure that health concerns caused by misinformed individuals do not blow up in our face and cause loss of life. Terrible article premise, sorry.
Save your breath. He made his point. Validity doesn't matter. We all know what you were saying, but there are certain people who, upon any mention of Jews, Nazi's, the Holocaust, etc, get immediately and righteously indignant. ANY comparison of ANYTHING to the holocaust must be shouted down immediately. The next step would be them claiming that you are anti-Semitic.
I understand the holocaust was real, it was horrible, atrocious, and inhuman how bad they were treated. Similar to the 10-20 genocidal mass murders around the world since then. I choose to remember it on my own. I do not like being told I MUST remember it, and only IT... or else I am a nazi blah blah blah...
If not, what's the point of having them?
Probably because they are often paired together. People seem to forget that thousands of German americans and Italian Americans were also interned but the bar was much lower for Japanese Americans on the west coast and Hawaii. Not every Japanese American was interned. The causes for that are not taught again because of fear that showing the causes some how makes it look like justification.
Odds are the mutant registration has far more to do with the Holocaust than the Japanese internment camps IMHO the adding in of the Japanese internment is just a bit of political correctness pandering.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What else can we do with people so stupid they refuse to vaccinate their children or themselves?
If you look worldwide, countries that vaccinate have a near eradication of dangerous, transmissible diseases.
Then you look at the pockets of anti-vaxxers and you see things like whooping cough making a resurgence.
The registry will let us know who is too stupid to function and who isn't.
Congratulations, you just Godwin'd and trolled this thread in one tidy little sentence!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My great-grandfather had fully webbed feet; my father and grandfather have partially webbed toes. Tell me again how mutants aren't real.
And since unvaccinated people have existed as long as the species has, it's pretty clear they cannot "doom us all".
Good job of expressing the know-nothing authoritarian viewpoint so popular on the Internet these days! Mike Godwin needs to come up with a new law - something like "in any Internet forum there is a 100% probability that overly simplistic authoritarian responses to complex propositions will be voted insightful by self-appointed experts".
I'm Canadian,
We can't even keep a registry of who has a gun. How could we manage a registry of who has their flu shot.
If this risk ever equals the risk that our governments (and the corporations that run them) are placing on everyone in the population with their anti-humanist policies, do be sure to let me know.
Quite frankly the hysteria over anti-vaxxers hasn't got much to do with real-life health risks, it's really about a whole lot of people who want to inflict their will on somebody - anybody - while still retaining a feeling of moral righteousness. It's the same psychology that drives religious crusades - lots of people have an unreasoning urge to lash out against other people, and anti-vaxxers are a target that has been designated as acceptable in our time. In other times and other places other groups have been vilified for similar reasons. People's (very real) fears serve as an excuse and a rallying cry, a way to designate a "Them" that is opposed to "Us".
Actually, thanks to the Affordable Care Act the HHS has full rights to access your medical history for... research purposes...
Of course they're bound by the same HIPAA laws so they would never, ever, leak such information for personal or political gain...
http://watchdogwire.com/florid...
http://abc13.com/politics/dan-...
And not even the UK is spared...
http://www.theguardian.com/soc...
From the article, "A national vaccination registry would identify which Canadians have been fully vaccinated, those who have received less than a full dose of shots, and those who have not been vaccinated at all. Having a vaccine registry in place in the event of an outbreak of measles, whooping cough, and diseases like these would enable public health officials to identify the children and adults who need vaccinations. Getting them the shots they need would reduce the risk of anyone on the list getting sick, and would also reduce the threat of an outbreak in the community in which they live or travel to [and] from."
Sorry if this is a repeat, but why would knowing who is un-vaccinated help in the case of an outbreak? All of a sudden those people are going to change their minds and decide that they were stupid before and now want to be vaccinated... I highly doubt it will do any good for a government to go to the people that are "Anti-Vaccination" and say you are at risk, take this vaccination. The premise and intentions are good, but in the end fruitless and a pointless waste of time.
Ok, so most every adult reading this in the US was vaccinated as a child, and probably through their teenage years. How many have kept up on them? Vaccines do not offer lifetime protection, and the protection the offer decreases with time. I haven't looked deep enough to find if there are statistical studies of actual vaccination protection for the adult population (antibody titers), but this piece from a CDC transcript shows that for several types of threats, adult vaccination rates are quite low for adults (in the 10-20% range). I expect that many/most aren't aware of this and aren't up to date on their immunizations.
Not vaccinating children is certainly a potential public health issue, particularly as that portion of the population is more susceptible, but if you want to look at the overall picture, we're not some big homogeneously immunized population with small pockets of children who are susceptible due to the antivaxers. There's a bigger picture to look at.
This video explains how herd immunity works and shows models of what happens when most of the population is vaccinated and when most are not: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-cKzzPkz2o This is why everybody that can be vaccinated SHOULD be vaccinated. Personally I think the government should take the money and instead of building a database which WILL LEAD TO ABUSE, and instead focus on educating the public how vaccines ACTUALLY protect us (and no, it is not on the individual level), and the risks involved with vaccination (although they definitely do not cause autism, there some health risks to some individuals), and why the trade off is overall worth it for society (the same reasoning why we do not ban cars even though they kill people and children).
Why only limit to vaccination database? Alcohol kills much much more individuals and is clearly a public hazard. Tracking those who buy alcohol and who consume has will reduce the number of casualties by 10 to 15 thousand people in United States alone. The annual cost for alcohol-related traffic accidents totals more than $50 billion per year. The #1 and #2 killers in US are cardiovascular diseases and cancer. We should monitor all those who do not exercise enough because they are a clear public hazard as well.
One key fact that TFS seems to miss is the concept of choice
X-Men comics are used to explore rasism, homophobia and other such biases partly because mutant powers aren't a choice. In the books, people are just born different, and it's all about learning to accept that as a culture.
The other key difference is inherent harm. Having super senses, the ability to fly, read minds, etc ... these do not actively cause harm without intent. Sure, some powers allow for a LOT of damage to be done, if the intent is there, but very few powers (there are a few) can hurt people around you, simply by existing.
By contrast to both of those, getting vaccinated (or not getting vaccinated) is an active choice you make, for yourself and your children. You aren't just born vax or non-vax. You decide. And if you decide to go without (for yourself or your kids) you cause harm everyone around yourselves. Your very presence is dangerous whether you mean to or not.
This signature is false.
Odds are the mutant registration has far more to do with the Holocaust than the Japanese internment camps IMHO the adding in of the Japanese internment is just a bit of political correctness pandering.
Are you saying that I'm pandering because I think that the fictional "Mutant Registration Act" was probably partially inspired by the real-life "Alien Registration Act"?
I think you're being overly sensitive and being weirdly reverse-politically correct. Instead of being "politically correct" by being sensitive and demanding that nobody say anything that might be construed as "offensive", you're being sensitive and demanding that nobody say anything that might be construed as "inoffensive". Lighten up.
You're insane. The "hysteria over anti-vaxxers" is mostly real, valid concern about a bunch of nutcases bringing on a resurgence of dangerous diseases for no reason except paranoia.
Of course it's a joke. There's no such thing as sentinels. They'll use drones.
No. I think Marvel was pandering if they added it in.
The issue with not saying things out of fear of being offensive when dealing with history is that it can and does lead to a distorted view of history.
For instance when learning about World War II and the Japanese internment almost no one is taught about the Nihau Incident. the shelling of Long Beach, or the attack on Fort Stevens in Oregon.
People need to understand why thinks like both the holocaust and the Japanese internment happened and why they actually seemed like good ideas to the people of the time.
Until you understand why you might have made that same mistake at that point in history you can not learn how to avoid mistakes like in the future.
Frankly the whole Japanese internment is a sore spot for me. The way is is taught is almost always along the lines of "look at what those terrible people did to the Japanese Americans for no reason!", which is just a way of saying look how great and enlightened I am because I would never do that.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm still waiting for superpowers to carve out a homeland - from other people's lands of course - for the Romani (Gypsies). Because they've also faced discrimination for millennia, and Nazis slaughtered them with as much enthusiasm as they slaughtered the Jews. But the Romani didn't get a homeland, billions a year in free weapons, and carte blanche to bomb and murder their neighbors.
Why is that?
Having a vaccine registry in place in the event of an outbreak of measles, whooping cough, and diseases like these would enable public health officials to identify the children and adults who need vaccinations.
If they were against getting the shots in the first place, how would you now force them to get the shots?
A lot of responses are people saying something like "if you don't vaccinate yourself or your kids and the disease starts to spread then you may make me or my kids sick so that is a good reason for a registry"
If me and my family decide to vaccinate and my neighbor does not and then one of these diseases flares up how am I at risk because of his choice? I'm vaccinated so I shouldn't catch whatever it is.
If I and my family decide NOT to vaccinate and one of these diseases flares up then I may catch the disease, a consequence of my own choice.
So let them decide how they want to handle their health care choices and they will live with the benefits or consequences of their choice.
Let communities discriminate against the unvaccinated and mandate immunological tests for those wanting to move there.
Will you stop spreading that lie, please?
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the 1970s, privacy was not letting people get a photo of you nekkid, or find out that you like to put on a kilt and have sex with penguins while singing yankee doodle dandy. Because they could blackmail you, embarrass you, or get you to lose your job or girlfriend or stuff by exposing that info.
In the 2000s, a buncha pansy-asses feel like "strangers knowing I am safe from measles" is gonna hurt them if that info gets out. Boo hoo hoo. Go back to your penguins and think about what's really important to keep private and what doesn't hurt you if people find out. Pansy ass.
It also gets my goat when people complain "I hate it when advertisers know I like RTS videogames so they advertise RTS videogames to me instead of lawnmowers. I would rather see ads for stuff I don't like so I can bask in my self-righteous glow of cyber-libertarianism or whatever. SHOW ME THE LAWNMOWER ADS DAMN YOU".
Pansy asses. Let 'em keep track of public health and safety data. Are you not aspiring scientists, nerdboys? Use science to save lives and shit.
"..hasn't got much to do with real-life health risks,"
it ahs EVERYTHING to do with it. Their decision are harming others. They are exerting their will onto others, and making them sick.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Considering the lifespan of typical vaccinations, there are likely far more "unvaccinated" than vaccinated in the western world. Probably just a given on the rest of the planet.
http://www.traveldoctor.co.nz/...
Since vaccinations are required for school, international travel,...
Vaccinations are not required for school at all - there is no requirement that kids be vaccinated to attend school. Similarly there is no requirement that you are vaccinated for international travel. It is certainly medically recommended that you have certain vaccinations before attending school or travelling to certain international destinations but there is a big difference between recommending and requiring. At least that is the case in the UK and Canada - does the US really have mandated medical procedures before attending school?
Vaccines are incredibly safe but, while tiny, there is a non-zero risk of severe, life changing complications. This risk is usually vastly outweighed by the risk of the disease you are immunized against but even so I would really not be happy with a government mandating medical procedures - it's far too open to abuse.
There are valid medical reasons that some people can't get immunized. (Allergies, compromised immune systems, etc.) Those people benefit from herd immunity.
Correct. However I have an ethical problem with requiring someone to undergo a medical procedure for someone else's benefit because where do you stop? If it is shown that having your tonsils removed reduces the spread of tonsillitis do you mandate that everyone have their tonsils taken out? Taken to an extreme do you mandate living organ donation e.g. lobe of a liver, one kidney etc because you can survive quite well on a single kidney or reduced liver and it would save someone else's life.
The problem with taking away people's choice about which medical procedures to have is not something to be done lightly. A better approach is to immunize people from idiocy by "vaccinating" them with a good education. Like a vaccine education will never be 100% effective but if you can inoculate enough of the population you will get a herd immunity that will be proof against more than just anti-vaccine stupidity.
That everyone believes they have the same responsibility to the rest of society as you all do. Frankly, if you get sick and die, vaccinated or not, natural selection has taken its toll. There is no need for every human being on this planet to survive, and frankly you're stupid if you think that herd immunity will eliminate viral epidemics or disease in general. Get your TB, measles, chicken pox, polio and whooping cough vaccines all you like, and then die of ebola (for which there is no vaccine). Stay inside your whole life, your fearful attitude means you probably can't contribute to the human race in any meaningful way anyway. I'm not wasting my money on syringes full of dead virus that, when the larger picture is considered, offer me little to no increased overall chance of survival.
Don't like it? Pay me to get vaccinated, or go fuck yourself.
Let's just take it a step further. We need a Megan's law style 'refused to vaccinate' registry, which shows where unvaccinated children and adults go to kingergarten/school/work. Or at very least require schools and kindergartens to make public what percentage of their students have not been vaccinated, so I can make intelligent decisions about where to send or not send my kid.
Uh, no,
Normally the inclusion of the Nazi's would be a Godwin but in this case its appropriate.
A single list of all un-vaccinated people is exactly the kind of national database that is ripe for abuse.
It would not be much of a stretch within the US during some type of major disease outbreak for our super-intelligent congress to give the order to round up the un-vaccinated as protection from them spreading the illness, or even for 'there own protection'.
It can so easily become a perfect list of scapegoats for any sort of spread of illness. Uptake in some illness, well are any unvaccinated people near-by? Bring em down the police station and check them out.
A single national registry of this type would be incredibly easy to abuse. It is a very risky undertaking.
Now the current system with its mix of county and state records can be abused as well, and has been in the past. However because its not nationwide it makes it much harder to abuse nationwide. That restriction on sharing has a benefit against national groupthink.
For God's sake we used to forcibly sterilize people declared mentally retarded in the US. Even if they weren't. We are very good at abuse.
The absolute first question to be asked when this suggestion is made is: What is the clear benefit of a national vaccination registry? Does its benefit strongly outweigh its potential for abuse? The proposal is at a national level, what national level problem does it address?
Personally I see the benefit of a single vaccination list, it could have many benefits but do those benefits notably outweigh its potential for abuse, when considered against other methods for achieving the same goals?
*sigh* If only....
I think he's not so much using X-Men (I think the mutant registration thing was Days of Future Past, which wasn't even that good of an arc)
It wasn't? Days of Future Past is commonly cited among comic readers as being among the very top, if not the #1 X-Men story ever published. Days of Future Past, Dark Phoenix Saga, and Age of Apocalypse seem to be the most well regarded.
It didn't revolve around the Mutant Registration Act though. I mean, a Mutant Control Act was mentioned once as something that would happen in the future, but the story arcs that dealt with the Registration Act came around in the mid-to-late '80s (Freedom Force, etc) with references to the Act mostly disappearing after the departure of Chris Claremont. Then Civil War happened..
1) You had no choice if you were a mutant or not, you have all the choice in the world if you choose NOT to get immunized knowing it endangers yourself and others around you.
2) Not too much the government could do to abuse this list. Unlike other lists, this is a list you WANT to be on for most people and if you aren't on the list by accident, you can pull up your own paperwork to correct the issues or just get immunized again to get put back on it. If you are on the list by accident then get immunized to make it legit or let them know and they would take you off the list as you now pose a risk to others and if it comes out that you were on it and they allowed it anyways, it would make them look bad with zero up side to it, not power, not money, nothing.
About the only way they could truly abuse this is if they created some new drug they wanted people to take and then started sending out paperwork saying their records are out of date and people needed to be re-vaccinated to make sure. The sad thing is if this happened, I would HOPE that people would raise hell about it, too bad our current situation has proven most would sit there put their thumbs up their butts and rotate while complaining about it and do absolutely nothing.
You have a bunch of people who live in first world counties during one of the only times in all of human history where disease isn't rampant and they ridicule the tool that made it possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
I don't want to live in a world where something like this can happen. Vaccines are the reason we aren't living in a world of disease, its like one of our greatest achievements, severely lessening how callous the natural world actually is.
Yawn.
I have lived all my life with the possibility of contracting a fatal disease from some other person. The fact that I've been vaccinated, and others haven't, doesn't provide me with some magical immunity to death.
We all die. Stop being such an alarmist and live your life without this unseemly and childish fearmongering.
And stop looking for scapegoats among the foolish and weak. If you want to attack someone, show some spirit, and attack the rich and powerful who are doing more to hurt you than any stupid anti-vaxxer ever will.
Sure, there's always a perfectly valid excuse. That minority took our jobs, that other minority runs all the banks, that one is lazy and corrupts our youth.
The chance that any third party - YOU for instance - will be harmed by anti-vaxxers' stupid refusal to vaccinate their children is incredibly small. It's far more likely our government's unwillingness to stop corporations from poisoning our air and water will kill you, or your children, or your grandchildren. But people aren't going to do anything about that, because the government and the corporations are big and scary and they'll fight back.
Meanwhile anti-vaxxers are stupid and easily set up as punching bags, and people want someone weak to punch, someone that won't punch them back.
I'm not trying to offend you, although it probably looks that way. I'm just telling you what I see. The anger and venom directed towards anti-vaxxers is very familiar to me, I've seen people scapegoating minorities before. It's a very old story, and one that shows no sign of ending soon.
I guess this is one area I disagree. I feel that any kid who has not had vaccinations for any reason other than a life threatening allergy should simply not be allowed to attend public school, have access to public places like libraries or museums, or otherwise be in places where that individual's very presence puts others are risk.
There is simply no legitimate reason other than a life threatening allergy that a person should not be vaccinated.
There wouldn't be so many anti-vaxers if these vaccines were more trust worthy, but the reality is that vaccines are manufactured by large corportations.. and the goverment isn't real fast to protect us... if you need more proof.. here is the story of how the CDC (30 years later) finally acknolodged the polio vaccine contained a cancer causing substance.. http://www.thehealthyhomeecono...
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
And any number of people who were/are allergic to the medium in which the vaccine was delivered and thus had to exempt themselves.
Most people who have objections to vaccines don't object to the vaccine itself, but to the preservatives used to keep it viable. Figure out a way to get rid of the preservatives and most objections will be removed.
For seniors it can cause nerve damage and crippling pain, even blindness if you are very unlucky.
You do not have to be a senior to start experiencing nerve damage. It can start in your mid 40s. :(
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I got very lucky, I went to my doctor within a few hours of the pox appearing, and he had me on antivirals about 5 minutes later. Stopped it in its tracks.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
THANK-YOU!
How can the pro-vax camp claim intellectual high ground while apparently not understanding how the drugs they promote actually work?
If they believe vaccination makes them safe during an outbreak, then why should they care if I decline the corporate jab? I don't think for an instant that they are concerned at all about my health and welfare. What they want is their world view to be validated by forcing it on those who disagree with them.
If I don't get vaccinated and I contract a disease and die as a result, then you win. You were right and you may merrily dance in a bloom of indignant righteous sneering. But until then, you'll pardon me for thinking pro-vaxers are simply ignorant authoritarian followers more interested in obedience to clueless ideals than to paying attention to objective reality.
That's your argument? "We all die"? Sure, we all die, so might as well play Russian roulette. Why all the childish fear mongering about Russian roulette? "Putting a loaded gun to your head and pulling the trigger is DANGEROUS!" they say. They're historical. They should wake up and attack rich people!!
Or maybe you're a paranoid retard.
'nuff said
The issue (in the United States anyway) isn't that people aren't secretly not vaccinating their kids and sneaking them into schools. It's that they aren't vaccinating their kids, period. They're being quite open about it! I think 99% of them aren't terribly smart, but why create a national registry that will cost money and just freak people out?
Wait, maybe I'm a paranoid retard because I'm not living in a hysterical frenzy of fear over other people's stupid health decisions?
Yeah, that makes sense. Glad you were around to clear that up, I got other things to do today.
But are you sure you're not just looking in a mirror? I haven't proposed attacking rich people, I've just pointed out that the people who want to attack anti-vaxxers are pretty much all too chicken to agitate against any people who are actually a real significant threat to them. Anti-anti-vaxxers are mostly bullies and cowards, and it shows in how they bluster and name-call and belittle anyone who disagrees with their extremism.
If you really want to make a difference, you don't have to "attack rich people". Hey, you could start working on real world vaccination initiatives, rather than screaming at bumbling idiot anti-vaxxers. But that, of course, would be much harder than beating up on chumps, and less immediately emotionally satisfying. So I think most people will continue to vent their spleens on the anti-vaxxers, indulging their anger, instead of doing something more helpful.
Re-reading my earlier post, I see that I did say " If you want to attack someone, show some spirit, and attack the rich and powerful ".
Although I hope this was clearly rhetoric to my point, I guess in the most technical reading of the language I was inciting an attack on the powers that be, and should have more carefully worded my scoffing at the lack of courage of anti-anti-vaxxers.
Not that the rich and powerful have anything to worry about from you or me, of course. We're like bugs to them, they would barely care if I was inciting to riot.
Wait, maybe I'm a paranoid retard because I'm not living in a hysterical frenzy of fear over other people's stupid health decisions?
No, because you're taking a legitimate concern and interpreting it as a method of persecution, that is to say, as being "really about a whole lot of people who want to inflict their will on somebody... a way to designate a 'Them' that is opposed to 'Us'." Some suggests that it would be bad for polio to have a resurgence, and you're interpreting that as people coming after you personally, and instead suggesting that we all attack rich people as the villains-- as though those concepts are connected.
It's either ignorance or a mental health issue. Take your pick.
Nobody's coming after me; I'm standing aside and watching the mob stream by with their pitchforks and torches.
My children are vaccinated. As am I! Although admittedly I did research each vaccine carefully, and in two cases required that a different preparation be used than the (cheaper) ones our pediatrician was selling. He's a good guy, and did as I asked.
Pretty much 100% of the time, if I say anything about not living in abject terror of disease, people's insistence on an Us .vs. Them dichotomy causes them to repeatedly ignore (as you apparently have) my pretty clear statements that I'm not part of "them". I think avoiding vaccination is both stupid and self-punishing.
But I guess it's hard to accommodate a conscientious objector like me, who has contempt for both sides, when you've got an emotionally fueled "with us or against us" meme running.
I can accommodate a conscientious objector when he's honest and decent, but you seem to be merely a contrarian, and an apologist for people who are putting whole populations in danger of serious illness through smug stubbornness and willful ignorance.
I don't like the us vs. them mentality either, but that doesn't keep me from calling out assholes for being assholes.
The CIA used a fake vaccination drive to gather DNA from children in order to help find Bin Laden: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccinations-osama-bin-ladens-dna
Recent studies suggest that genetics pre-dispose individual's political preferences: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-your-genes-predict-whether-youll-be-a-conservative-or-a-liberal/280677/
In the land of the Gerrymandered, where the Republican party controls the House Of Representatives even though they received fewer votes nationally than did the Democrats ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/09/house-democrats-got-more-votes-than-house-republicans-yet-boehner-says-hes-got-a-mandate/ ), it's easy to believe that genetic information WILL be collected whether we want it to or not, and it WILL be used to the benefit of the oligarchy and the detriment of The People!
See, that's where we differ, right there. You apparently think it is "honest and decent" to call people assholes, and to openly encourage intolerance towards people you consider smug and willfully ignorant. You can't conceive of an argument of conscience that results in disagreement with your viewpoint and dismissal of your ridiculously overstated fears ("whole populations in danger" hyperbole for example), so it must be contrarianism or apologism.
But how many people have you vaccinated, that are biologically unrelated to you? I'm betting none, although I'd actually love to be wrong.
Meanwhile, not only has my family adopted children and vaccinated them, I've contributed financially to vaccination campaigns in Afghan orphanages. So what's wrong with contrarianism again? Why do you consider it "decent" to engage in negative actions like spreading fear and inciting intolerance, while it's "apologism" to encourage bravery, social change, and ideological tolerance? Which in practice has resulted in positive action?
I think I can be proud to bear the title of "contrarian" in this particular debate, so I'll continue to refuse to play for either team, and continue to vaccinate, and continue to defend anti-vaxxer's right to make wrong choices.
But it doesn't sound like we're ever going to reach a meeting of minds. We're both too convinced of our own righteousness.
You can't conceive of an argument of conscience that results in disagreement with your viewpoint and dismissal of your ridiculously overstated fears...
It's not about people who "disagree with my viewpoint". It's about people who are are spreading misinformation which results in deaths. You do understand that people have died, and people will continue to die, as a result of people who refuse to vaccinate their children, right? And it's not just their children who die. It's other people who would not have been infected.
Those are not "overstated fears". Those are facts. I'm not ranting about the possible dangers of the anti-vaccination zealots. I'm saying those people are kind of assholes because they've killed others through their own willful ignorance. It's like if I suddenly decided that I believed that arsenic was important for a balanced diet, so I went around to different schools leaving bags of poisoned candy sitting around. Your response shouldn't be, "We should all be tolerant to different belief systems and accept this person's right to do what they like." You should be thinking about ways to stop such things from happening.
And if your response is, "People trying to get rid of the bags of poisoned candy is just another example of the government coming to get me, and people trying to inflict their will on me!" then you're paranoid. If your response to the whole controversy is, "I'm a better person because I'm tolerant of these alternative beliefs. Don't be so self-righteous!" then you're an asshole.
I don't particularly think it's "honest and decent" to call people assholes. But I don't think it's dishonest or indecent to call assholes assholes. You've shown yourself to be a paranoid, smug, willfully ignorant asshole, and the most honest and decent thing I can do is tell you that.