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Time To Remove 'Philosophical' Exemption From Vaccine Requirements?

An anonymous reader writes: Michigan has a problem. Over the past decade, the number of unvaccinated kindergartners has spiked. "Nearly half of the state's population lives in counties with kindergarten vaccination rates below the level needed for "herd immunity," the public health concept that when at least 93 percent of people are vaccinated, their immunity protects the vulnerable and prevents the most contagious diseases from spreading." Surprise, surprise, the state is now in the midst of a whooping cough outbreak. How do these kids get into public schools without being vaccinated? Well, Michigan is among the 19 U.S. states that allow "philosophical" objections to the vaccine requirements for schoolchildren. (And one of the 46 states allowing religious exemption.) A new editorial is now calling for an end to the "philosophical" exemption.

The article says, "Those who choose not to be vaccinated and who choose not to vaccinate their children allow a breeding ground for diseases to grow and spread to others. They put healthy, vaccinated adults at risk because no vaccine is 100 percent effective. They especially put the most vulnerable at risk — infants too young to be vaccinated, the elderly, people with medical conditions that prevent vaccination, and those undergoing cancer treatments or whose immune systems have been weakened." They also encourage tightening the restrictions on religious and medical waivers so that people don't just check a different box on the exemption form to get the same result. "They are free to continue believing vaccines are harmful, even as the entire medical and scientific communities try in vain to tell them otherwise. But they should not be free to endanger the lives of everyone else with their views."

1,051 comments

  1. There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by stevez67 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stupidity and fear.

    1. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Stupidity and fear.

      Education and being skeptical.

      But unfortunately, humans evolved to jump to conclusions and see connections when there isn't any: gee my son was vaccinated and he is autistic - vaccinations cause autism! Or the homeopathy people: I took this remedy and my cold went away in 5 days! It works! They never consider that their cold would have went away in 5 days anyway.

    2. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Funny

      My cold would have went away in 5 days but I'd still have that twenty in my wallet. So clearly the homeopathic treatment did something!

    3. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Both valid philosophies in the early 21st century
      sadly

    4. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I know what you mean. If people don't get the vaccines, and so the disease kills other people, that's just evolution in action.

      Some people are just too stupid to accept evolution and too fearful about the consequences of it they insist on.

      Oh, wait. You probably were meaning something anti-religious. Sorry.

    5. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lol, "pure science" my ass, where are you being scientific? Science is evidence-based, and it's very easy to scientifically measure the effectiveness of vaccines on a population; there is a wealth of evidence to prove that all the commonly-used vaccines are effective and beneficial. Your fucknut idea of what science is means nothing.

    6. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Bazman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone who has bad reactions to vaccines should be *promoting* the use of vaccines (alongside research into how to predict/prevent bad reactions). Then if you can't be vaccinated because of bad reactions, you benefit from herd immunity and the decreased amount of disease floating around that might kill you because you can't be vaccinated.

    7. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder how many are us citizen vs none that are objecting?

    8. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Informative

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      So you should want everyone else to get it. While hypersensitivity to a vaccine is rare, it does happen and is a valid reason to get get vaccines. But if everyone else does, you are still protected. (Herd immunity) Or, keep your tinfoil hat on and continue denigrating people who have 12 years more training than you do in exactly this. Darwin works, and you will solve yourself soon enough.

    9. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Just curious... Do you eat any commercial food in the US? Better start growing and hunting your own...

    10. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by jythie · · Score: 0

      Sadly, education and skepticism are often heavily intertwined with stupidity and fear. They can be as much cause as prevention.

    11. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Stupidity and fear.

      As aptly demonstrated around this top thread. People who actually have had severe reactions to vaccines are being modded down, even when their fear is fact-backed and entirely rational. Sure, damage has been done by the media, but people are still trying to do what's right. But they have concerns, and feel those concerns aren't being addressed by those administering the vaccines.

      Vaccines work, that's a fact. A low percentage of people have adverse reactions to them - that's also a fact. That is, there is a risk. The risk is perceived as far higher than it really is, but that's human nature so it will have to be dealt with in a human manner. If you want higher vaccination rates, the risk factor shouldn't be swept under the carpet, but addressed:

      - by educating people about how big the risks really are;
      - by informing them about those risks, BEFORE their jab, rather than merely by handing out a flyer afterwards;
      - by doing whatever necessary to ensure jabs aren't administered to people who might have an adverse reaction - don't just shoot up people, but have the necessary bloodwork done in advance;
      - by making vaccines ever safer - this is already being done (mercury has been eliminated as preservant, for example) and needs to continue;
      - by providing an alternative vaccination schedule for those who worry about the regular one, e.g. by permitting individual M,M,R vaccinations as opposed to one big cocktail (right now people can't, even if they're willing to foot the bill for it).

      (Posting as AC because I'm too lazy to log in after writing up this post)

    12. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I could be wrong, but I believe that if you're taught things which are totally wrong and contrary to what actual learned people teach, that doesn't count as "education".

    13. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Shortguy881 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fact Check: Are you a chemical engineer?

      Those chemicals listed are not pure elements (like aluminum and mercury). They are mercury and aluminum based compounds, designed to be inert but posses specific traits to do things like block binding sites on the viruses and bacteria. Come back when you have a better understanding of chemistry and micro biology.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    14. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You had a bad reaction to the vaccine. It happens. It is rare as shit though, and still considerably safer than ACTUALLY getting the whooping cough.

      It sucks ass that it almost killed you, but it is still worth it in the long run, herd immunity and collective protection.
      That being said, "doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing", no. They might not know the actual complete mechanics of HOW the medicine works (molecular biology researches that shit) but they do KNOW the effects and how to handle that bullshit. They are akin to engineers compared to theoretical physicists/mathematicians.

    15. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ignorant people still have rights over their own bodies and, as parents, their children's bodies.

      Refusing to educate the children of ignorant parents is not a solution. Educating the parents is.

    16. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I had a bad reaction to X, therefore X is bad for everybody!

      --
      XDInd
    17. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fact Check: Any medication has side effects. No medication whether it is a vaccine or aspirin works on 100.0% of the population. Vaccines are generally safe for majority of the population. Sorry if you are in the small percentage who has a bad reaction, spreading fear mongering does not help your cause.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    18. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well Oh My! AC feels his (probably a lie) anecdotal evidence is pertinent.

    19. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well by your logic then we should not use aspirin or penicillin because there is a small minority of people who are allergic to them.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    20. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you've ever consumed a single glass of tap water in the US, then you've taken in far more hazardous -- some outright poisonous -- materials, at far greater concentrations, than you will ever be subjected to over a lifetime of proper vaccination. One of my jobs as a teenager was to skim out the rat carcasses from those water towers you see all over the landscape. Live rats aren't a problem, because arsenic is added to the water supply to kill them off. Don't worry, though... any contaminants from their rotting remains is taken care of by all the chlorine they add. And that bottled water you get? It's just repackaged tap water.

      But, yeah, you keep worrying about the microscopic amounts of formaldehyde that can be found in a vaccine you take once every couple of years. That makes perfect sense.

      And yes, I still drink tap water, because if it was really dangerous, everybody would be dead. Protip: same thing goes for vaccines.

    21. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I once choked on water. That's why water should be banned for everybody.

    22. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by kwiecmmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

      Vaccine adjuvants encourage the immune system to attack the virus cells, thus creating the immunity for the future.

      People saying things like this are the problem. Some people cannot get vaccinations due to their own medical conditions (i.e. allergies to components of the vaccine). If you choose not to give your kid vaccines you are leaving them open to diseases that have been mostly eradicated in the last 50 - 100 years and you are thinning the number of vaccinated people, which makes it easier for people who can't get vaccinated to get the disease. Diseases like polio, measles, and mumps, don't exist in first world countries because of these vaccines. But these diseases do still exists in small sections of the third world, because of religious, transportation and other issues.

      And the longer diseases hang around and infect people the more likely they are going to mutate and could eventually become a problem for the greater population again. If you really think a vaccine is a terrible thing, do everyone a favor, look up the outcomes of the disease itself, before you decide not to give your kid the vaccine. I would hate for my kids to end up with polio or measles, but that is why I vaccinated them.

      I am not even going to get into the "doctors are not scientists" line, because I am sure you are beyond convincing. But every doctor that I have gone to has known what he/she was doing and has helped me with any issues or pointed me toward someone who could help.

    23. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think taking X kept me from getting sick, therefore everyone should take X.

    24. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fact Check: Are you a chemical engineer?
      Those chemicals listed are not pure elements (like aluminum and mercury). They are mercury and aluminum based compounds, designed to be inert but posses specific traits to do things like block binding sites on the viruses and bacteria. Come back when you have a better understanding of chemistry and micro biology.

      These objections are from people who can't even comprehend that while table salt (Sodium Chloride) is a safe compound that is needed by just about all lifeforms but it's individual elements are a poisonous gas (Chlorine) and a metal that explodes in water (Sodium.) Some people are just scared of any chemical name but they're perfectly fine if the label lists it by it's common name.

    25. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by radio4fan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I never put salt in my food because it contains a dangerously reactive metal and a poisonous gas.

    26. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by penandpaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A low percentage of people have adverse reactions to them

      That is why there is the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. That low percentage is much lower than what you make it sound.

      Most people that I have seen that have "severe reactions" to vaccines are fear mongering idiots that blame vaccines for a broken arm in football. As demonstrated earlier ITT: cold gone in 5 days after homeopathic pill == homeopathic cure for the cold!

    27. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      The context is in *making* people take things, not voluntary consumption.

    28. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I didn't have a reaction to X, therefore everyone should be forced to take X.
      Just as stupid when I put it your way.

    29. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "learned" people can't be wrong? In that case, I can really throw society on its head for what some "learned" people have put out there in the way of facts and wisdom.

    30. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Voluntary vs involuntary. Mods on crack today!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    31. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Unless that water was frozen, you didn't choke on it, you merely got some into your lungs.

    32. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Laryngospasm can be triggered by water.

    33. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      One of main objection of the anti-vaxxers is that there are side effects for some and that the vaccines are "not safe" thus they should not be forced to take them. The voluntary part is just an excuse.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    34. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by sartin · · Score: 1

      You should read the Texas curriculum standards and textbook reviews. It would be an education about "education".

    35. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the fear should not be of the vaccines but of the process that mandates them; the government mandates the children must go to the schools only they approve, the government mandates what they teach in those schools, the government mandates what they feed the children in those schools. the government mandates that the children must be given these vaccines- even though many of them are now possibly useless as the viruses have changed or aren't a killer virus in the first place.

      I agree medicine has come a long way from the first vaccines of simply injecting someone with puss, but where is the independent review to say no we will not mandate funding a pharmaceutical company, who came up with a "vaccine" for a non lethal disease. Its not there, we are in the new military-industrial complex the government\union\big company complex. What big companies and the rich wish to force on us the government makes a mandate and we have to have. Obama care is the best example of that.
      Sure there are parts of the law that hold insurance companies to what they should be forced to sell, but why do we need insurance. We are told to make healthcare cheaper, how does adding a middle man make it cheaper? how does adding more billing and approvals and filters make it cheaper? it doesn't. Removing the health care exceptions from the Sherman anti trust act, would force hospitals and providers to compete in a real market. Example- you need a mole removed- simple basic procedure, try to get a price quote from 3 hospitals. You can't and they won't, but if I want to get my car fixed call around the mechanics will give you an estimate, then a written quote and stick to it. Even a burger place can't charge random prices for its services so why can a hospital, simple they are legally allowed to. Remove the anti-trust exception and watch prices drop.

    36. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Yes, hence my contention that that is not "education", but "indoctrination".

    37. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

      I'm a pediatrician. Doctors (as a generalization) are as much scientists as "scientists" are. If you ask a businessperson, they will tell you doctors ARE NOT business people. Financial advisors will tell you that MD stands for "money dumb". I vaccinate my own children, so I'm either a heartless, money-grubbing fraud, OR.....I have gone to medical school, have a great grasp on statistics. I understand that if a vaccine causes a non-fatal, temporary hypersensitivity reaction in 1 in 1 million children (probably an overestimate), but prevents an illness that 26 in 100,000 children are getting (California 2014 statistics), that as a policy YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE REALLY STUPID not to recommend the vaccine.

      Vaccines are safer than riding in a car and swimming in a pool. Antibiotics have way more adverse events than vaccines and have not saved as many child lives (look it up). The anti-vaccine parents NEVER object to antibiotics, and often ask for them unnecessarily. Only clean water is considered more important in saving lives than vaccines.

      I understand a little bit of fear about vaccines, but there is absolutely no reason for that fear to be as great as it is. In my opinion (and this is just opinion, I don't have any data to support this) you should be way more concerned about car accidents, drowning, accidental falls, homicide, plane crashes, shark attacks, and unvaccinated children than you are about vaccines

    38. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupidity and fear.

      Here's the problem. It does no good to belittle people who don't get vaccinated or don't vaccinate their children. These people have to be taught, not harangued into doing, "what everybody else is doing." There's a disturbing trend of incivility that isn't coming from the scientific community, but rather those who pretend to be scientific. In reality, they're simply advocating a different ignorance that, in this case, happens to be right through no effort of their own.

      Do you really know the true impact of vaccination - positive and negative? I believe scientist know, but I don't believe anyone on /. does. I sympathize with parents that fear vaccinations because they've been let down by the education system, the media and by people who chose to call them names. Anyone who can help them understand doesn't help anymore. I wouldn't want y kid to be a statistic. Why should I do something because a guy with a clipboard and lab coat say so. One word: Thalidomide. That one word discredits much science.

      Now stories like this are good in that they explain the correlation between low vaccination rates and high incidents of sickness. We need more of this, and less name calling.

      Not everything is obvious.

    39. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 4, Insightful
      There are still online schools, private schools, and home schooling. The child can still get an education.

      We can try to educate the parent, but many people however, have decided that education just isn't for them. WHether they want to want to just blindly follow celebrity "experts" or are citing religious reasons, they will ignore anything you try to show them in favor of the memes they saw on facebook.

      That being the case, they should not have the right to put others kids at risk. If they want the privilege of public schools, then they need to get vaccinated.

      --
      XDInd
    40. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by uslurper · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons."

      Dumbass! If doctors were just business people, they wouldnt care at all about vaccines. They dont get paid didly squat for them. I agree that there are some docutors who are greedy, but that is not the majority of them. Nor are most of them "activists" or "community leaders". Most of them just want to make a living. They will help you with your problems the best they can -if you come to them. "Pushing" vaccenes that you take once or twice in your lifetime is not going to make them rich!

      " For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing."

      Are you really that fucking stupid!? Next time you have a broken leg or appendicitice, who ya gonna call? Ghost busters?

      "No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science."

      -Quite obviously you do have objections, and they have nothing to do with science. Few people in developed countries have witnessed things like polio or pertussis. Maybe you think they are folklore like bedbugs (which are real btw).
         

      --
      oldhack: "Security is a waste of money until shit hits the fan. 5 minutes later, it becomes waste of money again. "
    41. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      These objections are from people who can't even comprehend that while table salt (Sodium Chloride) is a safe compound that is needed by just about all lifeforms but it's individual elements are a poisonous gas (Chlorine) and a metal that explodes in water (Sodium.) Some people are just scared of any chemical name but they're perfectly fine if the label lists it by it's common name.

      And don't you dare even *think* about pushing that dangerous di-hydrogen-oxide stuff on me!!

    42. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      google: tuskegee experiment

    43. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    44. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Summary: I had a bad reaction to one vaccine, so all vaccines are teh evil and don't work and should never be used or even looked at. They dangerous!

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people

      If profit were their sole motivation, they would never give any vaccines for they would get far richer treating all the heinous diseases you would contract.

      , and use a lot of hocus-pocus

      Translation: Big words I don't understand, sometimes even 3 or 4 syllables long!

      for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      Why are you now including biologists? Are you claiming to know more about biology than trained biologists? Doctors actually do know what they're doing- they're following the advice of scientists who actually understand the problem in depth.

      No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

      Well, your objections don't seem to be based on logic or facts, and your definition of science seems to diverge wildly from that of the scientific community. What exactly are your objections based on?

    45. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Thank you for posting one of the most civil responses I've seen regarding this topic. Another issue that needs to be addressed is trust. We have governments and collections of multi-national corporations who routinely lie to the public and use them a fools and money-sponges to be squeezed. There are two sets of laws, one for a handful of politically-connected folks, and the other for the rest of the plebs.

      Is it any wonder, with such a lack of trust, that people are fearful of anything the government or pharma corps are recommending for people? This is a serious concern in the world today, and this anti-vax thing is a symptom of it.

    46. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm all for people being able to decide what can be done to their own bodies,
      therefore while I understand the science and I personally believe the anti-vaccination thing is silly, I support their right.

      Then again, I also believe that women have the right to choose what happens to their bodies too, so I'm pro-choice - on both vaccinations and abortion rights.

      IMHO, anyone who is against abortion (women choosing what happens to their bodies) and yet thinks they should have a choice about vaccination is hypocritical.

    47. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (Posting as AC because I'm too lazy to log in after writing up this post)

      Cutting and Pasting is a difficult operation, yeah.

    48. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or shame. They have a Gaylord State forest area in Michigan. No wonder they don't want anything pointy stuck into their children. /stupid joke

    49. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Immerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They're not saying you shouldn't be allowed to avoid the vaccine - just that if you *don't* get vaccinated without a valid medical reason you shouldn't be allowed into public schools where you endanger everyone else. If the anti-vaxxers want to put together a charter school for unvaccinated children, go nuts, Darwin should be along shortly.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    50. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think your "all or nothing" viewpoint is missing the actual point. Parents should have the option to choose not to give their kids aspirin or penicillin if it appears to be destructive to the child. Its not that "nobody should be allowed to use aspirin" as much as it is that each person can choose. Same with vaccines.

      Except your viewpoint ignores the fact that a parent not giving a child penicillin or aspirin only affects that child. Not vaccinating affects everyone that child comes into contact with which by proxy also means the parents. Unless the family wants to withdraw from the entire world, there is not really a "safe" option then is there?

      This is part of the liberal progressive hypocrisy: 1) women should be able to choose to get an abortion because they have the right to control their bodies 2) people should be forced to get a vaccine because they dont have the right to control their bodies

      Again you missed the part where a woman who has an abortion is in the same room with me doesn't affect me does it? Her not getting a vaccine does affect me if we are in the same room.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    51. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by CauseBy · · Score: 2

      "For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing."

      Obvious troll is obvious.

    52. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A low percentage of people have adverse reactions to them

      That is why there is the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. That low percentage is much lower than what you make it sound.

      Most people that I have seen that have "severe reactions" to vaccines are fear mongering idiots that blame vaccines for a broken arm in football. As demonstrated earlier ITT: cold gone in 5 days after homeopathic pill == homeopathic cure for the cold!

      Perhaps the risk due to reaction to vaccines should be equated to seat belts. In most crashes a seat belt will save your life (and having been through a few in my long life, I can attest to that), but in certain types of crashes it doesn't help at all (and I can't attest to this since dead people can't talk...other than Steve Jobs).

    53. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The risk is perceived as far higher than it really is, but that's human nature so it will have to be dealt with in a human manner.

      I don't think humans are wired to intuit high-risk, high-reward probability spaces very well. There's the lottery, and then this vaccination thing, too (ignoring a few pertinent facets of it, obviously).

      Imagine the following game: you roll 2d10 to determine what happens to you. On a roll of...

      2-5) You are instantly murdered.
      6-95) You receive $100 and are free to go.
      96-100) You receive a million bucks and are free to go.

      Do you play the game?

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    54. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a complete misapplication. In this case the actions of the many can save the few that can't take the vaccine for medical reasons (i.e. herd immunity). By contrast, the few idiots who don't take the vaccine for "philosophical reasons" are putting many others at risk.

    55. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by wiredlogic · · Score: 1

      Hey now. Don't start giving the nutjobs any new ideas. I know who to blame the next time I see a PBS infomercial with some holistic anti-salt huckster warning of the dangers of sodium and chlorine.

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    56. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      While logical, it doesn't really help much when you're risking your own child.

      (hopefully that's what you were hinting at)
      (and the fact that the autism "risking" part has been conclusively disproved)

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    57. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Pregnancy is not a communicable disease.

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    58. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Pregnancy is not a communicable disease.

      Well, technically, it is. Sexually transmitted, of course.

    59. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the risk due to reaction to vaccines should be equated to seat belts. In most crashes a seat belt will save your life (and having been through a few in my long life, I can attest to that), but in certain types of crashes it doesn't help at all (and I can't attest to this since dead people can't talk...other than Steve Jobs).

      That is the point of the Vaccine courts, isn't it?. Measure the possibility of a manufacturing mistake and individual variation to vaccine reaction. FWIK, that court is very strict on what it will allow as evidence because it has to have scientific evidence to be a valid claim. Which is incredibly hard to do for something as well studied as vaccines.

      The chances of adverse vaccine reactions is so low it's like the chance of getting in a car accident on the moon. There are a rover up there so an accident could happen if you jump the wrong way (if you also consider the rover a type of car).

    60. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by baz00f · · Score: 1

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

      Likely you got the whole-cell pertussis vaccine which had about 10x higher rates of reactogenicity than the newer generation of acellular pertussis vaccines. The vast majority of reactions are redness, swelling, pain and not life-threatening.

      The newer, "cleaner" acellular pertussis vaccine seems to be less immunogenic than the older "dirtier" vaccine. That may be contributing to the whooping cough outbreaks because it needs to be boosted more frequently than the current schedule.

      Aluminum hydroxide ("Alum"), or aluminum hydroxy phosphate, work very well as adjuvants for many vaccines. They also adsorb the protein components of the vaccine and help stabilize them for a longer refrigerated shelf life.

      Thimerosol ("mercury") hasn't been used in single dose vaccines since 2001. It was used as a bactericidal agent in multi-use vials to suppress the growth of bacteria if there was inadvertent contamination.

      To say that vaccine developers "have no clue what they are doing" is pretty harsh. It now takes $300 million or more to develop a licensed vaccine today and the pre-clinical and clinical hurdles are steep.

    61. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by idjitsall · · Score: 1

      I could gaf if someone refuses to vaccinate/prevent their children from getting stuff that is preventable and curable. Doesn't bother me one bit. Let the victim counters count, I will never be one myself and will hold no emotion whatsoever for any "outbreak". Let em die. What do I look like, GOD? What I object to is the flu vaccine that is being forced on hospitals and advertized at every corner store as if they invented the wheel. Humanity has evolved quite nicely without "flu" vaccines for millennia. We are meant to fight colds and flues. If one is frail or simply believes in that magic pill, go ahead. Again, I don't gaf if you do or don't in regards to flu shots. The fact that most of what I read is a bunch of whiners counting "victims" and is entirely pathetic and not worth a single second of my, nor anyone's attention. As stated, I am pissed that people are stupid enough to believe everything they hear. Modern medicine is nothing but a stone's throw away from the dark ages imo and a so called "flu" shot is a scam meant to perpetuate some sort of belief that the big pharmas are all about our health when in fact it's just $. When modern medicine is not just science but includes spiritual healing as well we will have something that works, but right now it is all about $ and those who look at holistic healing as if it means nothing should all be eradicated from the gene pool. gfy's

    62. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by penandpaper · · Score: 2

      the whole medical field has lost the ability to diagnose

      Really? I mean, you must know because their diagnostic methods and results conflicts with your google results, Right?

    63. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chemical engineers now understand every chemical process that has ever or can ever occur in the human body? Sodium benzoate. "But but but that's a triple bond. It can NEVER break into benzene." IAAC (I am a chemist.)

      Ummmm....last time I looked at sodium benzoate, there was no triple bond. Just sayin'.....

      ITAAAC (I too am also a chemist)

    64. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 1

      Yes, hence my contention that that is not "education", but "indoctrination".

      To be fair you see a lot of that on both right and left. Very little critical thinking desired by the powers that be, on either end of the spectrum.

    65. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Dragonslicer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ignorant people still have rights over... their children's bodies.

      Not complete control. That's why child abuse is illegal.

    66. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by OzoneLad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My dad used to say that a treated cold goes away in 7 days, whereas an untreated cold goes away in a week.

    67. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sad truth is the unvetted trust we place in those who are in control.

      "Trust but Verify" - Reagan

      Why do I get flu symptoms whenever I get the flu shot? Why does the CDC claim that vaccines do not prevent the illness? Why should I allow a foreign object to penetrante my body without my consent? Are the ingredients in these vaccines safe? Why are there no longterm studies in the effects of vaccines, if there are what are these effects on humans? Where is all the money going from vaccine revenues?

      All these and and more need to be asked and answered. If you haven't asked this question then you are subservient and are contributing to the decline of civilization. Trust but Verify, and question everything.

    68. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With political things, yes, that's definitely true. However with scientific things it's not; there's real science (which is falsifiable and evidence-based), and there's bullshit and pseudoscience and religion. Of course, it's possible to BS people with "science" by presenting false evidence, covering up key evidence, etc., but if you teach people the scientific method (instead of teaching them to believe in BS like homeopathy for instance, or in Creationism which isn't science) eventually the truth will come out and people will believe the correct things once the evidence is presented and understood.

    69. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Similarly avoid dihydrogen monoxide, a chemical made up of an explosive and a poisonous oxidizer.

    70. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

      I'm curious - where's the "pure science" in your post? I must be missing it.

    71. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Whorhay · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not entirely accurate. Aluminum is actually included most of the time because it helps to get a reaction out of your immune system. Doing this allows them to include a smaller amount of virus material because the aluminum will get the immune system moving. This shouldn't be a problem on an individual vaccination basis because the dosage is pretty low per vaccine. The possible problem though is that Pediatricians frequently can't count on seeing a child and administering vaccines on a regular basis, so they usually do a bunch of vaccines all in the same visit, which possibly exposes the child to much more aluminum in their system all at once than is healthy. And certainly more than is necessary because only one of the vaccines would actually need to contain the aluminum in order to get the immune system response. The simplest method to avoid this as a risk is to spread the vaccinations over the same time period with more frequent visits to the Pediatricians office. The disadvantage of course being that it's an inconveince for everyone involved. An aditional advantage though is that if a child has an adverse reaction it is much simpler to determine which vaccine was the problem.

      I am by no means Anti-Vac but we have refused one so far, the Chicken Pox. Our reasoning is that the vacine is highly likely to actually cause a case of Chicken Pox, while it does not provide an actual immunity worth the term. What it does do is help make any succesive outbreak to be less severe. It requires 2 boosters or more so far, each of which can cause a fresh outbreak. It doesn't actually do anything to prevent Shingles, which is the real long term threat of Chicken Pox. Typically fatalities from Chicken Pox are limited to bacterial infections when the sores are not cared for. The biggest driver for developing a vaccine was to save working parents the time spent away from work caring for a sick child, which doesn't actually work out because with the vaccine and boosters you will probably have more outbreaks and so more sick time taken. And finally the big kicker is that because the immunity is much weaker from the vaccine than the regular Chicken Pox and requires booster shots as time goes on, we are likely to soon see a generation of young adults who don't actually have an immunity to Chicken Pox, that'll be lots of fun.

    72. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Why do I get flu symptoms whenever I get the flu shot?

      Because in any given year, there are multiple strains of the flu. The strain that is picked for vaccines is based on an educated guess of what the prevalent strain might be for this year. This year it looks like they were wrong when they picked the strain. This is not rocket science

      Why should I allow a foreign object to penetrante my body without my consent?

      If you breathe in air every day, swallow water from a water fountain, touch dirt, foreign objects are penetrating your body all the time without consent.

      Are the ingredients in these vaccines safe?

      Generally safe, yes. Safe for 100% of the population: no, no medication is. You are aware that every vaccine's studies are published right? Or did you even look?

      Why are there no longterm studies in the effects of vaccines, if there are what are these effects on humans?

      Again there are studies if you bother to look.

      Where is all the money going from vaccine revenues?

      Sigh. The money angle. Yes the corporations that make vaccines make some profit; however, it is far less than they would make if you were required to take them all the time. For example, the drug companies would rather have you take a daily pill like Lipitor at $50 a week than one $25 vaccine and maybe a booster in 10 years.

      All these and and more need to be asked and answered. If you haven't asked this question then you are subservient and are contributing to the decline of civilization. Trust but Verify, and question everything.

      I fear you haven't but are raising questions without looking for the answers,

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    73. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by labnet · · Score: 1

      I can't hear myself think for all the /. Groupthink.
      All my kids a fully vaccinated, but I smell something fishy about the industry.
      http://www.amazon.com/Dissolvi...

      --
      46137
    74. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, let's look at it in a way that's more applicable:

      1) Let's assume you're a smoker.
      2) Let's agree that smoking creates long-term negative health consequences for you.
      3) Let's furthermore agree that, even without "universal care" provided by the government, my healthcare costs are driven up by your eventual cancer, emphysema, and other health risks.
      4) Let's also agree that your second-hand smoke has a direct negative effect on me when I'm exposed to it.

      So... how justified am I in demanding that the government use its power to prohibit the production and sale of all tobacco products? It's for your the good of the many - financially, and from a health standpoint. So why can't I prohibit all voluntary vices like smoking, drinking, and drugs?

      Do you agree that this is the proper role of government?

    75. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Whorhay · · Score: 2

      Arguably the same could be said for the small sub groups of the population that rely on herd immunity for their health.

    76. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by mjtaylor24601 · · Score: 1

      Why do I get flu symptoms whenever I get the flu shot?

      Because the flu shot contains antigens from the influenza virus which can trigger a reaction in your immune system similar to that of contracting the actual virus.

      Why does the CDC claim that vaccines do not prevent the illness?

      Because no vaccine is 100% effective and they don't want to get sued by litigious idiots that don't understand math.

      Why should I allow a foreign object to penetrante my body without my consent?

      For the same reason you're not allowed to drive your car on a public street as fast as you feel like: because it makes you a danger to those around you.

      Are the ingredients in these vaccines safe?

      Yes.

      Why are there no longterm studies in the effects of vaccines, if there are what are these effects on humans?

      lmgtfy

      Where is all the money going from vaccine revenues?

      Where do the revenues from anything go? To the people that manufacture and sell the stuff. Just because the company that makes seat belts turns a profit doesn't necessarily make seat belts a scam.

      Anything else you'd like to know?

      --
      I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
    77. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by quantumghost · · Score: 1

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Sorry to hear that. I know someone allergic to tylenol, should we ban that too?

      The evidence is that the greater good is served by extensive vaccinations. The risk of getting pertussis 9/100,000 (varies by age with less than 1 yr old having an incidence of 160/100,000) this resulted in about 28,000 cases in 2013, with about 50% of infants requiring hospitalization, and further, there were 13 deaths from pertussis, he risks of reaction to DTaP (the pertussis vaccine) is "so rare it is hard to tell if they are caused by the vaccine". Here's the data, you make the call. Your "evidence" where n=1, or the CDC who collects the data over the whole of the US or surveillance of about 300,000,000 people (n=3x10^6).

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants[sic].

      Ok, I've looked at them. So?

      To start off with, I am a physician. No secrete about that... I've posted many times in regard to medical issue on slashdot. I do not know your background or motives, but I will now look at your argument.

      Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      So let me examine this argument...biologists are scientists. Right? So are scientist to be trusted or not?

      So are doctors (physicians are what I assume you mean) not scientists? From the first paragraph of wikipedia:

      A scientist, in a broad sense, is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist may refer to an individual who uses the scientific method.[1] The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science.[2] This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word. Scientists perform research toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms.

      Hmmm. So by your logic I am not a scientist. But I have just proven to you that I have a dedication to acquire knowledge, and in fact have gone further to educate the group here at large. Did I use the scientific method? Fromwikipedia:

      The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.

      Well, I am not a bench scientists (even though I do have a BS in biochemistry and and BS in engineering), but I do write peer reviewed article in the medical literature . I use a standard and a control, I examine the independent variable in regards to the dependent variables. Can I control all of the variable as in a lab? Nope. So I use statistical methodology to arrive at the most probable conclusion. Is this always right? Nope. That's why we have conflicting studies out there. Do I present a hypothesis and try to arrive at a conclusion about said hypothesis? Yep. Do I have to get approval to even collect data from an insitutiaonl review board? Yep - Oh! Wait! - most scientists don't have to do that do they?

      Hmmm, do I meet that definition? You tell me.

      As for not knowing much about the human body: I spent 6 1/2 years earning two bache

    78. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vaccines don't work and makes you sick!

    79. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Vaccines aren't high-risk high-reward, so I don't understand the reference. Vaccines are low risk, and the reward to the individual isn't as great as the collective reward.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    80. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by smellsofbikes · · Score: 2

      With political things, yes, that's definitely true. However with scientific things it's not; there's real science (which is falsifiable and evidence-based), and there's bullshit and pseudoscience and religion. Of course, it's possible to BS people with "science" by presenting false evidence, covering up key evidence, etc., but if you teach people the scientific method (instead of teaching them to believe in BS like homeopathy for instance, or in Creationism which isn't science) eventually the truth will come out and people will believe the correct things once the evidence is presented and understood.

      I'd love to think you're right. However, there's a lot of evidence that once people believe something, you can show them factual proof that they're wrong... and they'll end up believing whatever it was they believed in the beginning, even harder. Here's a discussion of this specifically about people's beliefs in vaccination and here's one that's more general, about beliefs across a wide variety of topics on which people, if shown facts that contradict their beliefs, merely believe them even more.
      This is in fact precisely why Creationists try to peddle their ignorant junk in schools: they know very well that if they can get their beliefs in kids before the kids are able to recognize them as junk, they most likely have the kids for life, but if they don't get them then, they're very unlikely to get them as adults who can actually think well and question what they're being told.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    81. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by smellsofbikes · · Score: 2

      Well by your logic then we should not use aspirin or penicillin because there is a small minority of people who are allergic to them.

      This logic was used to ban Vioxx, which was an enormous help to a lot of arthritic people, because its side effects were awful for a very few people. It's not just vaccines, and sometimes the ban-everything-that-isn't-100%-safe-no-matter-the-consequences mentality wins.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    82. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Again, smoking isn't really a communicable disease. I could see being in favor of prohibiting smoking IN PUBLIC just for second-hand smoke reasons, sure. If people want to give themselves cancer in the comfort of their own homes...good on them, I guess?

      Idealistically, I am against government interference as well. But there are certain circumstances such as vaccination that really require the compliance of everyone able to do so. I don't like making exceptions either, but you have to.

      Would you also be one of the people complaining about the government infringing your rights if you got infected with ebola and they quarantined you? They're infringing on my right to go outside and run around in a crowd of healthy people!

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    83. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I wasn't trying to say vaccines specifically are. I was just talking about the hypothetical case.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    84. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupidity and fear.

      As aptly demonstrated around this top thread. People who actually have had severe reactions to vaccines are being modded down

      This story has 600+ comments. I don't have all day to search through all that to confirm whether or not you are telling the truth, so I will simply conclude that you are lying, having hoped that people would simply take you at your word with no proof whatsoever.

    85. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Jawnn · · Score: 1

      Best, most insightful comment in the whole 600+ pile. Well done sir/ma'm

    86. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Well that's why I use the word "eventually"; it may take a generation.

      However, for this anti-vax stuff, this movement did not exist before about 10 or 15 years ago or so. Anyone who's 40+ should well remember a time when there was no such concern about vaccines, and it was entirely routine for everyone to get their vaccines (except a few religious nuts). So it doesn't seem quite right to me to ascribe this to the phenomenon you mention, since many (most?) anti-vax people actually grew up in a time before this hysteria erupted.

      In fact, there's a lot of hysteria going on these days which largely older people are buying into, which was not such a big concern years ago: illegal immigration, the idea that Obama is going to declare martial law and make himself dictator, etc.

    87. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who ya gonna call? Ghost busters?

      Nah, He-Man. ;)

    88. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Livius · · Score: 1

      Correct - women only catch it from pregnant men.

    89. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Livius · · Score: 1

      For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      In contrast to... Slashdot posters?

    90. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by nblender · · Score: 1

      Thankfully you inform the parents of all children who will come into contact with your child that there is a possibility he/she may be transmitting chicken-pox so they can make an informed decision about whether they want to let their child hang around with your child...

      Also, I'm not sure where you read that the vaccine is highly likely to cause a case of CP. It was probably not a credible source because I just googled for it and could only find information that conflicts with your statement. I would be greatful if you could provide a credible citation for that statement, since it seems your reasoning revolves around it.

    91. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Belial6 · · Score: 2

      Which is why the philosophical exemption should not be removed. We have moved away from science based decisions concerning vaccines and moved into indoctrination. The chicken pox vaccine is a perfect example. The data shows that it is likely to increase the long term threat to the population, yet it is on the list of 'required' vaccines. If parents couldn't bail out of vaccines, you can bet that the business of vaccination would go to a whole new level, and we will have some truly dangerous drugs being injected into our children.

    92. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      The possible problem though is that Pediatricians frequently can't count on seeing a child and administering vaccines on a regular basis, so they usually do a bunch of vaccines all in the same visit, which possibly exposes the child to much more aluminum in their system all at once than is healthy.

      They usually administer a 'bunch at a time' because seeing the doctor is fairly expensive in both time and money. As for the amount of aluminum, do you have any figures on how much is too much, and how vaccines 'can' exceed that, especially since most such vaccines are combined today?

      Our reasoning is that the vacine is highly likely to actually cause a case of Chicken Pox, while it does not provide an actual immunity worth the term.

      Really? What sort of percentage do you consider 'highly'? Because the CDC says that's 'highly unlikely', which given CDC stuff is probably less than 0.1%. Before the vaccine infection rate rounded to something near 100% of people getting it, normally in childhood.
      Term of protection is: >90% after 20 years (immune systems vary). For example, I have an aunt who's had chicken pox over a dozen times. Her immune system just keeps 'forgetting'.

      It doesn't actually do anything to prevent Shingles, which is the real long term threat of Chicken Pox.

      Per both CDC and wikipedia, the protective action against shingles is getting what amounts to a larger dose of the very same vaccine. When I'm older, I'm going to need that booster since I've had the disease.

      which doesn't actually work out because with the vaccine and boosters you will probably have more outbreaks and so more sick time taken.

      Any citation/evidence on the vaccine causing outbreaks of the disease? I mean, something that would see the CDC getting it's ass reamed in congressional hearings and the maker sued for release of a vaccine that's worse than ineffective?

      And finally the big kicker is that because the immunity is much weaker from the vaccine than the regular Chicken Pox and requires booster shots as time goes on, we are likely to soon see a generation of young adults who don't actually have an immunity to Chicken Pox, that'll be lots of fun.

      Again, CDC says >90% after 20 years remain immune. Worst case, recommend a booster at 25, 45 & switch to shingles at 65. in the adult vaccination schedule. Much like the Tetanus vaccine(every 10 years in adults).

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    93. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      I agree with you on a general level, but I still think it's a nasty idea to use organic compounds of heavy metals as vaccine additives. You'd think there were saner alternatives by now.

      Of course, the amounts are probably minuscule to other sources of heavy metal poisoning we have around. This IMHO is the biggest issue about non-scientific reactions -- hysterical focus on $some_single_chemical and ignoring all other dangers and matters of scale. In my scientific education, I think one key thing has been learning how to deal with uncertainty.

      Case in point: getting hysterical about aluminium in deodorants, and switching to alternatives such as crystal deodorant... which are 100% alum. Of course, the real issue is probably with specific compounds such as aluminium chlorohydrate - no need to ban the entire aluminium industry for that. And don't even get me started on genetic modification which has been going around for about 10000 years...

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    94. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you teach people the scientific method without also teaching them how science actually works you end up with people whose religion is science. The scientific method as commonly taught is rarely followed, especially in the medical and social sciences. Skepticism, which should be a jewel of science, is strongly frowned upon.

      Don't be a science zealot waving around the scientific method as if it were something actually practiced.

    95. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Belial6 · · Score: 0

      As a pediatrician, how do you rationalize recommending the chicken pox vaccine? As an MD and a "scientist", you surely know that vaccines are a class of medicine, not a single medicine. So, saying anything positive of negative about the outcome of vaccines can only be used to discuss whether the basic concept is sound. It cannot dictate whether all vaccines are good or bad.

      You have surely seen the statistics on chicken pox. It has a mortality rate of ~100-120 people a year. 10-12 of those are children for the entire US. So, from your list of dangerous things, chicken pox shouldn't even show up on the radar. As a pediatrician, you surely have also seen that the chicken pox vaccine has failed to give permanent immunity, and you are surely aware that the risk to adults from chicken pox is 10x that of children.

      So, as a medical doctor, how do you rationalize increasing a person's risk of mortality by 10x? How do you continue to push the agenda that all vaccines are created equal? How do you rationalize having a kitchen in your home and cooking home cooked meals for your children when you are surely aware that that 3x as many people burn to death in their kitchen every year than died of chicken pox pre-vaccine? And home cooked meal deaths are 100% preventable.

    96. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by puck01 · · Score: 2

      The chicken pox vaccine is not 'highly likely' to cause a case of Chicken Pox. Does it happen? Absolutely. It doesn't happen often, though. The few case I've seen in my entire career have been one to three lesions. Nothing close to the actual disease.

      Is it effective, sure it is. Hardly any vaccinated kids get the disease anymore. When they do, it is also very minimal.

      Does it prevent shingles? It might. Japan was the first country to start using the vaccine - a decade or two before the US. The last I checked, and I will grant I haven't looked at there data in about five years, their rate of shingles in adults seems to have gone done quite a bit suggesting that it is indeed effective at preventing shingles.

    97. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by seffala · · Score: 1

      My problem with your thought experiment is that $1 million is not "high reward".

      Certainly not commensurate with "instantly murdered". In fact, I'm pretty sure I value my life at (much?) more than three orders of magnitude greater.

      The things I *would* value as roughly equal to "instantly murdered" are all personal, and none of them involve cash.

    98. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Our reasoning is that the vacine is highly likely to actually cause a case of Chicken Pox, while it does not provide an actual immunity worth the term.

      What? ahref=http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccination.htmlrel=url2html-1107http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/...> 98% immunity is pretty fucking good. From the same link: "However, the risk of getting shingles from vaccine-strain VZV after chickenpox vaccination is much lower than getting shingles after natural infection with wild-type VZV. " As far as I can tell, you're wrong on pretty much all counts.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    99. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      - by providing an alternative vaccination schedule for those who worry about the regular one, e.g. by permitting individual M,M,R vaccinations as opposed to one big cocktail (right now people can't, even if they're willing to foot the bill for it).

      The fact that this is not already done should throw a red flag up for any sane person. If making sure that as many people as possible are getting the three vaccines for the benefit of society as a whole, there is no ethical excuse for leaving people vaccinated because you don't want to give them the vaccines separately.

    100. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.

      The "long term threat" you reference is the incidence of shingles, which is 1) tons less deadly than initial wild chickenpox infection, and 2) can be minimized by re-exposure (ie re-vaccination) later in life. Moreover, the "threat" has nothing to do with the vaccine- it has to do with lower re-exposure rates among adults because so many fewer children carry it

    101. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I always pay their bills in 6X dollars.

    102. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you have any idea how many people (and other living creatures/plants) die from eithe to much or to little of this stuff? Do you even realize this is the largest portion of the chemicals in acid raid!

    103. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about we just hold you down and forcefully inject anything freaking thing we want into you, because "voluntary is just an excuse"?

    104. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think anybody is denying that some people have strong, negative reactions to vaccines, or that some people have died from vaccines. There's a very low, non-zero risk. It's a medical fact. What people are denying is that this is: A) a rational reason to not vaccinate people generally, or B) that non-medical reasons are a valid reason not to vaccinate children going to public school.

      You've presented very good reasons why people should be fully informed before making their decision. I'm totally for that, but I'm sorry, if they choose not to have their children vaccinated it is indeed based on stupidity and fear. Given human psychology, it's unlikely that doing the things you describe would mitigate that by much. Making vaccines *even*safer*? Good medicine, but irrelevant. People are not basing their decision on a realistic assessment of the risks already, so how is lowering the risks even further going to stop them from making an irrational decision? The risk can never be reduced to zero. They are always going to be dumb about the math and can validly say there is "still a risk" no matter how low it's driven. They can't seem to do the math for "frequency of death/injury" from contagious diseases like measles versus the same stat for vaccines.

      Let's face it. There are still people who think they can go to a casino and can consistently beat the house. We need deeper education about risk/reward assessment *generally* to make any headway on this thing. What's worse, for vaccines the people who can't figure this out are not merely blowing their own money at a casino, they're putting everyone at greater risk. That risk to the rest of society is why I think we should be a bit more insistent with these stupid and fearful people. I suppose being blunt to their face isn't a good strategy, but it is an accurate description of what we're dealing with.

    105. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you *don't* get vaccinated without a valid medical reason you shouldn't be allowed into public schools where you endanger everyone else.

      Except that if everyone else has been vaccinated, they are safe, no?

       

    106. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      That's not the definition of voluntary is it?

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    107. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's some problems with your logic regarding chicken pox, first your information indicates it 'does nothing to prevent shingles'

      That's true! FOR YOU. If you aren't exposed to your children's bout of chicken pox, you're more likely to get shingles. So your kids having the wild live virus makes it less likely YOU will get shingles.

      Also, you claim it requires 2 boosters. This is FALSE. It require 2 shots, one of which is a booster. This may or may not change the mental calculus for you or someone else considering the vaccine.

      I recently won the varicella vaccine fight with the wife - who was against it because "WTF chicken pox is no big deal", well it was for me. I spent several feverish and sleepless nights crying and trying not to itch, a painful memory for a 6 year old. The vaccine is a live virus owing it's lineage to a dude in japan, so the worst case is that you'll get chicken pox (2% at most). If you get the wild virus, your chance of painful symptoms is more like 100%. In the best case with the vaccine you'll have no symptoms(98%), and lifelong immunity..

      More amazingly: last time i checked, there had been NO fatalities from it, I dunno if that's still the case, but my god, I think you couldn't give as many people injections of water without killing at least a few of them.

    108. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      No. My expected enjoyment (not to mention earnings) for the rest of my life are greater than the differential between that and the same thing plus a million dollars. The 90% chance of winning $100 is a roundoff error.

      I'm curious what your answer was.

    109. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Doctors yes. Biologists, no. Not that most doctors are shady business people, they're just poorly trained to evaluate scientific evidence.

      However, more people are "nearly killed" by all sorts of things than by vaccines. Now that you know you're potentially allergic to particular adjuvants, you can avoid them.

    110. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem here is where you draw the line. Philosophical exemptions aren't the problem here, these are people that are refusing to get the vaccinations on medical grounds. The belief is generally faulty, but where do you draw the line between somebody like me who can't get certain vaccinations because of a skin problem and the flu shot which is effectively pointless as I've never had the flu except for the flu-like symptoms that I got the only time I ever got a flu shot.

      In one case I would be granted an exception and in the other I wouldn't. And would people really be forced to go to their doctor when they had a reaction to verify that the reaction was due to the dose and not just a coincidence?

      Philosophical exemptions go to people like Christian Scientists that opt out of all medical care, and they're just not common enough to be much of a problem.

    111. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm a scientist who works with physicians. Physicians are not "as much scientists as scientists" are.

      A physician who has taken a particular interest in research at a good school might have a few of years of part time research experience, plus a few courses in basic stats and research methods. In order to become an independent scientist you need to have eight to ten years of pure research training, plus another two (yeah right) to ten years of additional training and experience, again in full time research. It's not the same thing at all. And it shows. Phrases like "I have a great grasp on statistics" give it away. I know I don't have anything close to "a great grasp on statistics."

      I don't feel at all qualified to prescribe drugs, diagnose patients or perform surgery, despite working and studying medical science at a postgraduate level for ten years. Why is it physicians feel they're just as good at science as a scientist?

    112. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, people breathe air all the time, but they are so panicked about it being injected in their veins!...

    113. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Immerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No.

      Vaccines boost your resistance against diseases, they do *not* grant immunity. Think of it like letting a military (immune system) train against captured enemy war machines (weakened or deactivated viruses) - it grants a decided advantage in later battles, but there's still no guarantee of victory. And not everybody's military will train as quickly or effectively, nor are they all the same strength to begin with. With a good vaccine most people will be able to fight off a later infection easily enough that might not even realize they were infected, for others it will only give them a fighting chance, which may reduce the amount of permanent damage done if they survive. And for still others it just won't be enough, and will only let them die more slowly.

      And that doesn't even consider the percentage of the population that legitimately can't take the vaccine, most commonly because they are allergic to certain components, or have a weakened immune system that may be overwhelmed even by the vaccine.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    114. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing is people don't want to be forced to inject unknown (because there is no scientific way to prove exactly what is actually, not in theory administered at the baccination place) fluids in their kids blood.

      You can make any argument that letting whoever administer unlnown things in your childs bloodstream. But unfortunately for you, there also a bery important right to not be injected whatever a doctor or the CDC wants everytime they want.

      Science is aboit Hypothesis. Nobody knows ithe long term effects in biology, and nobody knows if our theories are right.

      And doctors have also made huge mistakes. For example, the reccomended babies to be face up. Now they discovered that the best position is face down. So what is it? I am sorry for all the mothers of babies that had a loss die to the hreat science and wosdom of those that studies so many years to force people to do what was worst.

    115. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Justice: He takes his own vaccine.

    116. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My life sucks, game on.

    117. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by BadDreamer · · Score: 1

      And if you no-one around you had the vaccine you'd be dead now, since that means you're very sensitive to pertussis.

      Adjuvants are an excellent tool. What about them do you want us to look at? How well they do their job?

      Doctors get MORE money from letting you and all the kids around you get pertussis and treat it. Lots more. We're talking magnitudes here. Vaccines are a horribly bad deal from a business perspective; there is a lot more money in letting people get sick. So much more that a comparison is nuts. Trying to argue doctors provide vaccinations to pad their wallets is a complete and utter disconnect from any scientific evidence and reality.

      No scientific objections here, just pure ignorance and prejudice.

    118. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you have any idea how many people (and other living creatures/plants) die from eithe to much or to little of this stuff? Do you even realize this is the largest portion of the chemicals in acid raid!

      Do you even bother to spellcheck before you hit 'Submit'?

    119. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by BadDreamer · · Score: 1

      [citation needed]

      Seriously. Really needed. Your arguments are extremely controversial. Who told you this?

    120. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

      Don't say have adverse affects, say a low percentage DIE because of them. Don't sugarcoat the facts no matter how low they are. I say if a family or parent if forced to get a vaccination and then the child dies or has an adverse reaction the government/taxpayers must pay all costs 100%. it wouldn't be much as its only a small number that die. More would get sick Just saying ya know. My kids were lucky, I was lucky. It is good to be us, it sucks to be them. So do you and vaccination supporters agree, 100% of all failures are 100% paid for? 1 million to the family of those who die.

      --
      Jack of all trades,master of none
    121. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Chalnoth · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm skeptical that there's actual evidence of severe adverse reactions (aside from the occasional allergic reaction). "I had a vaccine and then this bad thing happened to me," is not an indication that the vaccine caused the bad thing. It might have, but the severe reactions have been so incredibly rare that there's really no evidence of a causal link, as near as I can tell.

      But what you are asking for here is a far, far higher barrier to obtaining a vaccination than is asked for for most any other medical procedure or remedy. The real information is, "This will protect your child, and the population as a whole, from serious diseases. It most likely won't cause any issues. Your child may have minor cold symptoms for a bit, which means the vaccine is working."

      The CDC's page is informative here: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/va...

      Note that under the "severe" reactions is usually the disclaimer that they can't actually be sure this reaction is caused by the vaccine. I'd be willing to bet that disclaimer should really be expanded to encompass every vaccine on the list, aside from the allergic reactions.

    122. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow.

    123. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by mattack2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      - by making vaccines ever safer - this is already being done (mercury has been eliminated as preservant, for example) and needs to continue;

      You are spreading falsehoods also. Give evidence where the mercury-containing preservative caused any problems. You're probably going to point to the supposed evidence towards autism. There isn't any such evidence. Just because it has mercury, doesn't mean it is necessarily poisonous.

      Chlorine can be poisonous, but salt (which contains chlorine) is a necessary nutrient for us.

    124. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > 96-100) You receive a million bucks and are free to go.

      no, because the odds are actually 96-99, 1% worse.

      duh

    125. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why aren't you asking for everyone to get every possible vaccine?

      damn the risks. cue the rewards.

      oh really?

    126. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is Lady Liberty vaccinated? I don't think so. She was born before the days of Pasteur.

    127. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not only the captain of my soul, or my mind, Timothy McVeigh Invictus style, but also the captain of my body, and not some government or some doctors.

      Captain of your soul? Of your mind? Of your body? Really? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that most who know you IRL consider you barely competent to live on your own. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the neighbors wouldn't trust you with their dog. Just sayin'.

    128. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by quenda · · Score: 1

      so they usually do a bunch of vaccines all in the same visit, which possibly exposes the child to much more aluminum

      Really? If true, this is a local problem for you. Many vaccines can safely be given together, in the same jab or at different sites. Many do not even contain the aluminium that you fear - including the varicelle (chicken pox) one. Doctors should be following the guidelines for that. Doesn't your country or state have a standard schedule?

      Our reasoning is that the vacine is highly likely to actually cause a case of Chicken Pox, while it does not provide an actual immunity worth the term.

      You were misinformed in multiple ways. The varicella vaccine is especially safe, and does not cause pox. It is possible for the vaccine strain to cause shingles later in life, but the risk is much lower than not being vaccinated (and this possible contracting the wild strain). Vaccinated adults are much less likely to get shingles.

      Immunity can drop with time, or it may last decades. Even a single dose is highly beneficial.

      And finally the big kicker is

      Now you are just rationalising! That is no reason to refuse vaccination now. If true, it just means the population will need boosters later. Either way, you are better to vaccinate now.
      Having said all that, varicella is far from being the most important vaccine recommended for children.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...

    129. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The risk is perceived as far higher than it really is, but that's human nature so it will have to be dealt with in a human manner.

      I don't think humans are wired to intuit high-risk, high-reward probability spaces very well. There's the lottery, and then this vaccination thing, too (ignoring a few pertinent facets of it, obviously).

      Imagine the following game: you roll 2d10 to determine what happens to you. On a roll of...

      2-5) You are instantly murdered.
      6-95) You receive $100 and are free to go.
      96-100) You receive a million bucks and are free to go.

      Do you play the game?

      wtf would play such a game? 2d10 can never be greater than 20 ....

    130. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      It's a thought problem. What information you get out of it is more important than what your individual answer is.

      What I was angling for wasn't calculating the two extreme outcomes such that they have an equal value; my point was deciding should you play the game at all. If you're crunching the numbers to try to arrive at a conclusion that logically involves the least risk/most payout, you're kind of missing the point.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    131. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, in the interest of herd immunity, maybe we should also screen all these people whose immune system isn't able to fight the virus effectively even with the vaccine or who legitimately can't take the vaccine, and send them to an isolated school, too...

      I can understand that refusing to even attend the military training (in your metaphor) is morally wrong, and therefore punishable, as opposed to not being an efficient soldier. But I still find it a bit harsh to forcefully impose a training on everyone. You could also force everyone to wear a scarf in winter, make unprotected extramarital sex illegal, and give a fine to people who cough in the street. The society usually tries to be tolerant of people who don't contribute as much as they could.

    132. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Then you immediately roll a 3 ;)

      Ah well. At least you died knowing that your odds were marginally better to win big.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    133. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by smellsofbikes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I know people in their thirties who are willing to believe that obama is going to declare martial law. Jumping to wild conclusions has no age restrictions.
      I may be reading you wrong, but one thing I think about every time I hear discussion of vaccination is how I've never met a single person who was 10 or older in 1952, who is even slightly anti-vaccine, because they all remember the terror of the polio epidemics in the early 1950's. They all knew people who died, or people who walked into hospitals and then spent the rest of their lives in iron lungs, and they all remember how the introduction of polio vaccines managed to turn 60K cases/year into ten cases/year in two years. It's people who don't remember a world full of crippled people in wheelchairs who think they can do just fine without vaccines. So in that sense, I think the anti-vax hysteria is almost entirely a stupidity of younger people.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    134. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Sounds pretty accurate. I'm just curious, with these people you know who think Obama is going to declare martial law, how do you handle that? Get in an argument? Stay off the topic? Say "ok" and change the subject?

      Honestly, I don't remember this much nuttiness 10-20 years ago.

    135. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There aren't any standards for posting. Now go die in a fire please.
      Come on! I said "please!"

    136. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by pepty · · Score: 1

      How to fix this: PSAs showing happy families with kids making the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house for thanksgiving, with a voice over explaining how many elderly people are hospitalized or die from the flu each year. Further explain that the flu vaccine isn't as effective in the elderly as it is in younger people, and that they need to be protected from exposure. Give people a real and very personal consequence to ponder when they consider avoiding vaccinating their kids.

    137. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by markass530 · · Score: 1

      What happens is anyone who gets a vaccine and then Trips and falls/ Gets hit by a bus / Scrapes their knee / Gets the Sniffles Cries " IT WAS THE VACCINE!" , those are the people who make up your "severe reactions"

    138. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by markass530 · · Score: 1

      As some random troll on the internet surely you realize nothing you said is true

    139. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by markass530 · · Score: 1

      Thanks for doing what you do, not sure how you can read threads like this and not go crazy

    140. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had a severe reaction to the flu vaccine and nearly died. Rather than enriching the doctor who gets paid when I take a jab, I now decide what goes into my body. Fact Check: list of additives in most vaccines: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/va...

      No, that did not happen. You made up the story about "nearly died".

    141. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Hmm but calling people stupid for exercising their right not to be vaccinated is not indoctrination?

    142. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      No, because the potential risk for outweighs the potential reward.

    143. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Some people are just scared of any chemical name but they're perfectly fine if the label lists it by it's common name.

      Fun quiz time! Which of these are poisonous, and which can be ingested safely:

      pyridoxine HCl
      copper gluconate
      L-5-methyl tetrahydrofolate
      cholecalciferol
      cyanocobalamin
      polynicotinate
      retinyl palmitate
      biotin
      niacinamide

      .
      .
      .

      All scary sounding as hell. All very good for you.

      I've seen people give poor reviews to medical food bars (that's where I got this list) that contained these ingredients because they apparently thought those were a bunch of unhealthy chemical additives. Well, yes, they're chemical additives, but they're things your body needs to stay alive and healthy. *facepalm* We have a massive government bureaucracy dedicated to making sure companies aren't feeding us poison. At some point, you just need to trust that they're doing their damned job.

      Yeah, unfortunately, many lay-persons are horrible at exercising good judgment about such matters (including vaccines). I say let them keep their vaccine treatments, but require kids in public schools to be vaccinated. If they want to benefit from publicly-funded education, then they need to be responsible for the general public's well being as well. If private schools don't want to require vaccinations, then it's on them.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    144. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Immerman · · Score: 1

      But they're not forcefully imposing anything - they're just suggesting that if you voluntarily abstain from training you shouldn't be allowed on the battlefield (i.e. allowed in public schools - probably the single most infection-laden area anyone is exposed to.), because you're jeopardizing the safety of everyone else for no good reason.

      As for those who *can't* take the vaccine - herd immunity doesn't require 100% compliance to be effective, just as even 100% compliance doesn't render it 100% effective. An there's serious civil considerations to be weighed when banning people from aspects of civic life for things they have no control over.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    145. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everybody in Geldar knows that citrus fruits are dangerous.

    146. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Immerman · · Score: 1

      A good idea, as a complementary strategy. Though influenza is a poor example - it's a highly unstable virus family for which the vaccine is rarely more than moderately effective, and often not even that - this year for example it's looking like the dominant strain is going to be only distantly related to the vaccine that was bred - meaning the vaccine will provide at best a minor advantage against an infection that's mostly harmless to begin with. And that limited benefit must be weighed against the fact that visiting the doctor's office to receive the vaccine will expose you to a smorgasborg of virulent pathogens that you might otherwise have avoided.

      In short, to paraphrase a common anecdote: "I stopped getting the flu vaccine, because I got sick every time I did."

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    147. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Another MD here. The troll below made me laugh so just want to speak out against it.

      As a pediatrician, how do you rationalize recommending the chicken pox vaccine? As an MD and a "scientist", you surely know that vaccines are a class of medicine, not a single medicine. So, saying anything positive of negative about the outcome of vaccines can only be used to discuss whether the basic concept is sound. It cannot dictate whether all vaccines are good or bad.

      Rationalization: chicken pox vaccine benefits > risks Yes, a class of medicines can be collectively evaluated. NSAIDs are often collectively evaluated. It all depends on the question you are asking.

      You have surely seen the statistics on chicken pox. It has a mortality rate of ~100-120 people a year. 10-12 of those are children for the entire US. So, from your list of dangerous things, chicken pox shouldn't even show up on the radar. As a pediatrician, you surely have also seen that the chicken pox vaccine has failed to give permanent immunity, and you are surely aware that the risk to adults from chicken pox is 10x that of children.

      Quoting CDC here: "Before the chickenpox vaccine was widely used, nearly 11,000 people were hospitalized each year and about 50 children and 50 adults died every year from chickenpox. Most people who died from chickenpox were completely healthy before they got the disease, with no known conditions that put them at higher risk for a severe case of chickenpox. Thanks to vaccination, serious cases and deaths from chickenpox have declined dramatically. Since the United States started using the vaccine in 1995, the number of hospitalizations and deaths from chickenpox has gone down more than 90%." http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vp...

      So, as a medical doctor, how do you rationalize increasing a person's risk of mortality by 10x? How do you continue to push the agenda that all vaccines are created equal? How do you rationalize having a kitchen in your home and cooking home cooked meals for your children when you are surely aware that that 3x as many people burn to death in their kitchen every year than died of chicken pox pre-vaccine? And home cooked meal deaths are 100% preventable.

      Not equal, you moron, but comparable. It may be hard for you to understand but if risks > benefits then vaccines do not get approved or get pulled back once that is discovered. All of doctors' children get the same vaccines that your children do, why would doctors support some kind of conspiracy against their own children? You should try taking the tinfoil off sometime :-)

    148. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mathematically, yes.

      Realistically, no, because I wouldn't want to spend time hanging out with whoever runs that sort of game.

    149. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Di-hydrogen mon-oxide please. Just breathing the stuff can kill you in minutes.

    150. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      permitting individual M,M,R vaccinations as opposed to one big cocktail (right now people can't, even if they're willing to foot the bill for it).

      This is because there is no difference between getting the vaccines one at a time, or all at once.
      It was the crazy-ass antivaxers that made that up as an excuse to avoid protecting their children.

    151. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      Don't say have adverse affects, say a low percentage DIE because of them.

      Then the kid can get a note from his/her doctor to use an alternative form of vaccination. It shouldn't be up to the kid's halfwit parents.

    152. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      *I* wouldn't, but the fact is probably something like 20% of the population would (ok, percentage made up but you *know* it's double digits...)

      And you know, it might just be the kind of culling we need. Sort of a reverse-Idiocracy initiative.

    153. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      People who actually have had severe reactions to vaccines are being modded down, even when their fear is fact-backed and entirely rational.

      You say that, but when I went to look for these fact-based, entirely rational posts this is the first one I found:

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      Take a look at vaccine adjuvants. Doctors are not scientists, they are business people, and use a lot of hocus-pocus for financial and other reasons. For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing.

      I'd happily mode that down if I had mod points...

    154. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bitch

    155. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine the following game: you roll 2d10 to determine what happens to you. On a roll of...

      2-5) You are instantly murdered.
      6-95) You receive $100 and are free to go.
      96-100) You receive a million bucks and are free to go.

      Do you play the game?

      Well, it's a pretty good offer if you're suicidal. A 10% chance of instant death.

      The 90% chance of getting a $100 is kind of meh. Not sure why you mention 96-100, as the maximum roll on a summed 2d10 is 20. It would seem that you're summing, as you start with 2. Using one of the dice to roll a 0-90, you should start with 1.

      This example seems to say more about the ability to read and understand a deceptive question than about understanding of risks. There is a small but possible chance of winning the lottery. I suppose that the chance of dying while playing the lottery (e.g. in a traffic accident) might be slightly higher than the chance of winning the jackpot. But it's not deceptive. The lottery doesn't claim a high chance of winning, just a high reward if you do.

      The thing with vaccination is that most people don't understand the odds. If one person tells them that the odds are in 1 in 10 that their child will die from taking the vaccine and someone else tells them that their child could die from not taking the vaccine, they don't know who is right. They haven't monitored a study nor read the results. Either way, they are choosing to trust someone else. Is the someone else worth trusting? Who knows?

      Tycho Brahe was a scientist who thought the Sun and planets revolved around the Earth. Rene Descartes was one of the founders of the scientific method, and he didn't believe in vacuum. Blaise Pascal was a brain-damaged (as per his autopsy) religious nut ("Sickness is the natural state of Christians.") who did believe in vacuum. Pascal happened to be right, but it wasn't that he was more scientific than Descartes. He just happened to be right on that issue. The two of them together came up with an experiment that would determine who was right.

      The problem remains that most people do not have the background to evaluate vaccine claims. They make decisions based on how well they trust others. If they trust their doctor, then they likely get the vaccine. If they trust the anti-vaccine nut more, then they don't. The anti-vaccine nut also makes scientific claims. They may be fraudulent or deceptive, but they are claims. The typical parent does not have the background to evaluate the scientific soundness of those claims.

    156. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know what the 'correct' choice is, but fuck no. 10% chance to die doesn't sound really attractive to me.

    157. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      Holy shit.

      Go to Target and buy some tin foil and make it into a hat. Put it on then make sure all of the gaps in your doors and windows are also stuffed with foil. You'll feel better.

    158. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As said in other threads, there's actually no easy alternative to public school.

      Also, if you read the article, the rise in vaccine abstention seems to come mostly from middle upper class and "health conscious" families. Statistically, their children probably wear scarves, speak English well, are generally well educated... Excluding them might do more harm than good to the community.

      Personally, I'd prefer a mix of education and "peer pressure" on the unvaccinated, and early prevention in any outbreak, than flatly refusing exemptions. (And in any case, I find the situation where religious exemptions are possible but not philosophical ones awfully unjust).

    159. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The risk of getting shingles from the vaccine being lower than the risk of developing it after natural infection isn't very comforting. Your quote does nothing to counter the claim that it is "highly likely to actually cause a case of Chicken Pox". As far as I can tell, you are letting your preexisting conclusions paint your interpretations. You may well be correct, but the evidence you presented doesn't back it.

    160. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Again, smoking isn't really a communicable disease. I could see being in favor of prohibiting smoking IN PUBLIC just for second-hand smoke reasons, sure. If people want to give themselves cancer in the comfort of their own homes...good on them, I guess?

      But we've already established that it has a negative effect on other people, even if I never smoke around them. The solution exists to completely eliminate all of those bad effects - so why not allow the government to force people to stop? The question was more aimed at you describing where you feel the proper role of government ends - not trying to claim that there should be no such thing as quarantines.

      You see, forcing people to do something - even if it's in their best interests, and the best interests of the people around them - still involves forcing people to do something. Now, the government *does* have the authority to force people to do certain things - but where and how do we draw that line?

      I'd say that the government only has the authority to *force* people into vaccinations if there's a VERY compelling reason to do so. "LOL YOU'RE SO DUMB WHY WUDN'T U VACKSINATE" is not sufficiently compelling to me. There needs to be some weighting of:
      1) Mortality rate of the disease;
      2) Chronic long-term side effects of the disease;
      3) Ease of transmission of the disease;
      4) Cost (and difficulty) to health services to treat & control it in case of an outbreak;
      5) how damaging the vaccine may be (different vaccines have different rates of side effects);
      6) Efficacy of existing treatments for the disease and its side effects;
      7) likeliness of an outbreak of the disease in the population under consideration;
      8) cost to vaccinate;

      Somewhere in all of those factors, there's a point where the case for government authority becomes compelling. It's not clear to me that "the simple existence of a vaccine" automatically makes the case compelling enough.

      Now, for something like Ebola:
      1) Very deadly - up to 90% fatality depending on strain of Ebola;
      2) Not much chronic long term side effects - should you recover;
      3) Ease of transmission - not that easy - requires contact with infected tissue or fluids;
      4) Cost & difficulty to treat - high - requires lots of precautions and special handling, risk to health care professionals is also high;
      5) Damage from vaccine - unknown, but let's say 90% safe for a theoretical vaccine for Ebola;
      6) Efficacy of existing treatments - well, not very.
      7) likeliness of an outbreak - low in the United States, somewhat higher in West Africa;
      8) cost to vaccinate - probably fairly high;

      So, given those factors - would the government of Sierra Leone be justified in trying to force everybody to get vaccinated? Very likely. Would the government of the US? Not so clear - even a very effective vaccine with low risk might not make sense to a population that's not at high risk for an outbreak, where the disease is relatively easy to control.

      Anybody who tries to assert a single rule that "the government must always use force when a vaccine exists," is flat out wrong. So the question is - where and how do you draw the line?

    161. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your just another big pharma brain washed stooge.why donit you get some more vaccinations you shithead...we don't want it you fuck head.

      corporate whores like you scum bags like you make the world a shitty place.

    162. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's more than a simple correlation that they draw. When you have a child that is active, talking and behaving normally before a vaccination and then not talking, lethargic or disturbed forever afterword then it makes you question. Then when reports surface that negative research results were hidden or destroyed it makes you wonder.

      Look, it's a numbers game. They figure that the vaccines will, do more benefit than harm. If 1 in 100 kids or even 1 in 50 develop autism or other disorders then that is a small price in the eyes of government to protect the rest. That's easy to argue when you're not a parent of one of the affected.

      If there's nothing to it then why did Congress pass legislation protecting vaccine manufacturers?

    163. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Little cognitive dissonance there - the upper middle class are among those who have the least difficulty in getting their children into private, chartered, or home-schooling systems. And those schools which accept unvaccinated children can focus resources on outbreak prevention - why should the public system have to waste all those resources when the most effective solution (vaccination) is also the cheapest?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    164. Re: There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The flu vaccine was just recalled...knowledgable science barely exists..

    165. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=193060 Here's the link that states pretty clearly that the chicken pox vaccine is certainly not highly likely to actually cause Chicken Pox. It helps to read the actual literature.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    166. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      4 out of 99 is not 10%, it's just over 4%.

      Since I phrased the dice bit poorly (although you can tell from the explanation what I was going for), alternately 4 out of 20 is 20%.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    167. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      vaccines spread disease.
      i am all for excluding vaccinated children from school.

    168. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, that's one of those great truths right up there with "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery"

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    169. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

      And i said if that choice is taken from the parent and the child dies or becomes extremely ill or gets the Disease, those who forced the vaccination and every American should pay for all he/her healthcare and death benefits. its only fair. Alternative form or not. The vaccine should be free, the doctor visit should be free, because its the best for society and not for people to make a profit off of. At cost yes,profit no.

      --
      Jack of all trades,master of none
    170. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There should not be a requirement to take a vaccine. However, there should be an incentive to learn about the benefits and side effects of vaccines. To my understanding there have been multiple cases of autism that apparently were caused by an "overdose" of vaccines given to infants. The majority of problems seems to have been associated with (no clear cause) taking 3-in-1 shots and/or taking a set of required shots within a day or two. The argument is that the small infant's body needs time to handle the "challenge" caused by each individual vaccine.
      There also have been cases(like this year) when the flu vaccine provided was for the wrong strain of flu. Also, if using a "live virus" vaccine, it is important that the live virus be both weak and very dilute so that it stimulates the immune system rather than overwhelming it. There have been many folks who claim to have ggotten the flu from the vaccine.

    171. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by stoatwblr · · Score: 0

      That "long term risk" is the more severe form of chicken pox - "shingles" - people who catch chickenpox as adults tend to get the shingles form.

      HOWEVER. Anyone who's had chicken pox as a kid is likely to develop shingles as an adult anyway. It happens when the virus periodically reactivates.

      I caught chicken pox aged 7, before a vaccine existed. I've had a number of shingles breakouts since i was 35.

      If you've had chicken pox the chances of having at least one shingles breakout in later life is extremely high (although admittedly it usually happens in the over 60s - but the older you get the worse the effects)

      The drugs to control a shingles breakout (aclovir family) cost about $200-400 for a WEEK - and they don't prevent future breakouts. Once you have herpes zoster in your system it can never be eliminated.

      Properly done vaccinations (ie, with an adult booster) pretty much eliminate the risk and they're a lot cheaper than aclovir.

    172. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why should the public system have to waste all those resources when the most effective solution (vaccination) is also the cheapest?

      If we only ever chose the most effective and cheapest solution, we would also outlaw all drugs, and all extreme sports, and then force everyone to do some fitness exercises every day, ... Sure you can tell me "it's not the same, when you're not doing exercise, you're only hurting yourself", but actually you're not immediately hurting anyone neither when you're not vaccinated, it's all about prevention.

      And what if we made it mandatory to donate some blood every year, and your organs when you die? It would save a lot of lives. But we don't, because it has to be balanced with the fact that society should not force people, especially when it concerns their own body.

      So, although I honestly can't say if it's feasible to keep allowing people to be exempted from vaccination, it would be nice to try, just because that's what people want.

    173. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Belial6 · · Score: 0

      This is exactly the kind of MD convinces people not to immunize their children. Claiming that anything that is labeled as a "vaccine" is inherently good is dogma beyond sanity. He then claims that most people who died from chickenpox had no known conditions that put them at a higher risk. This is gross incompetence. It has been well known for hundreds of years that being an adult is a health condition know to put you at higher risk. That is why while only 5% of the infections are in adults, 50% of the deaths are in adults. (Yes, it was 50-50, not 10-90, point still stands)

      Sure, the the rate of infection has gone down, but the vaccine has already shown to only give temporary protection. That is why they now recommend a booster. We don't know how long that booster will last. This leaves many people sitting as time bombs to catch it as adults with a medical condition that dramatically increases.

      You then try to claim that the chicken pox vaccine, or the flu vaccines are "comparable" to the polio vaccine? Again, this is why people lose trust in you. They know that they are not comparable, and you lose credibility, and your response is to start name calling. You are personally responsible for convincing people not to vaccinate their children. When kids die of Measles, it is on your hands.

      As for doctors doing things that would harm their children, your kitchen is all that needs to be shown to know that you will happily put your child at far more risk for your personal convenience than anyone who would skip the chicken pox vaccine.

      Again, you are the one who is convincing people to skip the Measles, Polio, Mumps, and Rubella vaccines. You tell bad lies, and then when it is pointed out, you start calling people names. Do you really find that people take your medical advice when they hear you calling people "moron"? Not likely. The death of children from MMR vaccine preventable diseases is on your hands.

    174. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by mjmcc · · Score: 1

      This logic was used to ban Vioxx, which was an enormous help to a lot of arthritic people, because its side effects were awful for a very few people. It's not just vaccines, and sometimes the ban-everything-that-isn't-100%-safe-no-matter-the-consequences mentality wins.

      Vioxx was banned for two reasons:

      1. 1) More than "a few people" were harmed. The damage it does is subtle and hard to detect until a heart attack occurs, and there was a strong suspicion that the damage detected was just the tip of the iceberg, that millions of people using the drug were having their hearts slowly and irreversibly damaged.
      2. 2) Merck out-and-out LIED to their patients, the government, and the public at large about both the safety and efficacy of the drug. Not only did they conceal evidence that the drug was dangerous and not any more effective than other similar drugs, but they repeatedly made deliberate false statements to the contrary. That kind of behavior simply cannot be tolerated.

      Please keep in mind that the FDA is funded primarily by the drug industry (through drug-approval fees) and that most of the leaders of the agency are former drug industry executives. They hate to ban any drug, and will only do so as a last resort or in a particularly egregious situation. Merck pulled the drug voluntarily, because it was clear that the FDA were actually going to do their job in this case.

    175. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by pepty · · Score: 1
      True about this year's vaccine, especially since it looks like the strain not in the vaccine is especially nasty. But studies have found that vaccinating the kids in a community prevents hospitalization of senior citizens:

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3111961/

      Also, I don't think most people actually sit in a doctor's waiting room anymore for a flu vaccine, they only get it at the doctor's office if they are already to see the doctor for some other reason. It's way too expensive for your health care provider to schedule an appointment just to get a flu shot. People get it at a drugstore, grocery store, etc, or at a flu shot clinic. If they wait in line, they are waiting in line with a bunch of other people who are there just to get a flu shot, not people who are already sick.

    176. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember the shorts color just fine, at first sight. With it I still cannot afford a spark right now, or rs whatever thousand of switches, if not millions - pikachu hair dew and all that ultimate shoo doo doo roop too roop tooo.

    177. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And btw, someone kibitzing on IGS yesterday replied to my comment that that group is barely alive, with "barely alive is perfect". Yes, that's a prime principle, as long as you can make sure that the group is in fact alive, you should not waste moves on it and utilize them better in more urgent areas. Barely making ends meet is what minimum wage is about, as long as you can make them meet. In whatever way necessary, including cutting off utilities to shop on ebay with that money instead. I don't really need heat to the whole house when I can heat a single cavity in it, and I don't really need heat to that cavity when I can cover up with 15 sleeping bags and feel like I'm in death valley desert heat from it, so I only need like 4 of them to be comfortable. And I can get some fresh air in the process. Yes, I'm the captain of my fresh air too. While barely all that.

    178. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Occupancy permit requiring code compliance with HVAC and all that. How about a jacking off permit? Can I get one of those, for a low price, and do I have to reapply when it expires?

    179. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by niftymitch · · Score: 1

      You should read the Texas curriculum standards and textbook reviews. It would be an education about "education".

      Err... no do not waste your time ....

      Unless you are of a mind to address the foolishness....

      I was lucky -- I had a science teacher that taught us about the Hollow Earth
      and what might be hidden in it and what it might look like.

      In part this class taught critical thinking.

      One contrary force is the problem of standards testing.
      If the question pool is so large then nothing else can be taught
      then we degenerate into dogma or repetition of dogma.
      The Baltimore Catechism comes to mind....

      If the question pool is too small, we risk too many 100% 'ers.
      The 100%ers are then in a position to challenge the foolishness
      of the test pool and pool answers and those in power seem to
      be in fear of this.

      Pay attention to the school system...
      Pay attention to the notion of zero tolerance in schools
      as it has morphed into a form of intolerance. The justice
      system in schools establishes the expectations of our children
      and when justice is corrupt we risk teaching despair.

      --
      Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
    180. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I might leave this as the last comment for a long time, as it was the difficulty of finding info on yeoman farmers on google and google books that made me sign up for broadband Internet at home, because I knew I'd have to do a lot of bitching on Slashdot, and there is simply not enough time for that on library computers. But there you have it, the loss of a dominant middle class and yeomanry, going back to a highly stratified upper class, middle class, and lots and lots of lower class society, they have to consider the rights of INDIVIDUALS. In a "God loves everybody" way.

      I saw a bit of a Steven Seagal movie where he gets attacked by rattle snakes, and he catches them mid bite by their neck, two of them, and lets them go outside. Because they too have a right to life, even if they pose a threat to you. Yeah, the rattlesnakes that you let go may later kill another person, but regardless, they have a right to live, unless you can consume them as food, or leather material out of necessity, or economy, but otherwise you should not senselessly destroy them, you should hate them, they are gorgeous animals. In a Jesus love your enemies way, POW style. And take a fucking chance in life, by letting rattlesnakes go, because they too have INDIVIDUAL rights, even if they are a threat.

    181. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by niftymitch · · Score: 1

      Mercury containing preservatives are used in some flu shots.

      HOWEVER all those that point to this as a problem talk about %% or ppb
      numbers in the product.

      The ones that flabbergast me most are the ones that fail to translate the %%
      into total body burden. They fail to compute the mercury from a years
      supply of tuna fish sandwiches and compare it to the 1 cc of vaccine.

      Mercury is multivalent and has very different body activity depending
      the compound and chemistry of the compound. Mercury is nasty as
      heck but the lack of specifics in measurement si troubling.

      Lead in brass is one such troubling topic. If you open the tap, reach for
      a glass and fill it it is unlikely that any lead could be measured. However if
      the fixture has the brass brushed with a wire brush and then water is
      allowed to stand for a week it might be easy to measure with modern tools.

      Some modern legal enforced health levels have no health data to support them.
      However with each instrumentation improvement the legal levels are reduced
      to match these new instrumentation capabilities. Many of these "legal" levels
      are matters of regulation and are revised by a bureaucrat with questionable
      loyalties, qualifications and motives. The answers to these questions may
      vindicate the action but need to be asked and documented.

      It is possible in some of this that we are seeing the correct answer for the wrong
      answer. A process that enables this is troubling and risks greater wrongs....

      --
      Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
    182. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by niftymitch · · Score: 1

      The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine nearly killed me when I was a child.

      So you should want everyone else to get it. While hypersensitivity to a vaccine is rare, it does happen and is a valid reason to get get vaccines. But if everyone else does, you are still protected. (Herd immunity) Or, keep your tinfoil hat on and continue denigrating people who have 12 years more training than you do in exactly this. Darwin works, and you will solve yourself soon enough.

      How do we know that it was the vaccine that nearly killed one quote above..

      Hypersensitivity to one item is rare but to all the things in life a lot less rare.
      How do we as readers eliminate the possibility that this was not hyper sensitivity to peanut butter
      or other common trigger.

      I would offer those that fear hypersensitivity that a subcutaneous bubble/ blister or tine test could
      be developed to screen for this risk. Perhaps it should be. Those with allergies know the chess
      board grid on their back screening method. Also an epi pen could be sealed in a container
      and used if needed. Because it is sealed it could be reissued after resealing a couple weeks later.
      The darn things have gotten expensive... (for crazy patent reasons).

      --
      Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
    183. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vaccines or rather the adjuvants in a vast majority of them (non-live attenuated) are questionably linked to a whole variety autoimmune diseases. This is due to the fact that adjuvants often are heavy metals which can stay in ones system for the rest of ones' life, and thus have a cumulative and chronic effect. Not to mention the hypothetical neurological damage.

        http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/adjuvants.html
      http://vran.org/about-vaccines/vaccine-ingredients/oil-based-adjuvants/a-glimpse-into-vaccine-adjuvants/
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21568886
      http://lup.sagepub.com/content/18/13/1217.short

      Interesting side note: mothers with autoimmune disease have a confirmed increased risk of having children with autism.

    184. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine the following game: you roll 2d10 to determine what happens to you. On a roll of...

      2-5) You are instantly murdered.
      6-95) You receive $100 and are free to go.
      96-100) You receive a million bucks and are free to go.

      Do you play the game?

      Using standard notation, 2d10 will result in a value of 2-20, with a bell curve peaking around 11. Any value above 20 is impossible, so no $1 million is possible.

      In terms of the game, Let's assume the intention was to say that you roll 1d20 and 1 is lose life while 20 is $1 million and everything else is $100. Assuming you use game theory, whether you play or not depends upon how much you value your own life. For a worthless life, the expected value is 5%*$0 + 90%*$100 + 5%$1M.
      If you value your life at something more than $50,090 then you should not play.

    185. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It might still be a rational choice given your circumstances. If you're terminally ill or very old or suicidal or believe in a better afterlife, you might value your life at only one million dollars and take that chance. In fact if you're suicidal it's a win-win. Of course it could be argued that a death wish or belief in life after death are irrational. I'd argue against that that how much you are worth to yourself is in no case an objective value and is beyond ratio.

    186. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lawmakers need to pass laws enabling courts to forcefully sterilize people. You spreading your inferior seed affects me and my high functioning relatives. Having the likes of you reproducing puts my family in danger of your offspring inevitably driving drunk, leaving used drug needles on the beach, or spouting your totalitarian drivel calling for forced vaccinations.

    187. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by cgi-bin · · Score: 1

      What if I get a 1? Do I get to murder you and keep the $1M?

      --
      -Doug "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke
    188. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a d100, not a 2d10... (CAPTCHA: inferior)

    189. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Bahahaha. Are you aware how communicable diseases work? Apparently not.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    190. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just administer the aluminum separately.

    191. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      you are confused, penicillin is not given to those who have allergy. That is check box on standard doctor and dentist's form.

    192. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      all mercury containing compounds are poisonous, there are no exceptions.

      the chlorine in salt is ionic, not covalent as in chlorine gas. your body uses that ion.

    193. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing is that the entire premise that we believe in, around vaccination is flawed. It wasn't vaccines that drove back diseases, it was our improvements in living standards:

      During the 1800s into the early 1900s measles, like all infectious diseases, was a big killer. The measles vaccine was introduced in the United States in 1963. By this date using United States statistics the measles death rate had declined by over 98%. (2) Similarly, the measles vaccine was introduced in England in 1968. Since England began keeping statistics in 1838 we can get a much better idea of just how bad measles was during the 1800s – it was a big killer. Phenomenally, the death rate for measles had declined by almost a full 100% before the introduction of the vaccine in England. (3) (Take a look at the graphs in the reference section to see the dramatic decline in deaths.) - See more at: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2014/10/09/crucifying-the-vaccine-heretics-by-roman-bystrianyk-co-author-dissolving-illusions-disease-vaccines-and-the-forgotten-history/#sthash.OTY2Ckyi.dpuf

    194. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      The literature I read on it, from the doctor, 4 years ago said they'd need a booster in a few years and then another as a teenager.

      Your wife was right, chicken pox is no big deal in most cases. I know when I had it there was no pain, itching yes, but no pain. And I've never heard anyone else ever complain that it was painful. The only serious risks I've ever heard of for it is bacterial infection when the sores aren't kept cleen, and the exceptionally rare case that it manifests in the lungs as a severe rash.

      The numbers I've seen on mortality said the fatalities were under 200 a year. Even if all of those were in the USA that amounts to jack shit. What percent is 200 of 330,000,000? It's miniscule enough I can't be bothered causing my child and myself the discomfort of extra couple shots.

      Nothing I've read indicates that the vaccine grants lifelong immunity. The fact that it needs a booster shot at all should be a clear indicator in that regard. The numbers I've seen seem to say it's more likely between 70 and 98% but it's hard to pin down because so much of it depends on prevalence of wild cases of chicken pox in the area.

      The push for this being a mandatory vaccine seems to be a financial thing. If it isn't mandatory health insurance won't usually cover it.

    195. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does in Texas.

    196. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. One of my sons had a severe reaction to a vaccine, and I am pretty certain it was never reported, even though it should have been.

    197. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am a science based person, but from personal experience with a child of mine, I have seen clear negative reactions. Since it started at the site of the injection, I am pretty certain it was related to the vaccine. And, there have been bad reactions that can be traced to the body's reaction to the vaccine. Keep in mind that the point of the vaccine is to get the body to react. Sometimes it goes a little too far.

      You appear to also be ignoring the problems with the live polio vaccine. And, skipping the improperly prepared batch of polio vaccine that gave previously healthy children polio. (Look up the Cutter Incident)

      Remember that the CDC wants to stay on message when it comes to dealing with the public. Shades of gray are not allowed.

    198. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seldom do I call someone on slashdot an idiot, but you are an idiot.

      Look to the CDC to see that mercury has clearly not been eliminated from vaccines.
      http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

      "Since seasonal influenza vaccine is produced in large quantities for annual vaccination campaigns, some of the vaccine is produced in multi-dose vials, and contains thimerosal to safeguard against possible contamination of the vial once it is opened."

      The earlier poster was not spreading falsehoods, but you clearly are. Educate yourself before posting.

    199. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Her getting the abortion does affect me. By not having an unwanted child around, society is not faced with the problems that child or mother might create. A win for society.

      Flame away.

      [slashdot has a sense of humor. The verify word was 'miscarry']

    200. Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      I admit this isn't the greatest citation, but one of the cohosts of the sawbones podcast is a doctor, and there was an episode about mercury. They definitely talked about various forms of mercury being very bad, and I seem to remember them describing others as not causing problems.

      If it is that poisonous, why would they ever have used it?

      Also, didn't you ever play with mercury from a broken thermometer?

  2. Just get the number back down by omnichad · · Score: 0

    I think the big mistake is that nobody put down the money to get that number back down to 5% who don't vaccinate. It's not hard to do. 95% of people either believe in the vaccine or are easily swayed.

  3. freedom 2 b a moron by airdrummer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    as a parent myself, i am sympathetic to parents' rights, but if someone refuses to vaccinate their children, schools should refuse to allow them in.

    1. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by operagost · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That might be a reasonable compromise if every parent had a real choice where they send their kids to school. Governments take thousands in school taxes, then tell you that if you don't want to send your kids to their public school that you'll have to send thousands more to a private one. Often, home schooling is even prohibited.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    2. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Often, home schooling is even prohibited.

      Citation needed. You need a competent instructor (usually just high school educated or GED). Otherwise it's legal everywhere in the US.

    3. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by GameMaster · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      It's not about alternatives. You're not entitled to alternative ways to put other children at risk by exposing them to your un-vaccinated spawn. Frankly, you shouldn't even be entitled to bring them out in public as long as they're a threat to other children or anyone else who couldn't get vaccinated for some other reason outside of their control. Willful ignorance should come this a heavy cost.

      --

      Rules of Conduct:
      #1 - The DM is always right.
      #2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
    4. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe that private schools are going to be much stricter on enforcing vaccination.

      They will eventually have to choose between:
          a. litigation from anti-vaccers for discrimination or whatever crap they will think of
          b. litigation from parents of vaccinated kids in case of an outbreak caused because the vaccination rate of the school fell below the herd immunity levels

      Good luck to those preferring the latter type of litigation...

    5. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That might be a reasonable compromise if every parent had a real choice where they send their kids to school. Governments take thousands in school taxes, then tell you that if you don't want to send your kids to their public school that you'll have to send thousands more to a private one. Often, home schooling is even prohibited.

      You still have the option to vaccinate your child and let them go to a public school.
      If the private sector doesn't provide a third alternative, tough luck, that means you have to play ball with others.

    6. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Slyfox696 · · Score: 0

      That is not true. The government does not force private schools to charge thousands of dollars in tuition. Furthermore, those public school funds DO help fund the private schools.

    7. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by operagost · · Score: 1

      I should have said "de facto". In Massachusetts and Maryland, for example, the state has to approve both the instructor and the curriculum, and can disapprove either for basically any reason.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    8. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by jythie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The part they are not saying, or at least the part the part left off in the 'home schooling is illegal!' crowd skip over is that home schooling still has some educational requirements and standards, which many homeschool proponents are explicitly trying to avoid. For every home school parent simply trying to get their kid out of a bad school, there are probably 20 who want to insure that their children are not accidently exposed to ideas counter to the religious ones they want to instill. I have actually known home school parents who ended up sending their kids back to public school when they discovered that all the resources for such schooling in their region (such as community) were exclusively religious and pretty far off the mainstream.

    9. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 0

      Have you been fitted for your jackboots yet?

    10. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by jythie · · Score: 1

      Depends on the type of private school. Ones focused on networking or education generally are pretty strict on that since they cater to people of means who want to give their kids more opportunity than a public school would provide (i.e. upper middle class annoyed that their children will be socializing with their lessers), but ones catering to fringe groups with their main selling point being idealogical rather then educational, well, they may or may not enforce vaccination depending on the community they are selling to.

    11. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It isn't controversial, it is fucking moronic and has been disproved over and over again. Stop being a dip shit.

    12. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by morgauxo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am a parent and I think that not vaccinating ones kids should be equated with child abuse.

    13. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by morgauxo · · Score: 1

      So then the kids are forced to live in a box until they are old enough to make their own decision to finally get vaccinated.. which they will not do because in that box the only voices they ever heard were their own crazy ass parents?

      Better to just force vaccination and solve the problem.

    14. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Private schools don't have to worry about a). A private business is allowed to discriminate against customers in any way it pleases, as long as it doesn't discriminate based on a "protected class": race and sex mainly. A lawsuit alleging discrimination by anti-vaxxers would be thrown out of court immediately I think.

      It's public schools that have to worry more about this stuff, since people can make the case that public education is supposed to be universal, and public schools can't just arbitrarily exclude kids it doesn't like for some reason. If a private school wants to exclude kids who are too dumb (don't score well on a standardized test), or are too short, they're totally allowed to do that. In fact, there aren't many private schools who take in special-needs children. Public schools can't easily exclude anyone.

    15. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Millennium · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't believe it is controversial to consider vaccination 14 shots at 2 years old extreme.

      Why? Excluding religion, there is no reason to believe that vaccines cause any harm: literally every study attempting to find otherwise has either failed or been proven fraudulent.

    16. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by operagost · · Score: 0

      Your use of derogatory terms like "spawn" tell me that you do not have the requisite wisdom or maturity to speak on this topic.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    17. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Assmasher · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So, basically, there's very little reason to think that a parent refusing to vaccinate their child would not be able to home school them
      Not much reason to allow unvaccinated (by choice) children into public schools then.

      --
      Loading...
    18. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as a parent myself, i am sympathetic to parents' rights, but if someone refuses to vaccinate their children, schools should refuse to allow them in.

      Maybe it's time to have vaccine free schools. That way the other schools will have the herd immunity and all the morons' kids can be part of an interesting science experiment. The teachers will obviously have to be anti-vaccine too. Should make for some great science.

    19. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      if someone refuses to vaccinate their children, schools should refuse to allow them in.

      Many states do that. California has a "no shots, no school" policy. Kindergarten registration is in March, when parents receive a list of required shots. If the shots aren't documented by the time school starts in late August, the kid is not allowed to attend class.

      I lived in China for several years, and my kids attended public school there. They have an even better system: They provide the shots at the school. A pair of nurses shows up, all the kids line up, and take their turn. It is very efficient, very cost effective, and requires no time or effort by the parents. They also have fewer complications, since the nurses know exactly what they are doing. They go from school to school and do the same vaccine everyday to hundreds or thousands of kids. So they know the dose, the procedure, and are familiar with common side effects.

    20. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      You vaccinated your kid so they have immunity, right? Why are you worried? You just like telling other people what they can and can't do. "Your unvaxed kid is going to make my vaxed kid sick. Ban them from school!" Why did you even get them vaccinated? You don't seem to believe in the effectiveness of the swill you are sportin'.

    21. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is conflict of values. Do you more greatly value freedom over slavery or safety over risk?

    22. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If a parent doesn't want to get the vaccinations required, then sorry, they get to pay for qualified private education.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    23. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Assmasher · · Score: 1

      Was that what you said when you found that smoking was banned in elementary schools?

      Doing something that you believe to be right that puts other human beings in serious risk is a burden that YOU must bear.

      Do you think driving a school bus full of children while drunk is a freedom you need?

      --
      Loading...
    24. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While it is controversial to conclude that the vaccines caused the condition

      It's not controversial....its explicitly FALSE. There is no link or evidence supporting this.

      I don't believe it is controversial to consider vaccination 14 shots at 2 years old extreme.

      You know what isn't controversial? Not allowing 10s of 1000s of innocent children to die from a multitude of diseases that, until quite recently, were no longer a threat to 1st world countries over the objections of people uniformed and spouting FUD.

      We simply didn't have whooping cough or measles or mumps outbreaks for the last multiple decades. Now, after a decade or two of people not vaccinating, they are back.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    25. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Your numbers are wrong, and I highly doubt she got 14 shots in one year.

      http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/downloads/parent-ver-sch-0-6yrs.pdf

      It looks like 2 year olds are on the hook for 1 yearly shot for the flu.
      You might be thinking of between 6 months and 23 months which show 8 shots in a period of 18 months. Some of those aren't required either. You could probably forget about the two HEP vaccines and the chicken pox vaccine if you really wanted to. You could also probably skip the flu vaccine, but I wouldn't risk it. There is also no way that covers "well over 30 vaccines" If you count every single disease that you are protected from on that chart, there are only 14. Therefore either you are pulling numbers out of your rear, in which case knock it off. Or you have some antivaxer lying to you about what caused their child's issue. Which leaves you spreading falsehoods and innuendo. So again, knock that off too.

    26. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 1

      You certainly have mastered the straw man argument. Bravo. Face it, according to your mindset, the existence of people who don’t consider themselves cattle is a threat to you. You are tolerant of everything except your fellow man’s liberty.

    27. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Correction: -Including- religion, there is no reason to believe that vaccines cause any harm.

      Feel free to cite any anti-vaccine scripture. Let me save you some time. It doesn't exist.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    28. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by plover · · Score: 2

      At age 48, I was required to have proof of measles vaccine before being allowed to attend Arizona State University. I did think it was a ridiculous requirement, but only because I was I was enrolled as an online student from Minnesota.

      --
      John
    29. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Informative

      My son has Autism/Asperger's as do I. Please stop spreading the "vaccines cause Autism" myth as it has been proven false more times than I care to count. The only study linking them was withdrawn, the author (Wakefield) found to have essentially made the whole thing up to sell his own MMR replacement vaccines, and then the author was stripped of his medical license.

      To quote Penn and Teller, though, even if vaccines did cause Autism - WHICH THEY DON'T - not vaccinating to avoid autism would still be BS. You're possibly condemning kids to contract fatal diseases to avoid a condition that they can live with.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    30. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many reasons. First, vaccines are not always 100% effective. There are some people for whom immunity is not granted, but you may not know until it's too late. That's the concept of herd immunity -- there are a few kids in this group, and a few others who can't get the vaccine for medical reasons, but as long as ALL THE OTHER KIDS ARE VACCINATED, those children will be protected.

      Second, your unvaccinated kid might come into contact with my too-young-to-get-vaccines infant or my medically-compromised spouse, both of who might attend school functions.

      Finally, preventing them from entering school without vaccines can help preventing them from being an unsafe participant in society.

    31. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by drb_chimaera · · Score: 2

      Not just China - in the UK this was done too (at least it was when I was in school back in the 80's/90's) - I had several vaccinations done while I was in secondary school.

    32. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by suutar · · Score: 1

      I think the gripe with 14 shots at age 2 is the belief that getting poked with needles that many times is painful and must be life-alteringly traumatic. I'll admit, getting stuck with a needle isn't particularly comfortable, but I wouldn't call it painful when done by an experienced professional. Of course, I have many years of experience in painful situations to compare it against, which a 2 year old doesn't.

    33. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vaccines are not 100% effective. You need nearly everyone vaccinated for herd immunity to work. A small group of people who "can't" be vaccinated is one thing, but a sizable additional group of crazies is another. In other words, many vaccines are dependent on herd immunity.

      My take on it is if you don't want to be part of the immune herd, then GTFO. Coming in contact with me or my children should constitute as an attack on my person. plenty of science backs it up and it's logical. If someone shoots me with a gun, they've increased my risk of dying. If a willfully unvaccinated person comes in contact with me, they've purposefully increased my risk of dying. Seems simple to me.

    34. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 1

      If the state/city has any ability to veto home-schooling, then you cannot assume that a parent who refuses to vaccinate their child will be able to home-school them. Period.

      --
      Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
    35. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To go to my state college they required specific vaccines, one of which I had not yet gotten. I didn't see anything wrong with the choice "you can either get this $20 vaccine to enjoy subsidized schooling or go to private college".

    36. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      what if GP has a child that can't get vaccinated due to an allergic reaction and therefore relies on the herd immunity?

    37. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by hey! · · Score: 1

      As Terry Pratchett's "Patrician" is fond of saying, freedom doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Nor does it mean freedom from responsibility.

      Saying you have to make your own arrangements for schooling doesn't seem so oppressive to me, so long as the arrangements aren't made in a punitive spirit. Lots of parents do make their own arrangements because of philosophical differences with state-run schooling. Pious parents send their kids to religious schools. Conservative parents send their kids to military schools. Liberal parents send their kids to alternative, unstructured schools.

      Schools should make reasonable efforts to accommodate the philosophical preferences of parents, but there simply isn't any way to square this circle. Most parents want their kids going to a school where everyone is vaccinated. If you want something different there's no way to accommodate that preference, unless there's enough of you to set up a parallel program. I have a relative who did just that -- started an alternative school; not for anti-vaxxers, but for anti-regimentation parents who want the kids to go to a school where they do whatever the hell they want all day and where no attention whatsoever is paid to ed-reform mandated standardized tests. And the school works because of the high degree of involvement of the parents, many of whom are high status professionals like doctors and university professors. You *can* have whatever you want for your kid, but you've got to put the effort in to make it work.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    38. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1
      --
      vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
    39. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry, but that's part of the compromise.

      I'm very much for personal freedoms. I don't believe much of anything should be required - particularly for medical treatments (that's not to say I'm anti-vaccine - on the contrary I've pretty much all of them and do a yearly flu-shot).

      HOWEVER, part of the social contract is that if you want to participate in the group's collaborate efforts, then you have to abide by some rules. Ergo, if you don't want to vaccinate your child you're free to do that, but be prepared to pay for private education. You can't have the best of both worlds - taking advantage of the publicly funded education system whilst endangering the health of the other participants.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    40. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 1

      Governments take thousands in school taxes, then tell you that if you don't want to send your kids to their public school that you'll have to send thousands more to a private one.

      What are "school taxes"? I'm not aware of any jurisdiction in the US that has such a thing. There are property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, use taxes, excise taxes, estate taxes, service fees, etc., but those are paid by everyone, regardless of whether they send their kids to public or private schools, and indeed regardless of whether or not they have kids at all! My 90-year-old grandma pays all of these taxes, and I can assure you that she does not have any children in school right now.

      Often, home schooling is even prohibited.

      [citation needed]

      --
      They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
    41. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by hierofalcon · · Score: 2

      I suspect you will find few private schools or day cares that don't have similar vaccination requirements.

      Still, outright bans on attending school without vaccinations should not be the rule. The "herd" effect works there, just as well as anywhere else. If you have a high enough percentage who are vaccinated, you're probably OK. It's not like just restricting someone from attending public school is going to fix the problem with non-vaccinated kids. Those who are home-schooled or who might possibly attend private schools where there are reduced vaccination requirements will still interact with other kids - whether in stores, movie theaters, sports events or teams, concerts, dances, or just around the neighborhood.

      My dad had polio before the vaccine was available, so I'm very much pro vaccination for anything possible. The problem is that in the United States, the effects of most of these diseases that we vaccinate against are out of the memory of the collective. Perhaps each new parent who wishes to forgo vaccination without a sound medical reason should be required by their child's doctor to watch a historical video showing the effects of these diseases in the past to help them understand just what is at stake so they are fully informed of the risks.

      The school systems should also listen to the doctors. Our child's doctor recommends all vaccinations, but his preference was to wait until a later age for the chickenpox vaccine as its long term protection was still not clear. The school system required an earlier vaccination - so it won. I'm not sure that they had any medical reason for their policy. I would expect it was just - it's available - make them have it (school district bureaucracy being what it is). Only time will tell which was right.

    42. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I live in Pennsylvania,( a fucking hellhole if ever there was one) and we have to write a property tax check (over 100USD a week 2.5% every year)) every year DIRECTLY to Twin Valley School District.
      Twin Valley School District also gets a 1/2 percent income tax.

      http://www.tvsd.org/businessoffice/Pages/taxoffice.aspx

      FireIsBorn

    43. Re: freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah I grew up in Canada and that is how it is done there. You get all of your vaccinations throughout school, some in grade 1, some in grade 5, 6 etc.

      Your parents have to sign a consent form and if you have it you get the vaccine with everyone else during school hours. I think on average there was maybe only 2 or 3 hold out children per vaccine.

    44. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Feel free to cite any anti-vaccine scripture.
      Even if it existed, it shouldn't matter. The only reason to not get a vaccine is because you're allergic to it.

    45. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      So, basically, there's very little reason to think that a parent refusing to vaccinate their child would not be able to home school them

      Why would there be little reason to think that? Aside from all the expenses of homeschooling itself (books, materials, etc - both for parents and students), there's also the loss of income from at least one parent (when there even are two) not working. That can easily be half the household income gone, plus the expenses, and they still have to pay the taxes. And in a single parent household, what's the option? Live 100% on public assistance all the time?

      The poster above hit the nail on the head: "That might be a reasonable compromise if every parent had a real choice where they send their kids to school. Governments take thousands in school taxes, then tell you that if you don't want to send your kids to their public school that you'll have to send thousands more to a private one."

      That right there is the problem. If they had a choice, this would all be moot. Dumbasses who refuse to vaccinate their kids couple simply send them elsewhere with little or no cost. As it stands, if you're stupid enough to honestly believe vaccines will damage your child, your options come down to bending to the will of the state that you inject poison into your child or lose half/all of your household income and try to educate them yourself.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    46. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Why? Because you demand it? Let the tax dollars used to educate children follow the children to any reasonable education facility and this whole debate goes away. The fact that everyone is forced to fund some of the most garbage public schools in the modern world is the problem. Hell, even some of the Europeans have choice in education. Let the money follow the kids and this whole problem goes away. All these idiots who aren't getting their kids vaccinated can concentrate on some private institution run by idiots who let them all congregate there and then maybe when some easily preventable disease wipes out half that school's population, some of those morons will take the hint.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    47. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Right, so your irrational grasping for anything to attack religion about doesn't actually work. Sorry.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    48. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Time to read the studies you are citing... There are hundreds of studies showing damage from vaccines, especially TDAP and HEP-B. There is the entire European Union and Israel taking up the top 20 places in the healthcare quality ratings with only 4-5 mandatory vaccinations rather than 20 or so in the US. They have lower disease rates, lower vaccinations rates, lower healthcare costs, more medical research and no conflict of interest between the for-profit healthcare industry and the individual

    49. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My son has all his vaccinations, however I did not like the multiple shots in a single visit strategy.. because most of the shots he got were given repeatedly over time and when given an array of shots at once we would have had a hard time determining which specific shot caused a reaction..

      I had no co-pay for taking him into the doctors, so once a week he would go in for a single shot for 3 weeks in a row instead of getting 3 shots at the same time.. We prioritized the shots so he got the most important ones first and he got every single shot he was supposed to, as time went on and we started allowing an array of shots we had already determined he had no reaction to.. because in the end he had no reactions to any of them.

      Perhaps I was being overly cautious, but my mother is deathly allergic to many medicines and I am sure it effected my decisions with my child.. however I fought alot of resistance from the doctors thinking I was some anti-vaccine quack, and I didn't blame them.. just had to explain my point of view.

    50. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Immerman · · Score: 2

      It's not just the non-vaccinated children that have to worry - no vaccine is 100% effective, so your unvaccinated child is a breeding ground for the infection that may cripple or kill my vaccinated child. Worse if my child *can't* be safely vaccinated - then you're intentionally boosting the risk to my child by lowering herd immunity, just because you're an ill-informed idiot. That's not okay with me.

      We could argue where exactly the line should be drawn though - chicken pox for example is a relatively minor infection - it's really unpleasant, and sure it can kill you if you're particularly unlucky, but then so can a cold. I'd be fine with leaving that one voluntary. But the stuff that has a good chance of really screwing you over? That should be non-negotiable.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    51. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Frankly, you shouldn't even be entitled to bring them out in public as long as they're a threat to other children or anyone else who couldn't get vaccinated for some other reason outside of their control. Willful ignorance should come this a heavy cost.

      This is, frankly, every bit as stupid a thought process as not getting your kids vaccinated because some guy somewhere said maybe it might be harmful (in the face of decades of blatantly obvious evidence that it saves tremendous numbers of people). Why? Because YOU AREN'T A THREAT SIMPLY BY THE NATURE OF YOUR EXISTENCE ALONE. Vaccines are great tools of modern medicine that are saving huge numbers of people from diseases. But the diseases ALL COME FROM NATURE. They're PART OF THE NATURAL FUCKING WORLD and THAT is where the "threat" is coming from! If you don't want to live under that threat, remove yourself from the natural world.

      I think people who don't get themselves or their kids vaccinated against preventable, dangerous diseases are idiots because there's nearly no downside to doing that. However, they aren't increasing any threat toward anyone. They're simply not acting to DECREASE the threat which is being posed by the natural world. There's a huge difference. Now, are the odds increased that an individual who cannot receive a vaccination will contracted a the disease inoculated against by that vaccine if those in regular contact with them are unvaccinated? Yes. But if 0% of the people around them get the vaccine, their level of threat is EQUAL to the level of threat in the NATURAL WORLD. As the people around them get vaccinated, the level of threat drops.

      To be as crystal clear as possible, here's the difference between increasing the level of threat and not acting to decrease it:

      If I purposely inject myself with active Influenza, get sick, and then walk through an airport coughing on people, I am increasing the level of Influenza threat

      If I inject you with active Influenza, I'm increasing the level of Influenza threat

      If I simply don't get a Flu vaccine, I'm not increasing anything; the threat was already there. I'm simply not acting to decrease that threat to myself or others.

      Why do I care about the difference? Because it's horseshit to accuse these idiots of being a threat. The fact that they're acting like morons is no excuse for everyone else doing the same.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    52. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Of course, a government strapping citizens to a gurney and jamming needles into their arms to inject them with drugs will certainly breed the kind of independent thinking and acting individuals who comprise a healthy democratic state. What could go wrong?

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    53. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by xevioso · · Score: 1

      You didn't answer his questions.

    54. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 1

      Ergo, if you don't want to vaccinate your child you're free to do that, but be prepared to pay for private education.

      The problem for the most part isn't the need to pay for a private education, it's that you are made to pay for both. You're still forced to pay for a public education even though your kids aren't eligible to attend. Without those taxes, the cost of attending a private school would be far less onerous. It's not like the private schools are that much more expensive to run; they just aren't subsidized the way the public schools are.

      Education should be treated as just another cost of raising a child, to be paid for by the parents, no different keeping the child fed and clothed and under shelter. In cases of genuine hardship—as opposed to negligent planning—the parent can apply for charitable assistance, which may come with strings attached, such as vaccination and parental participation.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    55. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      Right. We'll give you a fairly decent education supported by taxpayers, or you can go get your own education. So what's the problem?

      If I hire a private security guard to watch over my mansion, should I get my police-supporting taxes back? If I would rather just have open borders, should I get my Border-Patrol-supporting taxes back? No. Taxes pay for public goods, and if you want to buy a similar private good then you can but that doesn't affect your taxation.

    56. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Ergo, if you don't want to vaccinate your child you're free to do that, but be prepared to pay for private education. You can't have the best of both worlds - taking advantage of the publicly funded education system whilst endangering the health of the other participants.

      Fine, refund them all property taxes tied in any way to public education. You can't force them to pay for an education system they're denied access to because of their wrongheaded, stupid beliefs. Or better yet, have the tax money follow the kid so that every parent can actually choose where their child is schooled. That way everyone wins because schools have to compete with one another to get the money from the kids. Hell, even some of the Europeans have figured this out already.

      In terms of unvaccinated kids, you'll likely see a concentration of them in a small subset of schools that allow them to attend and you'll also likely see disease after preventable disease make its way through those schools' halls. Maybe after the population there is decimated once or twice, some of those morons will wake up and start vaccinating. Or not; their choice. The diseases are all from nature and refusing to use the tools available to keep nature at bay should be every person's choice for themselves and their kids.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    57. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by CauseBy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "home schooling still has some educational requirements and standards, which many homeschool proponents are explicitly trying to avoid"

      Is there any other reason parents homeschool their kids? That's the only one I've ever heard: "I want my children to be ignorant of the things you will teach them in school". Typically they don't even shy away from that reason.

    58. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Ah, but as it says in verse 3 of the book of I'm Totally Pulling This Out of My Ass - "...and yea shall the blood of the children not be polluted with life-saving substances. If they're shooting up that shit should make them *fly*." There is intense debate as to whether that passage is condoning the use of opiates by children, or only the bestowing of super powers, but it's quite clear that vaccines are prohibited.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    59. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      In some other countries, the money allocated for the schooling of each child follows that child to whatever school the parents decides is best for their kids. That's the easiest way to solve this. So long as there's at least one school in the area allowing unvaccinated kids (and certainly there would be in areas where many parents are dumb enough not to vaccinate their kids), they can all face the full brunt of natures fury together in small, confined spaces. And maybe some of these idiot parents will learn some lessons after the first few waves of preventable diseases decimate those schools' populations.

      In the meantime, everyone else wins out because all the schools in the area suddenly have to compete with one another to get the kids (since they're only getting the money attached to the kids actually attending their school).

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    60. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by ganjadude · · Score: 0

      how is this insightful?

      The vaccines are only good for current strains and only work if everyone (or most) are vaccinated. If a large population is not, then the diseases mutate, rendering the vaccines worthless and putting everyone at risk

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    61. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Well, yeah, obviously I won't be following Immermanism, for obvious reasons. Foremost being what you've pulled out of your ass here.

      I guess you doing it means somebody else is doing it, rather than the obvious fact it's only you doing it, right?

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    62. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Governments take thousands in school taxes, then tell you that if you don't want to send your kids to their public school that you'll have to send thousands more to a private one.

      What are "school taxes"? I'm not aware of any jurisdiction in the US that has such a thing. There are property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, use taxes, excise taxes, estate taxes, service fees, etc., but those are paid by everyone, regardless of whether they send their kids to public or private schools, and indeed regardless of whether or not they have kids at all! My 90-year-old grandma pays all of these taxes, and I can assure you that she does not have any children in school right now.

      Often, home schooling is even prohibited.

      [citation needed]

      Not sure what part of the US you live in, assuming you live in the US.

      In some parts of the US, the public schools are funded out of the property tax bill that you get. In others, it is a separate line item on the same bill for property taxes. In other places, like the Pennsylvania poster, it is a separate bill unto itself. So look very carefully at the bills you pay.

      Sometimes you might think, "Oh the mortgage lender pays that bill because I am paying on the mortgage.", but methinks you should still be seeing a copy of that bill; I know I saw that copy when I had a mortgage, but some states could be different.

      If you are a renter, I doubt you see a property tax (unless you live in a thoroughly draconian tax state, like NY city?) or even school district tax bill, but your rental operation probably does see those bills.

    63. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only with an important caveat: for non-medical reasons.

    64. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 2

      Why? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a stupid decision, but parents make stupid decisions all the time. Is every poor decision impacting the health of your child now child abuse? Mac and Cheese is a poor decision impacting the health of your child. Ever feed them that, abuser? Soda? Child abuse! Cotton candy? Child abuse! McDonalds? Child abuse! Ice cream? Child abuse! Failing to get them to the dentist on a perfect schedule? Child abuse! Dishes left in the sink a little too long or trash left in the trash can a little too long? Child abuse! Pizza party? Child abuse! Using [cleaning product that isn't specifically designed to be completely child-safe]? Child abuse!

      You really, really want to wander down that slippery slope? Think before you speak, lest you find your own home visited by Child Protective Services.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    65. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      What you say is wrong and I know because I've had my two-year-old on the normal vaccine schedule. Children receive up to three shots at a visit, plus a mouth squirt. There might be about 14 vaccines TOTAL across two years of time, not "14 shots at 2 years old".

      So not only are your facts wrong, your interpretation is absurd. 30 vaccines isn't a lot, it's a tiny bit. Every child -- every human -- experiences exposure to tens of thousands of microbes per minute, every minute, through their entire lives. An infinitesimal fraction of those are dangerous, so we've taken about 30 of those bazillions and made special medicines for them. You should be very happy that we already have the technology to alleviate the exposure to those 30 microbes.

      Autism usually sucks. I hope your family member turns out okay.

    66. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Then I guess their kid just has to take their chances with the natural world like everyone other human has for millions of years.

      I think it's a stupid decision to not vaccinate your kids (when that's possible which is nearly always), but vaccines are tools of modern medicine used to reduce a threat that already exists because of the fact that we live in a natural world. The moment a person makes the decision to bring a child into this world, they accept all the risks that come with that, and disease is merely a small part of the risk. More people getting vaccinated results in lowering the risk for one of a hundred million different ways to die. If some choose not to do that, so what? They're idiots and it's unfortunate. Would it be beneficial to the kid who can't get vaccinated if more people did? Yes. Does that give them the right to jam a needle full of drugs into someone else's arm and and inject them? No.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    67. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Hey, who said anything about *my* ass? That's totally the title on the cover! And when has the number of disciples ever been an indicator of the validity of a religion? How well armed they are perhaps...

      You know what, hold on a minute - I need to go hack a few dozen nuclear silos, then we can continue this discussion of whose religion is legitimate. :-D

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    68. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Hotawa+Hawk-eye · · Score: 1

      Let's let the parents who choose not to vaccinate their children send their kids to a public school ... just not the same public school as the vaccinated kids. [I'm guessing someone will bring up "separate but equal" -- but the division here is not along racial lines but along an axes that the parents can control and easily modify.] The teachers can be paid a bit more (and be vaccinated) to compensate them for their increased risk. If a student displays symptoms of an illness for which they and others are not vaccinated, they get to stay home in unofficial or official quarantine until a doctor and/or the school nurse clears them to return. Of course, given the waves of sickness that are probably going to sweep those schools, it may take the whole year (no summer vacation) or even multiple calendar years for a student to advance a grade. But when the 8th or 9th graders turn 18, they can make their own decision as to whether to stay in the non-vaccinated school or be vaccinated and take summer school to finish only a little behind their peers.

    69. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      The simple fix is to do what some countries in Europe already do: have the tax money used for schooling children attached to the individual child. As such, whichever school the parent chooses as best for their child gets the tax money allocated for that child. Schools then compete with one another to get students (and the money that comes with them). Not only does everyone end up with a better education (no monopoly produces better results and that holds true for education as well), but you'll also end up with a small subset of schools allowing unvaccinated kids to attend. That results in no additional cost to the idiot parents who aren't vaccinating their kids and everyone else can take advantage of herd immunity. And perhaps when the first few waves of preventable disease decimate the population at those schools allowing unvaccinated children, some people will take the hint and start using the tools of modern medicine to reduce the natural threats of our world.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    70. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      Usually they are called a property tax levy. Here in Minnesota each school district can put a new tax levy on the ballot or put a renewal of an existing but about to expire one on the ballot for voters to approve. If it is approved then an additional amount is levied against their property tax. Additionally there is the money that comes from the state and federal government but that is just what ever is approved by the legislature and signed by the Governor. For an example here is the property tax statement for some random house (not mine or even close) in the city I live in that shows about $1400 in property tax was paid to the local school district.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    71. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Victim blaming, nice.

    72. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Feel free to discuss with yourself. I already know.

      You could go for Round 2 of your stupid escalation though, and similarly assert because you don't know, that means I don't know. I'd suggest trying to learn to distinguish better between yourself and others, as it's disturbingly indicative of mental illness.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    73. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Assmasher · · Score: 1

      Why would there be little reason to think that? Aside from all the expenses of homeschooling itself (books, materials, etc - both for parents and students), there's also the loss of income from at least one parent (when there even are two) not working. That can easily be half the household income gone, plus the expenses, and they still have to pay the taxes. And in a single parent household, what's the option? Live 100% on public assistance all the time?

      You appear to be confusing "not be able" with "would not be a hardship."

      That right there is the problem. If they had a choice, this would all be moot. Dumbasses who refuse to vaccinate their kids couple simply send them elsewhere with little or no cost. As it stands, if you're stupid enough to honestly believe vaccines will damage your child, your options come down to bending to the will of the state that you inject poison into your child or lose half/all of your household income and try to educate them yourself.

      Again, you are advocating that it should be a reasonable option for parents to be unreasonable.

      --
      Loading...
    74. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Assmasher · · Score: 1

      Who said they could assume they could?

      I said there's very little reason to think they would not be able to.

      That's a very important distinction logically.

      --
      Loading...
    75. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by compro01 · · Score: 1

      1. No, it is not controversial. It's nonsense that is rightly rejected. 30 vaccines is a drop in the ocean compared to the onslaught of viruses and bacteria they got exposed to on their way out of the womb, much less what they deal with every day.

      2. And most people your age can enjoy having shingles later in life because of that. It really sucks, hence the desire for children to never get chickenpox.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    76. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by compro01 · · Score: 1

      Fairly sure that's the usual for Canada also. It was when I was in elementary school.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    77. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 0

      That is SOP for straw man arguments.

    78. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as a parent myself, i am sympathetic to parents' rights, but if someone refuses to vaccinate their children, schools should refuse to allow them in.

      A parent vaccinates their first child and they suffer a horrible or even fatal reaction.

      Curious who you're sympathetic towards as you glare at these same parents standing in the school enrollment line for choosing not to vaccinate their other child, struggling to figure out how they're going to afford private school.

      Yup. Must be some kind of "moron" parent for not wanting to risk more harm or death within already proven genetics.

    79. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      I notice you didn't take notice of the elephant in the room, you Islamophobic piece of shit. You people won't stop until you stomp out the invading religion and replace it with your own. You sort of right-wing nutbags make me sick.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    80. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by NeoMorphy · · Score: 1

      Some people can't get vaccinated because of medical reasons. Also vaccinations do not have a 100% effectiveness. If too many people decide to not get vaccinated then an outbreak could spread through all of those people and the ones where the vaccination didn't take as well as the people who could not get a vaccination. If the percentage of people who were successfully vaccinated is high enough then you will have individual cases here and there.

    81. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by geekmux · · Score: 2

      I don't believe it is controversial to consider vaccination 14 shots at 2 years old extreme.

      Why? Excluding religion, there is no reason to believe that vaccines cause any harm: literally every study attempting to find otherwise has either failed or been proven fraudulent.

      Fraudulent, eh?

      Tell that to the parent of a dead child.

      Let's have an intelligent discussion about this. That would include admitting that bad shit can sometimes happen with medicine.

      To sit here and generalize that we've never suffered even a single fatality due to a reaction to a vaccine is demonstrating a level of ignorance that even religion cannot attain.

    82. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      In my area you actually can't homeschool unless it is through a religous organization. And the public schools are pretty terrible. I know half a dozen teachers in the local area and everyone of them has done their damndest to make sure their kid isn't in the normal public schools. There are a couple good Elementary Schools but once you get to Middle School there simply aren't any good ones. There are some "Magnet" schools which are competetive to get into and anything under a B in a single class means losing your spot. We're basically planning to move once our children start to reach that age, because we can't afford private school

    83. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Millennium · · Score: 1

      Fraudulent, eh?

      Tell that to the parent of a dead child.

      OK. Find me the parent of a child they claim died from the effects of a vaccine, and I'll tell them. I'll even say it to their face, if it can be arranged.

      I don't think most antivaxxers are deliberately lying. I don't even think most of them are stupid or crazy (though their chosen spokesfolk certainly are). But they are mistaken: the sane ones have been duped, and the crazy ones are, well crazy. Even that wouldn't be so bad, except that it is leading them down a path that is beginning to constitute a clear and present threat to the public health. This cannot be ignored.

    84. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Millennium · · Score: 1

      Feel free to cite any anti-vaccine scripture. Let me save you some time. It doesn't exist.

      Indeed not, but that argument only works for faiths that hold their scriptures to be the the valid source of doctrine. Most faiths don't do that.

    85. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right! People should be allowed to drive their cars on the sidewalk and discharge firearms into crowds, because liberty!

      Don't kid yourself. That's exactly what refusing vaccination (or, worse, refusing to allow your child to be vaccinated) is. You're deciding that your stupid ignorance-based point-making is more important than the health of your fellow citizens and directly endangering them as a result.

    86. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      If she got that many shots, then either she got inept medical care, which might have contributed to autism in other ways, or she had other things way wrong with her, and they might have contributed to the autism. I'd consider 14 vaccinations extreme, although I really doubt they had anything to do with autism. Are there 30 vaccines out there?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    87. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unvaccinated people shouldn't merely be prohibited from schools. They should be banned from all public places. No going to a motor vehicle bureau(no driver's license) No going to a polling place(they can vote by mail), no going to a post office, no going to a shopping center, no going to a parade, no going to a hospital(without prior arrangement) no going to a bank(online banking will have to do), etc...

      Simply put, they are willing to take the risks for themselves or their children, but those risks should not be forced on others.

    88. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Most faiths don't do that.

      Wrong.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    89. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 0

      You appear to be confusing "not be able" with "would not be a hardship."

      No, you appear to think that everyone else is doing as well as you are. There are plenty of families barely putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads with two incomes. There are plenty of single mothers and fathers who aren't even doing that well. Homeschooling is not an option for them. It simply isn't.

      Again, you are advocating that it should be a reasonable option for parents to be unreasonable.

      Yes, I am. You seem to be advocating that people who make different decisions than you or I might should be punished by the state. That's not just unreasonable, that's tyrannical. These people have every right to be idiots and if you don't want their kids in school with your kids, free up the tax money so they can send them somewhere else. STOP TRYING TO CONTROL EVERYONE ELSE'S LIFE AND START JUST LIVING YOUR OWN!

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    90. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some, I note some, parents are in fact better teachers than the school teachers.
      Some parents can spend direct one on one time with their child for teaching.
      When a child gets one on one teaching the class day can be reduced to 4 hours for almost any grade.

      I have heard, and believe, these propositions from those who practice home schooling.

      There are parents who home school because for their families homeschooling is better.

      I believe they are significantly outnumbered by the wingnut religious types though. Which kind of sucks.

    91. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 2

      Some people can't get vaccinated because of medical reasons. Also vaccinations do not have a 100% effectiveness.

      And sometimes the best of hammers will mangle a perfectly good nail. Yes, the tools we have are imperfect; no one is disputing that.

      If too many people decide to not get vaccinated

      Whoa whoa whoa, stop right there. The default state of a human body is unvaccinated. No one is removing a vaccine from themselves. No one is removing antibodies from themselves in an effort to make themselves or others more susceptible to disease. The default state is unvaccinated. It isn't about "if too many people decide not to", it's "if enough people decide to do it... positive things can happen". And yes, there's a huge difference. See the previous post.

      then an outbreak could spread through all of those people and the ones where the vaccination didn't take as well as the people who could not get a vaccination. If the percentage of people who were successfully vaccinated is high enough then you will have individual cases here and there.

      I completely understand that. However, you need to understand that disease is part of the human existence. Don't want to deal with disease? Stop being alive; that fixes the problem. Otherwise, accept the existence of risk and understand that your desire to minimize your risk and the risk of your loved ones does not entitle you or the government to strap a child to a gurney, jam needles in their arm, and pump them full of drugs (albeit very good and beneficial drugs).

      Vaccines are a wonderful tool of modern medicine. The fact that that tool's effectiveness increases when more people make use of it does not entitle you or anyone else to force others to make use of that tool. You are not entitled to a risk-free or even a risk-reduced existence. The default state of a human being is naked, defenseless, and susceptible to all manner of diseases and predators. The fact that you're now safer than any other human being in the history of the planet ought to be enough. You have no right to perfect safety and you have no right to force others to help you get closer to perfect safety.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    92. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why did they get 14 shots at the age of 2? That's clearly excessive.
      My kids got somewhere between 4 and 6 over the year.
      Why kind of insane family doctor do you have?

      There is no controversy. Vaccines do not cause Autism.

    93. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 1
      Crazy ass parents don't vaccinate their child.

      Child has to be home schooled and is unable to meet others due to their unvaccinated status

      Child does not develop good interpersonal skills since all they know is their crazy ass parents

      As adult, still lives in crazy ass parents basement, never meets member of opposite sex, never breeds and becomes crazy ass parent themself

      Antivaccionation movement dies out within a generation.

      --
      XDInd
    94. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 1

      We just need a bigger bimbo than Jenny McCarthy to sway those opinions. Some doctor guy in a lab coat is only going to grab the attention of a few doctor fetishists. Maybe if we at least got a naughty nurse to hand out the vaccination fliers it would work...

      --
      XDInd
    95. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 1

      And chicken pox as a kid can lead to shingles as an adult. Likewise, an unvaccinated adult that never had chicken pox can still get the virus, and it is much worse for them.

      --
      XDInd
    96. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I get the unsettling feeling that you're not laughing nearly as hard as you should be...

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    97. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Well you know what they say. He who laughs last.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    98. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1

      >Why? Excluding religion, there is no reason to believe that vaccines cause any harm: literally every study attempting to find otherwise has either failed or been proven fraudulent.

      Uh, no. You're grossly misrepresenting the case.

      "Any harm" - really? All vaccines (heck, all medicine in general) carry a risk of adverse effects. There are common and minor adverse effects, and rare and serious adverse effects, including febrile seizures, allergy to the eggs used in the formulation, and so forth. What the scientific consensus is is that *vaccines are still worth it despite the risks*. That's why we don't give vaccines any more for viruses no longer in the wild - the benefit is no longer worth the risk.

      From the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046738.htm), adverse effects include:
      1) HepB Pain at the injection site (3%-29%)
      2) HepB Fever over 100*F (1%-6%)
      3) HepB Anaphylaxis (1 in 600,000)
      4) MMR Fever over 103*F (5%-15%)
      5) MMR Rashes (5%)
      6) MMR Joint Pain (3%)
      7) MMR Febrile seizures, which caused the vaccine to be reformulate to reduce risk
      8) MMR Aseptic meningitis, which led to the vaccine to switch strains in some countries

      And so forth. All of these are based on studies, contrary to what you claimed that have found harm in vaccines.

      I think you read a headline once that said, "No link between autism and vaccines" and falsely extrapolated that to mean "no reason to believe vaccines cause any harm".

    99. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      I've read some unreliable stories by homeschooling parents who really did have academic concerns. They find another problem: There is a support community for homeschoolers, with books an courses - but because the overwhelming majority of them are religiously or politically motivated, so is that community. There's no support for anyone who wants to homeschool for other reasons. You go to any homeschooling community, and you'll find them promoting books about literal creation and implicit american exceptionalism throughout.

      There's also a very small number of people who have to homeschool because conventional education isn't available - severe disability with no local specialist schools, or behaviorial issues which resulted in expulsion from all public schools within range.

    100. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Me too. We're using that approach for the HPV vaccination now.

      Note that there has been absolutely no religious outrage at all about the vaccine 'endorsing sin.' This says a lot about the cultural difference between the US and the UK.

    101. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Then they can get a medical note from a doctor.

    102. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by budgenator · · Score: 1

      I just saw on the TV (Detroit market) that to get the philosophical exemption, the parents will have to have a face to face meeting with a public health official who will explain both the risks and benefits of vaccination, which should help reduce the numbers of frivolous exemptions. Additionally I think parents should be held personally responsible for their children's health i.e. if you opt of a vaccine for religious or philosophical reasons and your kid gets that disease, you go to prison for criminal child neglect. I wouldn't be opposed to kids not vaccinated for religious/philosophical reasons being segregated so they don't pose a threat to kids who are unable to be vaccinated due to bona fide medical conditions.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    103. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by budgenator · · Score: 1

      If God didn't want me to go to prison, he wouldn't have permanently brain damaged my kid with measles and that stupid measles shot wouldn't have stopped him anyway!

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    104. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      I don't believe it is controversial to consider vaccination 14 shots at 2 years old extreme.

      Unfortunately, no one has yet convinced mother nature that it's "extreme" to threaten children (and adults too) with 14 (if only it was just fourteen!) infectious and not-that-unlikely really severe threats to their health. So there's your basic conundrum, partner: stick little Billy even if he cries, or let him die of some horrible disease, because, hey, 14 shots, so extreme.

      Also, the autism thing... that's utter bullshit. Do a little honest research.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    105. Re: freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about risk-benefit analysis says don't (flu) even when ignoring herd immunity.

      I told my doctor I'll get flu vaccine when H5 only is available like it once was.

    106. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As long as government officials who mandate vaccination are also willing to suffer the penalty for murder for each individual who dies as a result of the vaccination, it sounds ok to me.

    107. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Noah+Haders · · Score: 1

      the specific answer in this topic is "I value my freedom over your risk"

    108. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As adult, still lives in crazy ass parents basement, never meets member of opposite sex, never breeds and becomes crazy ass parent themself

      Antivaccionation movement dies out within a generation.

      Yeah, that must be why the anti-vax movement is so rapidly dying out.

    109. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indoctrination takes priority over health.

    110. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Millennium · · Score: 1

      Not wrong. Many if not most faiths include a strong element of extra-scriptural traditions of one form or another. Within Christianity, this was one of the original issues behind the schism between Protestantism and Catholicism, though nowadays many Protestant faiths have added on to their scriptural interpretations with tradition-based de facto doctrines of their own. Similar phenomena can be seen in most other faiths, and the scripture+tradition-based sects tend strongly toward being more popular than the scripture-only sects.

      Why does this matter? Because for faiths like these, pointing out that there aren't find any anti-vaccination passages in scripture isn't a very compelling argument. They already get their doctrine partly (if not entirely) from other sources too, so there's plenty of room for antivax crap to slip in.

    111. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Empiric · · Score: 1

      Your statement regarding Protestant Sola Scriptura versus Catholic "scripture and Holy Tradition" is not relevant to this issue. The distinction between these two is always a matter of nuanced interpretation of the precise intent of the prophets and apostles, and this -always- ends up with argument centered around scriptural support. Though you may wish to create a false dichotomy here, it is -never- the case that one can blatantly formulate a position in clear contradiction to, or utterly unsupported by, scripture. Catholicism knows Galatians 1:8 as well as Protestantism does, and I'll happily challenge to provide an example of an introduced doctrine of Catholicism -ever- for which there is -no- corresponding scriptural support. It does not happen, and cannot happen there any more than in Protestantism. A denomination or sect that attempted to make up new doctrine whole-cloth or forward a stance in contradiction to scripture would be simply found invalid, as conceptual coherence demands. You are conflating nuanced distinction in interpretation, i.e. disagreement on application, with outright invention lacking any documentary basis.

      That is the situation with vaccines. There is -no- scriptural support, direct, or indirect in a manner that could be seen as applicable, which speaks against vaccines.

      You are by verbal shell-game saying Protestants say "scripture" and Catholics say "scripture and Tradition" and then implicitly saying "but it's really just Tradition, and Tradition is free to contradict established scripture". No, no denomination has ever gotten away with that, and Catholicism has never tried. This scenario does not exist as a matter of actuality, and so is irrelevant to the case at hand.

      --
      ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    112. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by markass530 · · Score: 1

      unfort that's not true, my friends wife is an anti vax tard, you just have to sign a paper and no vaccines are needed , that's the whole point of this thread "Personal belief" exemptions

    113. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by markass530 · · Score: 1

      what are you talking about? No one besides you has mentioned islam

    114. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      There is no slippery slope, apart from the one on your forehead.

    115. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personal freedoms have to be looked at carefully when it comes to children. A parent isn't allowed to deny a child life saving healthcare (Jehovah Witnesses and blood transfusions, as an obvious example). The simple fact is that the chance of having some adverse reaction to the vaccine is way, way below the chance of getting the disease and dying. There is simply no reason not to do it.

    116. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Of course there is. Once you go down the road of the state reviewing legitimate health and medical decisions made by parents, you're opening the door to all manner of things that busy-bodies like the GP would like to have enforced by the state upon all the other parents. Which is fine with the GP, right up until someone else decides that the GP isn't doing the right thing and comes down on them. Then, suddenly, they'll turn around and play victim, as if they had nothing to do with laying the groundwork for the mess they'll invariably find themselves in.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    117. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Hm. Autism or polio. Autism or polio. What a choice. Heh.

      A non-proven 1 in 9 million chance of Autism or a 1 in 400 thousand chance of polio. 400 is greater than 9 if I ignore the trailing word so let's risk polio!

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    118. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please realize that not all diseases are life-threatening. Unlike the blood transfusion argument, choosing not to get vaccinated isn't necessarily a death sentence.

      It would be better to educate people. Require them to listen to a doctor before being allowed to sign off for personal/religious exemption when it comes to vaccines.

      If there is an outbreak in a locale, maybe we could require the non-vaccinated to stay home.

      I think a more important question is, do we want the government dictating what we must do with our bodies?

    119. Re: freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, you have a religious following that prevents you from believing in the existence of allergic reactions to medication?

    120. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by bingoUV · · Score: 1

      They can be idiots where they don't endanger my children. Some hardship in return for endangering my children is pretty reasonable.

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
    121. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Stop being ridiculous; they aren't "endangering" anyone. They simply aren't using the medical tools available to reduce the risk of a threat that already exists completely independent of them and their kids. That threat comes from nature. The default state of all people is unvaccinated. They aren't increasing that threat by not getting vaccinated. You're being absurd.

      Your irrational fear of the natural world does not entitle you to strap other peoples' children to gurneys and jam needles in their arms.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    122. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by ToddInSF · · Score: 1

      "Why? Excluding religion, there is no reason to believe that vaccines cause any harm: literally every study attempting to find otherwise has either failed or been proven fraudulent."

      I'm as uncomfortable with this kind of statement being pawned-off as factual/"scientific" as I am with un-vaccinated kids going to school with my kids.

      There are legitimate questions and issues with vaccines. Funny how they'll never be addressed so long as people lack any ability to think critically.

    123. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by bingoUV · · Score: 1

      Religion can induce people to believe anything - including the horrors of vaccine. Notably, definitions 6 and 8 here
      explicitly allow for this, many other definitions and interpretations do so to some extent too.

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
    124. Re: freedom 2 b a moron by bingoUV · · Score: 1

      The infamous "nature" fallacy.

      Public schools, found abundantly in nature, hanging on to trees, swimming with octopuses in the oceans, are greatly afflicted by an non- natural bane called vaccination.

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
    125. Re: freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even induce them to believe statements as nonsensical as yours? Face it, you are straining so hard to retain your anti-religion stance you're arguing the equivalent of "math departments would have no issue with saying 2+2=5, it's still math". Get some actual experience with and knowledge of the practices of the people of whom you presume to speak.

    126. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      Wow, people pushing for mandatory vaccinations are 'right-wing'?

      The *only* possible thread of fact in your rant is the CIA using vaccines in Pakistan to try and find Bin Laden...which has caused the locals there to now be very very wary of aid workers trying to actually help them.

      And I would agree, that CIA behavior was truly evil...in it's effects and the apparently blind ignorance of the implementers to the possible ramifications.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    127. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      I suspect you will find few private schools or day cares that don't have similar vaccination requirements.

      My intention was about home-schooling. I would agree many private schools likely have similar requirements.

      Still, outright bans on attending school without vaccinations should not be the rule. The "herd" effect works there

      My question is that allowing people without vaccinations begins to weaken the herd effect. And I think we're seeing that result now. You need something like 90-95% for some diseases linky. Whooping cough being one of them.

      There just isn't any valid justification for not getting the vaccinations prior to school starting.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    128. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by hierofalcon · · Score: 1

      I am pro vaccination. My point is that relegating non vaccinated kids to home school will not help the "herd" as kids interact outside of school.

      The only solution I can see is to provide better information to parents who don't want to vaccinate their kids on the details of the diseases they prevent so they have better information.

    129. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      And I agree the argument hasn't been made well enough, but keeping non-vaccinated kids out of an environment where they are in very close contact with others does help the herd. No vaccine is perfect and so extracting those who have a higher chance to harbor a disease is better than letting them in.

      Eventually we're all out in public together and at work, but it's still not the same as the petri-dish that are kindergarten or elementary education environments

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    130. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Everyone benefits from having an education system, whether you have kids in it or not. Your logic is infantile.

    131. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by TwoEyedJack · · Score: 0

      You are quite adept with the straw man too. If you think I should be immunized maybe you would like to show up on my porch and give it a try. Best wear body armor.

    132. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by vandon · · Score: 1

      California doesn't have a no shots, no school policy....

      See:
      http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...

      Wealthy L.A. Schools' Vaccination Rates Are as Low as South Sudan's
      Hollywood parents say not vaccinating makes "instinctive" sense. Now their kids have whooping cough.

    133. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Sadly, parents considering this "choice" hear scary news stories about Autism (whose incidence is rising only because of better detection techniques). As far as polio, measles, whooping cough, etc, they hear very few factual news stories and a lot of hogwash from "natural medicine experts" who insist that all you need to do to be immune to these diseases is wash your hands and take these supplements that the "experts" conveniently sell (while screaming DOWN WITH BIG PHARMA). The "experts" also downplay how dangerous the diseases are. Measles? You just get spots for a week and then you're all better. Whooping cough? Just a bad cough for a few days and you'll be on the mend. Without actual first hand knowledge of the horrors of these diseases, misinformation about the diseases/how to prevent them, and scary stories about Autism, it's no wonder that some parents avoid vaccines.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    134. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by morgauxo · · Score: 1

      More likely crazy ass kid meets opposite sex crazy ass child of other crazy ass parents at their crazy ass clubhouse and their crazy ass teachings lead them to create a family of a dozen or more crazy ass grandkids, also unvaxinated.

    135. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I watched a very close friend live through a very bad vaccination experience. His kid was given the MMR, within a few hours he got very sick, and shortly after that he stopped talking. He basically regressed to a point before he could speak. He was diagnosed with autism after that. It could have been coincidence, but I personally doubt it.

      So I disagree that choosing to not vaccinate your is kid is child abuse.

      We do vaccinate our child, except for the MMR. Are there risks for not giving the MMR, sure. But I do believe there are risks giving it too.

    136. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if you're replying to the wrong message or if you've just completely misread what I posted, but I never said people didn't benefit from having an educational system, regardless of whether they have kids. I merely stated that if we're to block kids from public schooling because of the perfectly legal, if likely quite poor parenting choices of their parents, those kids should have the opportunity to be educated just as any other child. And if the goal is to separate the unvaccinated-by-parental-choice kids from the rest, then it makes perfect sense to ensure that tax monies continue to fund their education for exactly the same reasoning you've suggested.

      However, if the intent is merely to punish the children of anti-vaccination parents, then by all means let's kick them out of school and ensure their parents have as limited abilities to educate their children as possible so we can perpetuate cycles of ignorance and poverty.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    137. Re:freedom 2 b a moron by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      you are illogical, there is no difference between those children and the five to thirty five percent of populace for whom vaccine does not work. The vaccinated but disease capable people are a bigger group.

  4. No by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't remove the exemption, just exempt the people using the exemption from being able to frequent public areas without protective clothing (protective as in protecting others from them, not protective as in protecting them from everyone else).

    Its illegal to be naked in most public places, its illegal to knowingly infect others with dangerous illnesses, so why shouldn't it be illegal to knowingly be in a public place when you are much more open to infection from dangerous illnesses and thus to infect others with them...?

    1. Re:No by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That would never happen. How could you pass that rule? If you did, how would you ever enforce that?

      Better to simply specify that people must be vaccinated to attend school, get a government job, and receive public benefits.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    2. Re:No by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was thinking similar. If you take the exemption and there are some cases of the target illnesses reported at a public school, all kids without vaccinations are required to stay home until the outbreak is considered to be over.

    3. Re:No by Vermonter · · Score: 1

      That would be good, except how would someone know that another person in public and not vaccinated?

    4. Re:No by what2123 · · Score: 0, Troll

      OH! We could start by putting special shirts or wristbands on those that show no vaccination records. There were these cool shirts with funky looking stars on them that used to do the same thing.

    5. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A nice tattoo in the forehead, perhaps? We certainly have some biblical precedent, directly from God to be exact, so it should not be an issue for the majority of the offenders or for our dear politicians to pass the law...

    6. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't remove the exemption, just exempt the people using the exemption from being able to frequent public areas without protective clothing (protective as in protecting others from them, not protective as in protecting them from everyone else).

      Its illegal to be naked in most public places, its illegal to knowingly infect others with dangerous illnesses, so why shouldn't it be illegal to knowingly be in a public place when you are much more open to infection from dangerous illnesses and thus to infect others with them...?

      Because these people are ignorant and don't believe that, so in their minds they're not "knowingly" infecting anyone.

    7. Re:No by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 0

      Because with many diseases, people are contagious before they are recognizably symptomatic? Or are you suggesting that unvaccinated people should go out in public crying "UNCLEAN!"?

    8. Re:No by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      This, and create a EULA for the parents to sign whereby they agree to pay for the health needs of those who get sick by proxy.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    9. Re:No by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was thinking if you take the exemption and subsequently infect someone you have liability for medical expenses, or criminal liability in the case of death.

      If your decision only affected you, run wild. That's your choice and your right.

      If you infect someone else and make them seriously ill or cause death ... well, that's no longer just you affected by that damned decision, is it?

      This isn't a decision which is made in an vacuum.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    10. Re:No by poetmatt · · Score: 1

      So what method do you suggest? Maybe a yellow patch on the sleeves of their shirts?

      People may be stupid about vaccines but this isn't how you fix the problem.

    11. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The substantial difference being that they are choosing to be unvaccinated, and to endanger others. Your glib comparison is both misguided, and offensive.

    12. Re:No by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      And food service... How many outbreaks trace back to a Jack In The Box? (Or is that just e-coli?)

    13. Re:No by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Funny

      Of course not... Have a town crier walk in front of them 10 paces with a bell shouting "Unclean!"

    14. Re:No by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Funny

      This, and create a EULA for the parents to sign whereby they agree to pay for the health needs of those who get sick by proxy.

      And? Exactly how much money do you think these people have? All you would get out of it was some herbal tea and an old VW van.

    15. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And why limit it to serious illness or death?

      You had a cold. You came into the office and infected me, causing me physical unpleasantness and inconvenience. Time to sue your ass.

    16. Re:No by operagost · · Score: 2

      Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    17. Re:No by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Really? That's what you would put in there?

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    18. Re:No by jythie · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but that gets into the whole 'responsibility for how your actions impact other people' pattern, and in general the 'my decision!' crowd denies that has any weight unless you are assaulting someone. Otherwise it is simply the other party's personal responsibility to ensure that the person's action do not hurt them.

      The reason it gets tricky is that one's decisions only effecting themselves is a fairly rare case, and usually there is going to be SOME impact to others which they do not control. Laws and regulations try to find a balance between such things, but there is a pretty fanatical base that wants that balance completely skewed to what will benefit them, usually because they have the resources to escape most other people's actions (the standard 'if you do not like it, move' argument) or simply are so inwardly focused that they do not think about interconnection much.

    19. Re:No by jythie · · Score: 1

      The problem is that this 'evidence' has not actually come out, it has mostly been fabricated or twisted by certain communities. These communities are also terrible at weighing costs (even though they rant about it) since they tend to do things like '1:1,000,000 chance of side effect with vaccine is less acceptable than 1:10,000 without'.

    20. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't the only people you could infect be other's that also took the exemption? How would you originally become infected? By someone that had took the vaccine?

    21. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How would you prove who in fact infected you or the person?
       
      Would we all be subject to random police stops and have to show our immunization card to an official?

    22. Re:No by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and all those people who get vaccinated and then go into nursing homes years later should also be held criminally liable too. With whooping cough, the vaccinated people can still get the bacteria and carry it. So they infect all the elderly and immune compromised individuals while the unvaccinated will know when they are sick and can stay out of the nursing homes and day care centers.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    23. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Modded up for an utterly nonsensical fantasy land solution?
       
      I guess mod points are cheap, now-a-days.
       
      Why don't we just mod up comments that state that prohibition is the solution to America's drug problem too? Makes about as much sense.

    24. Re:No by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

      And who is responsible when people who have reasons you approve of for not getting vaccinated kill or cripple other people? (Claiming that children who aren't vaccinated are doing either one is simply ridiculous, but that's what you get from AC oftentimes.) That child who is allergic to the vaccine has just as much chance of spreading the diseases as one who isn't vaccinated for other reasons. And one who has a compromised immune system and can't be vaccinated is more likely to get that disease and spread it. Should those children be removed from the general population to protect the rest of us? Aren't they killing or crippling others?

      And then what happens when the government decides that other things are required? E.g., lot of people are highly allergic to peanuts, so shouldn't peanuts be outright banned to protect them? If you have a Reeses PB Cup in your pocket, you are killing or crippling other people, you know...

      The issue is not as black and white as it is being made out to be by some people. It is an indirect risk (like second hand smoke), and the risk is a problem only because a lot of people are exercising the freedom.

    25. Re:No by Xinef+Jyinaer · · Score: 1

      Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

      Who's responsible if your child has a isn't vaccinated and gets: Diphtheria,Measles,Pertussis,pneumococcus,Polio,Tetanus, or Typhoid Fever and dies or is permanently disabled? Or better yet, Who's responsible if your child has a isn't vaccinated and gets: Diphtheria,Measles,Pertussis,pneumococcus,Polio,Tetanus, or Typhoid Fever and transmits it to a kid who or anyone who for medical reasons could get the vaccine and then they die or are permanently disabled? Being selfish is rarely good for society.

      --
      Some days I just get bored and Troll post all the memes I can think of...
    26. Re:No by jeff4747 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, such as violating this tenant by allowing the unvaccinated to infect those too young or too ill to receive the vaccine.

      If this was a situation where only those refusing the vaccine could be harmed, I'd agree with you. But it isn't. The unvaccinated are killing other people by destroying herd immunity.

      Your right to refuse a vaccine does not give you the right to harm others.

    27. Re:No by P3r1$c0p3 · · Score: 1

      Right. You didn't vaccinate so you are a threat to the ones that vaccinated. That makes sense. I guess vaccines can cause brain damage.

    28. Re:No by matbury · · Score: 1

      Do the benefits outweigh the costs in this?

      The answer is an emphatic yes. How quickly we've forgotten the abject misery, suffering, and loss of the pre-vaccine world. There are still people alive today who've been crippled and nearly died because they weren't vaccinated against now preventable diseases like pertussis (whooping cough), polio, smallpox, etc. Millions used to die every year and nobody was safe from them, not even the rich and powerful. They've only this year managed to eradicate polio from India: http://www.unicef.org/india/he... Vaccines are safer than a multitude of over-the-counter pharma products.

      BTW, if you're thinking of visiting frail and infirm family and friends this winter, make sure you get vaccinated against flu. Flu still kills around 1 Million people every year. How would you like to have their premature deaths on your conscience?

    29. Re:No by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Never specified what "herb." :)

    30. Re:No by matbury · · Score: 1

      Oh, yeah. Can't make a claim without citing evidence and anecdotes (like some of the arguments in this thread) don't justify conclusions. One example of many studies of the benefits and risks of vaccine programmes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

    31. Re:No by operagost · · Score: 1

      You mean, another person who sick because they didn't get the vaccine?

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    32. Re:No by P3r1$c0p3 · · Score: 0

      How about a contract that says the administrator of the vaccine is personally liable for any and all adverse reactions for the lifetime of the patient? I bet the medical community would stop pushing them so hard then.

      The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) The VICP is a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system for resolving vaccine injury claims. It was established as part of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, after a rash of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and healthcare providers threatened to cause vaccine shortages and reduce vaccination rates.

      Hmm, why would there be a rash of lawsuits?

      http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hc...

      Severe problems (very rare) --but they still happen

      Serious allergic reaction (less than 1 out of a million doses) Several other severe problems have been reported after a child gets MMR vaccine, including: Deafness Long-term seizures, coma, or lowered consciousness Permanent brain damage

      These are so rare that it is hard to tell whether they are caused by the vaccine. --They say this because the symptoms are not instant. You would hope the reaction happens in the doctor's office. That way you can atleast get compensated for having to take care of a brain damaged child.

      Yeah, so my healthy child gets severe brain damage after being vaccinated and it is not clear if the autoimmune response is due to jacking with an infant's non fully developed immune system.

      Dr. Blaylock has some videos that may help explain. http://vaccine-injury.info/rus...

    33. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

      Surprise. There's actually a resource here. Though to be fair, you need to be able to prove that the vaccine caused the injury. You can't just claim that your child is stupid or can't play soccer and therefore vaccines caused it to be so.

      http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html

    34. Re:No by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Because herd immunity does not exist and 100% effective medicine does exist? You're a special kind of retard, aren't you?

    35. Re:No by NeoMorphy · · Score: 1

      If your body is part of a society that is using vaccines to reduce or even eradicate a harmful disease then you need to realize that your "natural right" is violating the rights and safety of that society. Even if you become a hermit, unless you can guarantee that you will never physically interact with other humans, you are a risk.

      If someone is against being vaccinated are they thinking "You will not expose me to weakened or dead microorganisms, and in return I will become a potential host for potent versions of those same microorganisms that I can then expose others to against their will". It seems hypocritical to be against the first but okay with the second. Or are they thinking nobody will get infected? We see outbreaks happening now, and you know it's not the vaccinated ones causing it.

      I feel sorry for the children, they don't know any better. It reminds me of the children of "Christian Scientists" who die needlessly because their parents used prayer instead of modern medicine.

    36. Re:No by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

      Nobody, unless someone had good evidence that such an outcome would be likely in advance.

    37. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazing how normally freedom-loving, rights-supporting group of people turn into frothing, fascist, screamers who won't listen to any opposing arguments simply when the topic is changed.

      The facade of civility is thin everywhere, it seems.

    38. Re:No by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Its illegal to be naked in most public places, its illegal to knowingly infect others with dangerous illnesses, so why shouldn't it be illegal to

      I see drag reducing agent has been generously applied to an already slippery slide.

      knowingly be in a public place when you are much more open to infection from dangerous illnesses and thus to infect others with them...?

      Just to make sure there are no misunderstandings your advocating anyone with an immunodeficiency disorder be barred from public spaces for "the greater good".

    39. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

      Fair enough, and it is our natural right to refuse to allow them to associate with us.

      Bring back the idea of leper colonies, but for the unvaccinated?

    40. Re:No by suutar · · Score: 1

      It's more like "You didn't vaccinate, so you are a threat to the ones that cannot vaccinate because they're allergic, or too young, and the ones who did vaccinate but had a weak reaction, so their immune system won't ramp up fast enough to completely prevent infection."

    41. Re:No by c · · Score: 1

      But our body is our own. Period. We cannot cross this line. If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

      Fair enough.

      So, how would you like to phrase the new law... ? "No medical procedures on any individual that has not reached the age of majority or is not otherwise able to give legal consent"?

      That's the reductio ad absurdum way of saying that the line has already been crossed. Society inflicts medical treatments on people (mostly children) whether they like it or not, and it's done in the name of "their best interests". Now, whether it's the parents/guardians or the government making the decisions and whether those decisions are "best" for any given person is a whole other issue, but to suggest that it's instead an issue of control over an individuals own body is, in the context of childhood vaccines, pure nonsense.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    42. Re:No by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If what you do with your body starts to affect my body, you better believe that I'll request a say in what you do with your body.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    43. Re:No by suutar · · Score: 1

      getting a vaccination is not a 100% guarantee of immunity. If, for whatever reason, the immune system's reaction to the vaccine is weak, it won't ramp up as fast in the case of real exposure, and may not completely prevent infection. The resulting infection will probably be weaker than for an unvaccinated victim, but can still be trasmittable.

      Not to mention the possibility of just carrying the virus around when not actually infected, a la Typhoid Mary.

    44. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't wanna go to to work 5 days a week either. To survive in this world, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. That's life.

    45. Re:No by P3r1$c0p3 · · Score: 0

      So I should get every vaccine that is pushed because someone somewhere has AIDS? Uh, No. Not going to happen. Stop believing that immunity is something that you have to buy and stop telling me that I have to get every f**king vaccine that is pushed.

    46. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When referring to treatments that ONLY affect the individual, I agree completely. That is not the case here. In society, we have a responsibility to protect others. How far that responsibility goes is up to debate. We are referring to individual vs societal needs. If we focus too much on the individual, these diseases will come back like they have been. In this situation, I think the end justifies the means, especially when the harm of "the means" is usually not much more than a placebo.

    47. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It also isn't a decision I'm willing to let you, or anybody else for that matter, make for me and my family. If you are willing to put your trust in the vaccine, then trust it. If you aren't able to get the vaccine due to an allergy, then live your life cautiously, just like anybody else with any other allergy has to do.

      I can't think of any other decision that should be left to an individual and their guardians than what is going into their body. I would perfectly fine with limitations on public school opportunities, but again, if you choose to vaccinate your kid, even if mine gets sick, you still have your protection for as good as it can be.

    48. Re:No by sexconker · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      The child, obviously.
      What, you weren't told the risks? No one checked out your child's medical history before injecting them with a dozen different things? You were forced to do this to your child? You want to sue? You have no rights, you can go to "arbitration" and lose because fuck you.

      If people don't want to be vaccinated, for any reason or no reason, that's their choice. People don't trust the fucking government. It's not ignorance or religion leading people not to vaccinate, it's people watching what the government has been doing for the past decade and a half and realizing that the government is an active enemy of the people at every fucking level.

      If YOU don't want the disease, get the vaccine for YOURSELF. If YOU are too enfeebled to withstand the vaccine, then isolate YOURSELF to avoid the disease.
      The line of "logic" people use to try to force others to get vaccinated would have us banning shrimp, peanuts, dogs, hay, and fucking sunshine from all public spaces.

      This freedom is absolutely more important than the impact of any disease on the unvaccinated (by choice or not) population. We don't live in magical happy fairy land - people get sick and die, and those people are sometimes children. We cannot save everyone and we should not sacrifice freedoms in a ridiculous attempt to do so.
      Forcing or coercing people to get vaccines is not okay. If you want to encourage them to do so you have to earn their trust.

    49. Re:No by P3r1$c0p3 · · Score: 1

      You don't enter the disease state simply by encountering pathogens in the wild. Stop believing that you can't be healthy if I don't get my jabs. Innoculation can occur by my exposure in the wild. Viruses mutate anyway. They never get the flu strain correct for the season and there are risks with every vaccine. I would rather encounter it in the wild. That is at least getting exposure to the correct pathogen. Guess what? It does not mean that I will enter the flu disease state simply by exposure to the virus! I was in the military and have had plenty of jabs. I have had a very bad reaction to a vaccine before. I hope you don't have to experience it. It was really terrible. I can't imagine what the reaction I had would do to an infant. It would probably kill it. I bolster my immune system with healthy habits. You just like to tell other people what to do.

    50. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Just tax it. You don't want to vaccinate your child? Fine. This will inconvenience the People, so the People require remuneration.

      Now enter the number of unvaccinated people in your household on line 32 of your 1040 form. Multiply that number by $2500. The total, entered on line 33, is the additional income tax you owe this year.

    51. Re:No by RelaxedTension · · Score: 1

      Credible citations please. There are numerous credible studies that say just the opposite, especially with regard to the autism link, or the complete lack thereof. Just saying there is proof does not make it true, especially when there is little to show to backup your claims.

      The last decade has shown exactly the opposite of what you are saying. Less vaccinations has resulting in outbreaks of diseases in the last decade that were basically extinct 20 years ago.

    52. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except you're not going to get AIDS because someone's unvaccinated 4 year old stood in line behind you at the supermarket. You MIGHT get whooping cough from them though. Your thesis is bullshit because not every thing is airborne or otherwise easily contagious. If there was an AIDS vaccine and you decided to go on a whirlwind tour of Africa and have unprotected anal sex with all the natives, you'd be a damn fool not to get the vaccine.

      You can virtually guarantee you won't get AIDS merely by not having sexual contact with untested people. To guarantee you won't get whooping cough, you have to quarantine yourself.

    53. Re:No by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      If you did, how would you ever enforce that?

      Well, I could say "if you see one, instantly call the SWAT team to come out with flamethrowers to remove the risk" but I doubt you'd like that answer.

      I'd also bet that that would put a lid on the problem pretty damn fast.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    54. Re:No by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      We know that vaccines are save for 9,999 out of 10,000 people, and we know they are dangerous for the other tiny fraction. We did the math and concluded that saving 9999 was more important, but we didn't forget about the other 1. We set up a big lumbering system with a lot of money to compensate those people.

      Seat belts sometimes cause a person to die.

      Sometimes people choke while eating healthy food.

      Some car crashes result from people paying less attention on safer roads.

      Some people bonk their heads on safety railings.

      Police officers sometimes shoot innocent bystanders.

      And yet all of these things make the world nicer to live in. Oh, to live in a world where good choices never had bad outcomes; we can dream.

    55. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

      Sounds fantastic as long as you take the responsibility for infecting others if you refuse a vaccination, then later catch and carry a disease and spread it to others. Responsibility as in: criminal charges for manslaughter, negligence, etc.

    56. Re:No by Loki_1929 · · Score: 1

      Don't remove the exemption, just exempt the people using the exemption from being able to frequent public areas without protective clothing (protective as in protecting others from them, not protective as in protecting them from everyone else).

      Its illegal to be naked in most public places, its illegal to knowingly infect others with dangerous illnesses, so why shouldn't it be illegal to knowingly be in a public place when you are much more open to infection from dangerous illnesses and thus to infect others with them...?

      That's not only absurd, but requires the kind of despotic tyranny many would fight with force of arms. Let's take it in another direction so maybe you'll see just how ridiculous it is. How about a law requiring everyone to be armed with a loaded M-16 in public? After all, there are all kinds of threats in the natural world that can be significantly reduced when lots of people have M-16s. Therefore, everyone must always have an M-16, fully loaded and ready to fire, while out in public so the public can be protected from physical threats.

      It's also stupidly backwards. People who are not vaccinated are not some kind of super-threat we need to be protected from. They're simply not using the tools of modern medicine to reduce a threat which already exists and has for millions of years. And those threats are quite few among the natural world. If 0% of the population is vaccinated against a disease, then the threat is at the NORMAL level found in NATURE. As more people get vaccinated, that threat is reduced. Does that fact make it right to strap unwilling citizens (children, no less!) to a gurney and jam a needle full of drugs into their arms so they can be injected against their will? No, it does not. To say otherwise is to invite all kinds of other dictatorial bullshit and eventually it'll be the kind of dictatorial bullshit you won't like.

      Of course, you won't be able to do anything about it by then.

      --
      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
    57. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The government will reach a point where they see very little distinction between giving you a vaccination and embedding a microchip with your "SSN". Any bad idea can get through government with a little dash of "Think of the Children". This is a slippery slope.

    58. Re:No by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 2

      Non-action can never count as causing harm. The villains in this story are the diseases, not the unvaccinated. It's great that you want to fight diseases, but if your particular method of fighting disease requires others to undergo a medical procedure, that has to be their choice. You need to persuade them to cooperate; they've done nothing to justify the use of force against them.

      Of course, this is all tied up with the taxation and mandatory education requirements (which, needless to say, are immoral to start with regardless of the vaccination issue). By accepting tax subsidies and requiring attendance the public schools have forfeited any right they might have otherwise had to turn anyone away. Their mandate is to provide education, not enforce vaccination.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    59. Re:No by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      Who's responsible ...

      The parent, who is responsible in general for a child.

      Being selfish is rarely good for society.

      Totalitarianism has a pretty strong negative track record in that respect, too.

    60. Re:No by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      Tell me more about how you can encounter smallpox in the wild. Clearly, enough people encountered smallpox in the wild and built an inoculation over time. The people that died just got the wrong pathogen of course. It had nothing to do with vaccines, right?

      When your immune system cannot fight off such pathogens and you have to rely on herd immunity, will you have the same reservations against vaccines?

    61. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why worry if you took the vaccine, anyways? You enjoy a better life thanks to your government administered chemicals.

      You know, if you only visit "left-leaning" sites you only get half-truths purposely designed to misguide you. This is really a problem caused by government malpractice. If governments hadn't used vaccines for purposes other than immunization, these people would still have faith in them. Same thing happened when terrorists started using ambulances as trojan horses, and then ambulances where no longer allowed entry, or when hijackers started using planes to crash them against buildings, and controls got more strict, or when people started robbing houses of the people that left their houses unlocked... you get the idea.

      You break a gentleman's contract, then people start taking measures to protect themselves and the trick no longer works, even if that means everyone loses. The malthusian obsessed left is angry that their tactic backfired, so now they're crying crocodile tears. They should have never, ever, have used such tactic, but they did because they are evil bastards. Remember PETA, they claim they want to protect animals, yet in practice they kill anything that falls in their hands and sterilize the rest. Despite this fact being publicly known, they are one of the organizations that most money gets from the government, because that's what these monsters at the top desire, population control.

    62. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What words you pick are important if you expect anyone to take you seriously.

      A tenant is someone that rents a place to live or work. A tenet is a principle or belief.

      If someone has the right to decline measures to protect themselves and the public in general, the public should have the absolute right to refuse contact and interaction with that person: no access to public places or institutions.

    63. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not just euthanize any health burden on society?
       
      Most of you keyboard commandos make a decision to eat or live unhealthy. Then you expect government (the collective tax money) to assist you. You are thereby a health burden. Sounds like a great time to euthanize you.

    64. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's fuckwits like YOU who are causing distrust on well proven vaccines. Shitheads like you are child murderers.

    65. Re:No by tbannist · · Score: 1

      But our body is our own. Period. We cannot cross this line. If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

      That works as long as you're not infectious. However, as soon as you become ill you are now violating those rights for everyone you come into contact with. You might think you would just avoid other people while you're sick, however, some diseases like the mumps (The second M in MMR), are infectious for days or weeks before you show symptoms.

      If we take the road your propose what is your responsbility to those who died because of your choice? Do you owe their families a life time of financial support for the victims of your pathogens?

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    66. Re:No by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      The government, with a fund funded by vaccine makers.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    67. Re:No by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Traditionally, ringing a bell and yelling "Unclean! Unclean"" seems to work.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    68. Re:No by aczisny · · Score: 1

      Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

      The national vaccine injury compensation fund. The US decided that vaccines were so important that if there was an injury due to a vaccine for some reason (and though rare, they do happen), it was better to create a general fund to pay for those injuries than to allow the vaccine manufactures to be sued and potentially be put out of business by an adverse legal decision. This helps ensure that there will continue to be a supply of vaccines available without having to set up nationalized manufacturing facilities (which incidentally you would not be able to sue unless the government explicitly gave you permission. How likely do you think that would be?).

      --
      Now, landing thrusters.. landing thrusters, hmm. Now if I were a landing thruster, which one of these would I be?
    69. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you, a loved one or anyone you know caught a cold or flu?
      Call the law firm of Dewey, Foocum & Howe. We will make them pay!

    70. Re:No by cbhacking · · Score: 1

      Your driver's license (or other ID card) seems like one option. If you get found with the "unvaccinated" sticker on your card (sort of like the "organ donor" sticker, but for people who want to endanger others rather than save them) in a public place and aren't masked or whatever, it's a fine. Or maybe you just get thrown out of the establishment. Have fun going to bars (or buying alcohol at a store), or doing much of anything else that requires ID.

      This *sounds* awful - a government-mandated mark of belonging to an unpopular minority - but it's a self-selected minority that puts all the rest of us at risk. I see no reason that people intentionally acting as potential plague carriers should be able to hide among the general populace. Maybe if they had to show their true colors they could get through their thick skulls just how horrible what they're doing is...

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    71. Re:No by markass530 · · Score: 1

      That's why you do not make it a requirement to get a vaccine to stay alive, just if you want to join in modern society, no vaccination, find a different country to live in . I hear mexico is nice

    72. Re:No by markass530 · · Score: 1

      "Non-action can never count as causing harm. "

      Yea it can, I can think of 10 examples off the top of my head, try using your brain just a little and I'm sure you can too

    73. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If someone had a religious objection to driving their car while wearing medically-necessary glasses, we'd pull them off the road and take away their license to drive because they are a hazard to everyone else. This is the biological equivalent. You lose your license to send your kid to school.

      What's being said is, yes, you can decline to vaccinate your children for non-medical reasons, but then it's on you to figure out an alternative for schooling. They're thinking of removing the luxury of an exception for "philosophical reasons". I have no problem with that. It's not forcing people to vaccinate their child, it's pushing them to make a decision about it with a very strong financial incentive to make the rational choice that protects everybody else and the child.

      Because herd immunity is a statistical thing, they're eliminating the least legitimate exception for why children are not vaccinated. This protects those children who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons.

    74. Re:No by budgenator · · Score: 1

      The manufacturer's product liability insurance company.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    75. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the right to decide for ones self takes precedent over any hypothetical or misattributed conception of harm. Neither "herd immunity," nor this mob mentality, trump that. You live with your risks, and I'll live with mine - but let's not conflate the two. Just because someone wants me to agree with them, doesn't mean I have to, and doesn't mean I should be forced to on a hypothetical. Catching a disease is not a given and is not somehting to punish me, or anyone else, in advance for; noone has the right to decide how to live my life but me.

    76. Re:No by budgenator · · Score: 1

      If you've gotten a "tetanus" shot since 1949 you've some form of pertussis vaccine as well.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    77. Re:No by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      I refuse to hit the brakes in my car, and as a result I run over you.

      Since my non-action can never count as causing harm, that should be perfectly OK, right? The villain is the 3,000 pound hunk of metal that actually hit you.

      You need to persuade them to cooperate

      You need to persuade the car to not hit you.

      Or to move it back to the anti-vaxxers, these are people in the thrall to con artists. It not possible to persuade them. They would have to admit they were duped, and that isn't going to happen.

    78. Re:No by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      comments that state that prohibition is the solution to America's drug problem

      Prohibition is America's drug problem.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    79. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perfectly fine, as long as government officials who impose these terms are also willing to accept criminal liability for each individual who suffers harm as a result of a vaccination (due to allergic reaction, etc. I'm not saying vaccines cause Autism or such.).

    80. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trying to force injections into religious people couldn't possibly cause more deaths ...

    81. Re:No by clovis · · Score: 1

      I recognize that vaccinations save tens of thousands of lives every year: 100 deaths prevented from chicken pox; 400-500 deaths from measles; 1,000 from polio; over 15,000 from diphtheria. And let's not forget the millions of others who suffered from these diseases without dying. Without a doubt, vaccines have been one of the most brilliant inventions that have made an incredible positive improvement to the quality of life in our society.

      But our body is our own. Period. We cannot cross this line. If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

      And if we violate this tenant even in the name of vaccinations, it can be violated any other way "for the greater good." And that's a very, very dangerous precedent to make.

      I quit agree. vaccinations should be voluntary.
      And those people who don't want to participate in a civilized modern society can move to Africa or someplace where you won't be imposed upon by these rules..
      I know it sounds like the "love it or leave it" trope from the 60's, but I'm serious. If people want to have the benefits of a modern society, then they should participate in it or leave. We already have enough parasites of all kinds.

    82. Re:No by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      The whole society. In the case of a bad vaccine reaction you'd get a hefty compensation (up to $10 million) and assistance for life ( http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecom... ). Compensations are so huge because genuine bad reactions are _extremely_ rare.

    83. Re:No by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      Actually 'Peanut laws' mandate labeling on anything that might have been in contact with peanuts. So that's covered.

    84. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except a child's body is not their parent's body. We don't let parents deny their children blood transfusions if a child will die without it, why should we let them abuse their child just because it's based around statistics rather than time?

    85. Re:No by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      If your decision only affected you, run wild. That's your choice and your right.

      It never affects only you. In fact, it doesn't affect you. It affects your kids.

      Children are not chattel. They are not capable of making informed decisions, but they have to be protected from abuse. And, fucking a, antivaxers are child abusers.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    86. Re:No by surd1618 · · Score: 1

      The parents ought to go to prison if that happens. If an outbreak causes death or disability, then all of the parents who refused vaccinations should go to prison. That ought put a stop to this BS. Just figure out the total prison sentence for all of the injuries, and divide it equally between all of the parents of unvaccinated children at the same institution. It's not a perfect plan, but I think it would be effective.

    87. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm curious. What dangerous illnesses do I spread by being naked in a public place? Do you really think that is the reason for the ban on nudity? Are sauna-goers dying like flies because they see each other's nasty bits?

    88. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was thinking if you have children, you should be liable, even criminally liable, for anything your offspring do during your life.

      If your decision only affected you, run wild. Thats your choice and your right.

      If your offspring damage property, hurt, or kill someone... well, thats no longer just you affected by that damned decision, is it?

      This isn't a decision which is made in a vacuum.

      Maybe you should be forcefully sterilized? save all from the atrocities of your wretched and inferior seed.

    89. Re:No by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      five to thirty five (depending on vaccine/disesae) of those vaccinated will also be just as able to transmit the disease. the very small addition to that number of those who opt out doesn't matter

    90. Re:No by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      If you haven't gotten a tetanus shot since 1949, you need to: They're only effective for about 7 years, and you really are best off being vaccinated before you get exposed. They give you a shot when treating you for a wound that might have gotten you tetanus because most people don't keep current on it, and it's one of the ones where a post-exposure can help (some).

      Ask nicely and you might be able to get a handy wallet card edition of the record, too.

  5. Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We have the ability to trace an infection back to whomever infected you. If you come down with something, the person who infected you is liable for your costs.

    1. Re:Simple solution by thaylin · · Score: 1

      We only have that ability typically if the person infecting you shows signs. There are some exceptions, but in general a carrier who does not get sick is someone hard to find.

      --
      When you cant win, ad hominem.
    2. Re:Simple solution by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 3, Informative

      We don't have that ability.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    3. Re:Simple solution by stanjo74 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, because litigation is the best social tool and we should be using more of it. How about, if you come down with something, it's your problem for not getting yourself vaccinated.

    4. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Typhoid Mary would like to disagree with you.

    5. Re:Simple solution by thaylin · · Score: 1

      So you are saying we have the ability, but forgetting to limit it to cases of massive distribution of the virus?

      --
      When you cant win, ad hominem.
    6. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess you could just read the summary? Because then you would know. Herd immunity protects those who cannot take the vaccine for valid medical reasons (often just too young / too old, but there are other reasons). It also protects those on whom the vaccine was not very effective (folks with compromised / not very strong immune systems often get little protection from vaccines). So when these people get infected by the person who chose (or whose parents chose) to not get the vaccine - these people get sick, they die, etc. These dimwits make it other people's problem. That's the whole issue. Nobody cares if a line of dimwits kills themselves by not getting vaccinated. We'd love to give them that choice. We do care when they use their idiocy to infect others.

    7. Re:Simple solution by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 0

      What about people with serious medical conditions that can't get the vaccine (if your immune system has been devastated by chemo, the vaccine isn't really harmless any more)? What about people with bad luck? No vaccine is 100% effective.

    8. Re:Simple solution by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about, if you come down with something, it's your problem for not getting yourself vaccinated.

      FFS, the problem isn't the unvaccinated getting sick.
      It's the unvaccinated getting those who cannot be vaccinated, have compromised immune systems, or whose vaccination was less than100% effective sick.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    9. Re:Simple solution by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      So all of the people doing this are independently wealthy? Or do you plan to restrict the option only to the independently wealthy?

    10. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it were only about yourself, then that would be fine. The problem is that you, as an unvaccinated individual, are the party bus for those contagious diseases. You'll bring them around and infect those individuals who can't be vaccinated either due to being in an extreme position on the age scale or due to medical complications.

    11. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about,
      If my child how is too young too get vaccinated dies from an infection from your child that you stupidly elected not to vaccinate, then you get convicted for murder and sent to jail?

      I think just vaccinating kids sounds like probably a more reasonable solution to the problem.

    12. Re:Simple solution by P3r1$c0p3 · · Score: 0

      So I should get every single vaccine that is pushed because people have AIDS? You do not enter the disease state mearly by being exposed to a pathogen in the wild. Immunity was not invented by vaccine manufacturers though they would have you believe this. Your human body is not a weak addled poor victim that can only have an immune system if you buy it from Merck.

    13. Re:Simple solution by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1
      Cost effective, probably not. Possible, yes:

      Scientists can use these mutations as markers to piece together how the Ebola virus has traveled from person to person. Because they know the general mutation rate of the virus, they can also pin down the dates of when the disease spread

      First artical I found with a good overview of the process: http://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6...

      Science is awesome.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    14. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I like your reasoning, but the problem is that this same argument would allow the government to make gay sex illegal to prevent STDs from spreading. In fact, that's the very reason gay sex and adultery were illegal in most parts of the world to begin with, even punishable with death. If you don't believe me, ask Freddie Mercury.

    15. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First of all, if a child gets sick because they weren't vaccinated, it cannot be their fault because they had no say in whether or not they were vaccinated. Secondly, there are people who cannot take vaccinations for medical reasons, and it is not their fault if they come down with something either.

      Parents cannot be allowed to prevent the vaccination of a child because it endangers both the child and other people as well. Herd immunity is important, and when these fucking antivaxxers exercise their right to be stupid and fear-driven they put the lives of others in danger. It's child abuse and negligent homicide at the very least.

    16. Re:Simple solution by 246o1 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because litigation is the best social tool and we should be using more of it.
      How about, if you come down with something, it's your problem for not getting yourself vaccinated.

      Please, RTFS, or learn something about this topic before offering your attempt at insight, please. Some people are unable to get vaccinated (infants, those with certain diseases, etc.), and for some small percent, the vaccines don't work. If they get the disease, it's their fault, too? Or you just don't want to consider anything as complicated as the effects of one person's behavior on another person?

      --
      Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
    17. Re:Simple solution by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      Survival of the fittest, bitch.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  6. Tough call by Vermonter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I think not getting vaccinated is incredibly stupid, I also worry about setting a standard of the government being able to force things in to your body.

    1. Re:Tough call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How about that drug war, where they arrest you for putting things IN your body? Or even for just possibly having the idea.

    2. Re:Tough call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      The government already has a mechanism of forcing things into your body: federal prison.

      FTFY.

    3. Re:Tough call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said. I completely agree with you. Vaccination programmes should involve an act of persuasion, with evidence.

    4. Re:Tough call by Kohath · · Score: 1

      They already forcibly herd all the kids together in the government schools to infect each other with diseases and bring them home to infect the adult population. If you want to keep the government out of your body, then you need to get it out of your family, away from your children, and out of your business.

    5. Re:Tough call by nine-times · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I think this is an issue that should be treated like.... smoking, or overeating, or poor hygiene. The government shouldn't be trying to fix it with force. The role that the government should play is in making it free and easy to get vaccinated once you'd decided you want to do it.

    6. Re:Tough call by westlake · · Score: 1

      While I think not getting vaccinated is incredibly stupid, I also worry about setting a standard of the government being able to force things in to your body.

      Historically, there were no limits when it came to the control of infectious defenses.

      "Typhoid Mary" Mellon spent 23 years in island hospital quarantine.

      In 1907 Mary was taken into custody by police officers, and The Health Department gave her an ultimatum - either have her gall bladder removed (where typhoid carrier germs lived), or be exiled to North Brother Island. She refused the surgical operation, which was risky and unpredictable at the time, and was placed at the hospital for three years. Mallon resided in a bungalow, away from the main hospital buildings, and lived alone except for a dog as a companion.

      After a lengthy court battle, where Mary described her life akin to a prisoner's, she was released from the hospital in 1910. She immediately returned to work as a cook under the pseudonym of "Mrs. Brown" at Sloane Maternity Hospital. An outbreak of typhoid that consisted of 25 separate cases was eventually traced back to the cook, and officials identified her as Mary Mallon. She was sent back to North Brother in 1915 to live the rest of her life there.

      Riverside Hospital (North Brother Island)

    7. Re:Tough call by Uecker · · Score: 1

      Sadly, the CIA has already set a new standard here.

    8. Re:Tough call by operagost · · Score: 1

      Putting aside whether it's moral for government to take the rights they do when you are incarcerated, you don't become so without due process.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    9. Re:Tough call by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 1

      How about that drug war, where they arrest you for putting things IN your body? Or even for just possibly having the idea.

      Most people around here aren't too happy about the drug war, either.

      --
      They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
    10. Re:Tough call by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      This is my position. The good of public health does not, in my opinion, outweigh the legal principle of bodily autonomy. You can't force one person to use their body for the betterment of other people (cf. abortion).

      Thus, I don't think we should forcibly inject vaccines into people.

      But I DO think we should require vaccination for all sorts of common public goods, and schools is probably the very first item on that list.

      Asshat cavepeople can go live in holes away from society if they insist that that is their notion of freedom, but they can't bring it into schools.

    11. Re:Tough call by CauseBy · · Score: 1

      I'm not aware of any laws against putting drugs into your body. Can you cite any? I'm pretty sure all drug laws are possession laws, not consumption laws. Strictly speaking, possession is a superset of consumption: you must possess the drug before you can consume it; and you still possess it even after you consume it, while it is in your body.

      In any case, pedantry aside, the simile doens't hold because one is the government telling you that you can't do something, the other is the government telling you that you must do something. Compare this to the controversial "individual mandate" in Obamacare. The Supreme Court ruled that the government could not mandate that you buy health insurance; but that they could tax you if you refuse to do so.

      That is consistent with how I think about actions: the government can't force you to vaccinate, but they can deny you access to schools and roads and public squares if you refuse to do so. I suppose they could even tax you.

    12. Re:Tough call by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      When a person poses an undeniable danger to the life of health of others and actively tries to prevent action to mitigate this danger, what other option is there?

      The best you can do is put them in a comfortable, luxury quarantine center. They've committed no intentional crime.

    13. Re:Tough call by gweihir · · Score: 1

      They already can do that. If the current outbreak gets much worse, they can just force everybody to get vaccinated under emergency laws. (And rightfully so.)

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    14. Re:Tough call by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Really, you should get help for that paranoid personality disorder...

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    15. Re:Tough call by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Societies that are ineffective at containing epidemics have a rather low life-expectancy.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    16. Re:Tough call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like fluoride.

  7. Knowledge is the solution by operagost · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result. We need better education to counteract the Jenny McCarthys. Slashdotters seem to be quick to berate the "thinkofthechildren" types, until it comes to medicine. I am sorry if this sounds callous to you, but maintaining our personal freedoms from government tyranny is more important than making sure a few children don't get sick.

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    1. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A few children? We're talking deaths here. Fuck your illusion of personal freedom.

    2. Re:Knowledge is the solution by gcnaddict · · Score: 1

      than making sure a few children^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwhole bunch of innocent people who can't get vaccinated as well as a few of those who have received their vaccines don't get sick.

      fixed.

      --
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    3. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. I'm a big supporter of vaccines but one thing I find annoying is that it's almost impossible to find good
      numbers for vaccines. Almost everyone knows the numbers for failure rates of birth control as it's pretty easy
      to find a chart listing them and their percentages alongside the 85% chance of getting pregnant with no birth
      control. Finding a chart like that for vaccines is next to impossible. Why isn't there a chart which shows all
      the vaccines, their complication rate, the chance of complication if you catch it, the number of reported cases
      in the previous year, what age the vaccine is recommended, etc... Why should we have to instinctively trust the
      doctor when I know someone has all these numbers and could easily put them in an easy to read chart?

    4. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, maybe a few statistical deaths from vaccination MIGHT have happened, but that's nothing compared to what's going to happen to life expectancy when we drop below the "herd immunity" level. Can't wait - hope you're among the last to go so you can see what your fucking stupidity has done to everyone else - then you get to die, too.

      No, sir, FUCK YOU.

    5. Re:Knowledge is the solution by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Right - there just wasn't a big enough, public enough backlash to anti-vaxxers. We could easily keep herd immunity if the easily swayed were being informed from *both* sides rather than just anti.

    6. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 5, Informative

      You do not have a personal freedom to infect others with Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis, Typhoid, or Cholera. Isolation of infectious or potentially infectious individuals has long been the duty of government pubic health programs. The fact that these and others have largely been controlled through vaccination programs and/or improved public sanitation (also a government program) has let people forget the dangers that exist. I am old enough to remember when public places like swimming pools and libraries were closed in the summer due to polio outbreaks (thank you Jonas Salk.) So, while you have a right to risk your children's lives by not vaccinating them, you do not have a right to risk my grandchildren's lives by sending them to public school.

      --
      Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    7. Re:Knowledge is the solution by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Because we can't ethically ask people not to get vaccinated for a study, and basing it on people's personal decisions to not vaccinate is not scientific enough.

    8. Re:Knowledge is the solution by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is what modern westerners fail to understand. Without childhood immunizations we would be facing hundreds of thousands of childhood deaths each year in the US and Europe from preventable diseases. Our immunization programs have been so successful that modern parents don't know what it was like to loose siblings and classmates to measles or to see friends and relatives crippled by polio and have to be placed in an iron lung.

      Yes, vaccines have problems. No, companies should not be sheltered from prosecution for producing dangerous medicines, but lets put everything in perspective. I'll gladly trade a few illnesses or deaths caused by vaccines for the mountain of dead caused by diseases.

      http://www.unicef.org/immuniza...

    9. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Wycliffe · · Score: 2

      But we know (or should know) alot of these numbers. We should know the number of cases of measles last year.
      We should know the number of suspected complications from the measle shot. We should know the percentage
      of people who caught the measle that were previously vaccinated. They constantly tell us the percentage of
      car crash fatalities where someone wasn't wearing a seatbelt vs the ones where someone was but you don't
      see and can't find numbers like that for vaccines.

    10. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to break your bubble but people who are vaccinated still infect others with diseases they are vaccinated with. While the numbers are definitely lower (though highly variable based on age, sex, weight, health, etc) but they still happen quite regularly. Whats next? Are we going to start sterilizing couples because they have a 1 in 4 chance of having children with a major disorder?

    11. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't need to. Wycliffe is asking for how many people who got vaccinated got sick. That's a good statistic to know. Tracking it only requires doctors asking if the person was vaccinated when the person gets diagnosed. The total number vaccinated would be some percentage less than the total number vaccines shipped.

    12. Re:Knowledge is the solution by flink · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result.

      You mean take responsibility by compensating (the very few) people who are legitimately harmed by a vaccine reaction: National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

    13. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result.

      Of course it is best to not force things upon someone. That doesn't mean that one should be able to opt out from one thing while enjoying the other.
      Public schools typically places a lot of children in a small area. Having vaccinated people there is a bad idea. One should not assume that you can opt out from one of them but not the other.
      It also doesn't seem reasonable that someone refusing preventive care like vaccination should be able to enjoy tax funded medical support like ObamaCare once shit hits the fan.
      You should have the right to opt out from society, but if you do you should have to deal with the consequences alone.

    14. Re: Knowledge is the solution by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Why do you feel entitled to live in huge herds, when nature repeatedly strikes such herds down? Spread out a bit and you won't create the perfect storm of circumstances that create these terrible plagues. You ought to know better, but you do it anyway, so you deserve what comes of it.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    15. Re:Knowledge is the solution by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Among otherwise healthy children (well nourished, no other active diseases, no abnormal immune system) the fatality rate for measles is almost 0. (Below 2 PPM). I am not arguing against measles vaccination, just that you should not be supporting vaccination with a defective argument.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    16. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have to ask people not to get vaccinated. The problem was that people weren't vaccinating enough, remember?

    17. Re:Knowledge is the solution by operagost · · Score: 1

      You're one of those people who think an entire school of 1,000 students should ban peanut butter because two kids are allergic, aren't you?

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    18. Re:Knowledge is the solution by tomhath · · Score: 1

      I know someone has all these numbers and could easily put them in an easy to read chart?

      Lawsuits.

      A reasonable person understands that the vaccine isn't 100% effective or even 100% safe, just effective enough and safe enough to justify its use. But people like the anti-vaxxers aren't reasonable.

    19. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, vaccines have problems.

      Do they? "Stupid people not using them" doesn't count as a problem.

    20. Re:Knowledge is the solution by kristianbrigman · · Score: 2

      It is very difficult to find this information. However, it is (sort of) available... i don't know of an actual death rate from vaccines exactly. Even this is hard to find, but there is a federal program (the 'Vaccine Injury Compensation Program') which compensates victims who have been harmed by compulsory vaccinations, and a summary chart of claims, accepted claims, and payouts is here:

      http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecom...

      I had found a different, more accessible document before, but can't really find it now. Similar information though. On the other hand, the statistics for the prevalence of diseases that have vaccines for them is much more available, at CDC:

      http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pu...

      Influenza has the highest compensated total (932 in 8 years). Looking at DTaP might be a better comparison... ~75 million doses in 8 years with 105 compensated cases (including death, but other things too). Combined Diptheria/Tetanus/Pertussis together, the CDC chart only goes to 2011 (so missing a couple years) but it shows no D cases, ~150 or so T cases, and nearly 100,000 P cases over the 7 years in question, with total deaths in that time period: 0 for D, 9 for T, ~18 for P (and none in the last 4 years on the chart, so trend was definitely down).

      Would help to have a trend line for the compensated cases too. In any case, the statistics show that as of ~2011, you had a better chance of not dying by not getting the vaccine, but the chance in either case was vanishingly small.

      Of course, the issue here is a free rider syndrome - if everyone else gets the vaccine, I can get the benefits (reduced chance of catching a bad disease) while everyone else bears the risks (possible chance of side effects from the vaccine). But if enough people don't get the vaccine, then the numbers change quickly as more people catch the disease.

      We vaccinated, but we waited until after age 2 to give their immune system time to build up. Seemed like the best balance.

    21. Re:Knowledge is the solution by TubeSteak · · Score: 2

      Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act

      Under the NCVIA, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) was created [in 1986] to provide a federal no-fault system for compensating vaccine-related injuries or death by establishing a claim procedure involving the United States Court of Federal Claims and special masters.

      Since 1988, the The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has been funded by an excise tax of 75 cents on every purchased dose of covered vaccine.

      This regime was created because (later discredited) fears over the DPT vaccine led to lawsuits, which caused all but one DPT vaccine manufacturer to end production... and that final manufacturer was also threatening to halt production.

      We need better education to counteract the Jenny McCarthys.

      I'm not trying to compare you to Jenny McCarthy, but I hope you learned something new by reading about the NCVIA and NVICP.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    22. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, we should just let the TSA take on the extra duties. They already are used to taking away our personal freedom, so it's just the next step for them.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    23. Re: Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Alright. Let me start spreading out.

      Oh hey, next door to ShieldW0lf isn't so bad of a place. Let me settle there. Hey Bob! Over here! Let's start spreading out!

    24. Re: Knowledge is the solution by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Huge "herds" is what gives us civilization and technology. If you don't like these things, feel free to throw away your computer and shut off your electricity and go live off-the-grid in rural Alaska, trying to survive by killing a few squirrels here and there.

    25. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a misleading arguement. Yes, the mortality rate directly ascribed to measles is low, shockingly low. The mortality rate from secondary infections brought on by the weakened state measles leaves a person in is much, much higher. About one in 10,000, with 1st world medical care. Worse once your water & food is less sanitary.

    26. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet you list a fatality rate for an ideal set of the population. The whole point of herd immunity is to provide protection for those outside of that set, let alone those 2 PPM you don't seem to mind losing. The cost/benefit of vaccination here is blindingly obvious.

    27. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cig-gci/p04-meas-roug-eng.php#effimm

      It's not a chart, but most of the numbers you're looking for (at least for MMR-V type vaccines) are in there. I've been surprised by how good Canadian health is with getting their vaccination information out. It was a comfort when our little girl was one of the lucky 5% with an excessive fever following her MMRV. On the upside, we had proof that her system *definitely* reacted to the vaccine.

      Cynically I believe it's tough to find these numbers because of efforts by the anti-vaxxers to bury the science.

    28. Re:Knowledge is the solution by UltraOne · · Score: 1

      You say, "government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result." Please read up on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, through which the United States Federal Government provides no-fault compensation to people injured by vaccines. The program is funded by a tax on vaccines.

      Also, we are not talking about "making sure a few children don't get sick". Without vaccines, annual United States deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses would likely range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands (higher in epidemic years). See What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations? on the CDC web site for some data on historical death rates. The cost of treating people who came down with these infections would also lead to a massive spike in the cost of health care, which everyone would wind up paying for in the form of higher premiums, lower salaries (since employers would have to pay higher premiums), and higher taxes.

    29. Re: Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right, we should ban schools, churches, shopping centers, businesses, or any other area where people congregate and can spread illness. That's a brilliant idea!

      Moron.

    30. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must not know that serious adverse events are a known consequence of recommended vaccinations at a very small but non-zero rate, and that the government administers a compensation fund for affected victims.

      Oh, you fucking glibertarians; you don't even know what you don't know.

    31. Re:Knowledge is the solution by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 1

      A democratic government isn't something separate from the population. The population gives legitimacy to the government through regular election. If you don't like the government, take it up with the population that elected it.

      That said, this isn't even a case of tyranny of the majority. This is a case of the population codifying rules that are designed to prevent a few asshats from irreversibly harming many individuals and taxing society at large.

      To put it in terms you understand: people got together and decided of their own accord that unvaccinated people present a massive and unwarranted risk to them, and they're setting up rules how the people who don't want to get vaccinated can interact with them. Furthermore, your personal freedoms end when they negatively impact my well-being.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    32. Re:Knowledge is the solution by UltraOne · · Score: 2

      I am a physician who also performs clinical research. You have a naive faith in the ability of the United States health care system to collected aggregated data like this. There are a few diseases and complications which are reportable to public heath services (these are state-level government agencies) and also some mandatory reporting that occurs to Federal agencies, but it is very limited. There are some voluntary reporting programs, for example the FDA Medwatch site allows reporting of drug complications, but only a tiny fraction of them get reported.

      I don't know off the top of my head, but I suspect a few of the vaccine-preventable diseases are rare enough that they are reportable. Most of the other data (specifically any data on complications) is not something that anyone aggregates. See Estimating Seasonal Influenza-Associated Deaths in the United States: CDC Study Confirms Variability of Flu to see the trouble the CDC has getting something as simple as the number of people in the US who die from influenza.

    33. Re:Knowledge is the solution by penandpaper · · Score: 1

      What is the morbidity rate?

    34. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are off by several orders of magnitude. 0.1-0.2% is the fatality rate in developed countries, up to 10% in undeveloped countries.

    35. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll gladly trade a few illnesses or deaths caused by vaccines for the mountain of dead caused by diseases.

      Easy to say when it's not your kid.

    36. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is what modern westerners fail to understand. Without childhood immunizations we would be facing hundreds of thousands of childhood deaths each year in the US and Europe from preventable diseases.

      Nice straw man. Nobody (here) is saying that immunizations should be removed. In fact, people are proposing that you're actually liable for the result of your decision. Grandparent just says that you should have the option to accept that liability.

      We already accept that liability in many places today. Run over someone by accident (without a preventable mechanical malfunction)? Your fault. Same thing with grandparent's proposal.

    37. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you don't have freedom to harm someone else. But "do not harm" is different from "do prevent". If I don't prevent and don't cause harm, then what's the harm? If I don't prevent and do cause harm, I should be liable for that harm. Just like everywhere else in society if I negligently cause harm.

      It's not illegal to take risks. It shouldn't ever be. Otherwise we'd be walking around in bubble wrap and armor, and never leave our padded-wall homes.

    38. Re: Knowledge is the solution by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      Your false dichotomy does not change the realities of the status quo.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    39. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result. We need better education to counteract the Jenny McCarthys. Slashdotters seem to be quick to berate the "thinkofthechildren" types, until it comes to medicine. I am sorry if this sounds callous to you, but maintaining our personal freedoms from government tyranny is more important than making sure a few children don't get sick.

      I assume then that you are pro-choice then, the government should be allowing them the choice for their own 'medical procedures' then right? It's all about their personal freedoms, after all, and against government tyranny, right?

    40. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Moof123 · · Score: 1

      So sick kids, and those with reduced immune systems are a perfectly acceptable throw away group in your mind?

      Not sure where you got your numbers, but WHO says we still have 145,000 deaths per year from Measles worldwide, and they estimate it would be 4x more without vaccination.

      http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

      Just using your number of 2 PPM for the USA (matches with estimates of 400-500 deaths per year pre-vaccine with a 190M population found elsewhere), that is still no small matter. School shootings account for only 1/10 that number per year. Terrorist deaths per year since 2000 in the USA average less than that (yes, one year exceeded that by 8x). So I find your 2 PPM comment to be pretty darn callous.

    41. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet, you cited Europe without realizing that EU countries only require 4-5 vaccines, but in US it is approaching 20. Death rates are lower in Europe, disease rate are lower, healthcare costs are lower. Major ignorance without getting into the rest of your post

    42. Re:Knowledge is the solution by westlake · · Score: 2

      I agree. I'm a big supporter of vaccines but one thing I find annoying is that it's almost impossible to find good numbers for vaccines.

      In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.

      Three years later, Dr. Jonas Salk became a national hero when he developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine in 1955 with the support of the March of Dimes. In the two years before the vaccine was widely available, the average number of polio cases in the U.S. was more than 45,000. By 1962, that number had dropped to 910.

      Polio History

      Charts. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IMMUNIZATIONS

      Chart 1. Reported cases of H. influenzae type b, United States, 1991 - 1997

      Chart 2. Hib meningitis in children less than 5 years old according to the National Bacterial Meningitis Reporting System, 1980 through 1991.

      Chart 3. Reported cases of measles, United States, 1960-1997

      Chart 4. Reported mumps cases, United States, 1968-1997

      Chart 5. Reported pertussis cases, United States, 1922-1997

      Chart 6. Reported poliomyelitis cases, United States, 1920-1997

      Chart 7. Reported rubella cases, United States, 1966-1997

    43. Re:Knowledge is the solution by bazorg · · Score: 1

      5 vaccines in Europe? Lies, dear AC. Here's the schedule of vaccination for the United Kingdom:
      http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/v...

      Same for Portugal:
      http://www.vacinas.com.pt/cale...

      Same for Spain (click on each part of the map for regional rules)
      http://vacunasaep.org/profesio...

      Hare's a handy comparison/search tool for vaccines for all of Europe:
      http://vaccine-schedule.ecdc.e...

    44. Re: Knowledge is the solution by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      It's not a false dichotomy, it's a historical observation. Civilization started with people gathering into cities.

      --
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    45. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The CDC has a nice chart with times to vaccinate. Just google "CDC vaccination schedule", go to the first page, and you can choose the detail you want. You can also look up each vaccine on the site with complications nicely setup on each vaccines page. Want to know how many people got mumps, go to the CDC mumps page and click on outbreaks. Honestly this is so obvious I don't think you looked for any of this information or you are only going on misinformation sites. If you need it simpler than this you should leave the medical decisions to your doctor.

    46. Re: Knowledge is the solution by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      Yes, and it must evolve into a system of decentralized food and energy production, decentralized manufacturing, local recycling, etc.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    47. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that a rule which allows the government to force you to take these vaccines could also be used to force you to take other medication that might not be as demonstrably beneficial.

      Look at it like this, if a hypothetical future vaccines did cause autism, you'd want to be able to opt out of it.

      The solution to people who think a particular vaccine is dangerous should always be to educate them on the benefits and risks. Not to force them at gun point to get the vaccine.

    48. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      /thread

      That is really all that is to be said about this topic.

    49. Re:Knowledge is the solution by thaylin · · Score: 1

      I think you are talking to the wrong person. He agreed with you.

      --
      When you cant win, ad hominem.
    50. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If your neighbour's house is on fire, the government will force water on it, whether he wants it or not. Will you cry about government tyranny for that? Surely your neighbour's personal freedom is more important than a few of your family dying when the fire spreads to your house. And how about the tyranny of quarantening ebola patients.

    51. Re: Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or what? And before you say "or disease will kill you all", know that we've repeatedly proven that it won't.

    52. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Regrettably, the case for vaccination is not helped by people like you spouting ill-informed nonsense like 'Without childhood immunizations we would be facing hundreds of thousands of childhood deaths each year in the US and Europe from preventable diseases'. By the time vaccinations were introduced, the death rates had already plummeted, for instance to a few hundred measles deaths each year in the US:

      http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm

      and around 75 a year in the UK. Total them all up and you'll get maybe a few thousand (and that assumes that the death rates would have stopped falling without vaccination, which seems implausible), no way would it be hundreds of thousands.

      Idiots like you hand it to anti-vaccination groups on a plate.

    53. Re: Knowledge is the solution by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      You're not much of a student of history, are you?

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    54. Re:Knowledge is the solution by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      And, so, if your child happens not to be completely healthy at all times, it's the child's fault for dying of measles? The actual death rate is 0.3%, which means that if a million kids get measles each year (and childhood diseases probably hit more than that) we're talking about 3000 deaths annually in this country.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    55. Re: Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More so than you, clearly.

    56. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're saying nothing. It's just a real world application of the trolley problem. In practically all democracies people collectively decide to "pull the lever". The fact that we do it doesn't mean that we haven't considered what it means. In fact, those in favor of it, are much less likely to be moral cowards than those against because action requires afterthought whilst inaction is a way to avoid thinking of a difficult ethical dilemma.

    57. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which deaths? No one has died of the measles in the last 10 years in the USA, which has got everyone's panties in a wash.

      Are you talking about Smallpox? Very deadly. No one is vaccinated for that anymore.

      How about polio? Do you live in the 2nd or 3rd world? If so, I would highly recommend that one.

      Did you know deaths from malaria (preventable) still vastly outnumber deaths from measles, even after we cut malaria deaths in HALF over the last 10 years?

      The number of kids starving to death worldwide is an order of magnitude higher than any of these diseases, where's your angsty bullshit about that? We're talking about DEATHS here. Fuck your illusion of what you deserve.

    58. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And "the herd" would be getting stronger with each generation...... One way or another evolution wins. It is inevitable. Do we select for the ones smart enough to get vaccinated (or their children vaccinated) or do we select the ones who don't, and (maybe) develop a better immune system, or don't and mooch off "herd immunity" while not subjecting themselves to the (small) risk?

      Time will tell.

    59. Re: Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This anti-government tyranny meme that seems to be playing out in the USA is seriously going to tear your country apart and make the tyranny so much more likely when the society collapses. Why can't people understand that rules in a society matter? If there is a major war again your government is going to be the only one that can protect you. If you think individual choice is more important than mass vaccination you are living on fantasy land. The next major outbreak if you survive will change your opinion faster than all those that came before and helped make the choice to bring in vaccination. You know the smart people who aren't so worried about an imaginary threat of tyranny but a rel threat of dying from infections!

    60. Re:Knowledge is the solution by markass530 · · Score: 1

      you're welcome to your personal freedom, on an island full of like minded retards , somewhere else

    61. Re:Knowledge is the solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm fairly convinced my daughter suffered vaccine injury but there's no way to prove it. So statistics are going to under-report. What I've learned in trying to help her get her health back are:
      The majority of diseases listed are auto-immune diseases.
      It's only in the last decade that the medical community began to realize the importance of the gut microbiome to the immune system and health.
      Vaccines and antibiotics affect the gut microbiome and immune system, and can dysregulate them, with serious long-term health consequences.
      Medical protocols do not exist for restoring a dysregulated gut/immune system.

      So, while I'm not going to dispute numbers supporting the benefit of vaccination for public health, I do think it's fair to say that the medical community is experimenting with something they understand very poorly and if they make a mistake and hurt someone, they have almost way to help the victims. Playing with fire, so to speak. In that respect, I think the anti-vax crowd has some points worth pondering. If you get injured, you're screwed.

    62. Re:Knowledge is the solution by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      The oral Polio vaccine comes to mind. It has a small but measurable chance of causing Polio and was banned for use in the US in 2000.

    63. Re:Knowledge is the solution by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      It is my kid. I looked at all of the research I could on all of the vaccines on my daughter's schedule, and decided to get them all. In particular, I was hesitant about the chicken pox vaccination. Because seriously, who dies form chicken pox? Apparently, about 100 kids in the US per year, before immunization for the virus became widespread. As small as that rate is, the odds of her dying from chicken pox were greater than the odds of having a serious reaction to the vaccine.

    64. Re:Knowledge is the solution by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      Frankly, that sound like a eugenics argument. We have somewhere around 3 million births every year in the US. Our population will not shrink if a few thousand or tens of thousands more people die per year. However, the increased burden of illness could severely damage our economy and reduce everyone's well being. In addition, choosing vaccinations or not is not a matter of intelligence, but rather of ignorance. That is something that can not be cured by modern technology or by evolution.

    65. Re:Knowledge is the solution by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Stop vaccinations in the US and see how quickly those numbers rise. It would knock your socks off.

  8. Religious is better than philosophical? by PhilHibbs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So if you don't want it because you have an invisible friend, then that's ok. If you don't want it because you have a supposedly reasoned and cogent objection, that's not ok?

    1. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by medv4380 · · Score: 1

      If the people claiming Philosophical objection were actually able to write up a well reason and argued case I'd personally accept their objection. However, most if not all of these case are hysterical anti-vac nutters claiming something due to mass hysteria and not a well reasoned argument.

    2. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Here's my Philosophical objection: if people can be exempt based on religious beliefs I can be exempt because I feel vaccines are bad.

    3. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Millennium · · Score: 1

      The religious communities which object to vaccination also tend very strongly to isolate themselves from the public at large. For that reason, they do not present the same sort of threat to the public health that your typical antivaxxer (who typically still wants to mingle with the general public) presents. Without that threat, there is no compelling interest to violate religious freedom.

      It seems to me that the real solution here is to require that if someone wishes to present a philosophical objection, they must also present a defense of the philosophy on which that objection depends. A discredited objection is not allowed to stand, and the state steps in.

    4. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

      So if you don't want it because you have an invisible friend, then that's ok. If you don't want it because you have a supposedly reasoned and cogent objection, that's not ok?

      Of course. My invisible friend said so.

    5. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "if someone wishes to present a philosophical objection, they must also present a defense of the philosophy on which that objection depends". And what's your moral reasoning for that not to apply to religious philosophical objections? Religion is just another philosophy after all. What defence would the religious objector present? "Because some ancient book says so". I dare say that's a weaker objection than the antivaxxers!

    6. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if you don't want it because you have an invisible friend, then that's ok.

      It's probably less to do with an invisible friend and more with proving that your decision is based on established religious doctrinal prohibitions that Jews, Muslims and certain Christian denominations have such as a prohibition on vaccines that are derived from blood, or have blood or blood components involved in their manufacture, is an objection I can think of. For Muslims and Jews such prohibition is usually based on Genesis 9:3, 4 and the Mosiac law found at Leviticus 17:11-13 and for Christians such objection would based on the ruling of the first century governing body of the Christian congregation as recorded at Acts 15:28-29.

      I imagine the exemption is probably something like getting exempt from the military draft; your conscientious objection has to be based on established religious doctrine and you must prove that you lead a life consistent with your religion otherwise expect to get yourself a prison cell or otherwise shipped to the front line.

    7. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by dnavid · · Score: 1

      Here's my Philosophical objection: if people can be exempt based on religious beliefs I can be exempt because I feel vaccines are bad.

      Stupidity is not a philosophy, its a lifestyle choice.

    8. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't mind religious objections, but it should not be a checkbox-type of thing. For lazy parents, the time to get a vaccine is greater than the time to check a box. Let's make the time pain even. Just like for taking non-Saturday ACTs, a clergyman should have to write a letter EVERY YEAR saying that it is part of the congregation/religion's views that vaccines are more evil than good. The parent should then have to face the bureaucracy to get the letter activated.. I think most lazy parents will just say "F-it" and take the vaccine.

    9. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same can be said of religion.

    10. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by PhilHibbs · · Score: 1

      Religion is not a choice. You either believe something, or you don't. Can you choose your belief? If you think so, here's an easy test. Pick something that you believe - that you are genuinely convinced is true - and stop believing it. Or, if you prefer, pick something that you are utterly convenced is untrue, and try believing that it is really true. Really believe it, not just say so and pretend. Tricky, isn't it?

    11. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by nbritton · · Score: 1

      Here's my Philosophical objection: if people can be exempt based on religious beliefs I can be exempt because I feel vaccines are bad.

      Speaking frankly, all of you people should be charged with child abuse, you should have to justify your objection to vaccination to a jury of your peers. Per the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (42 U.S.C Chapter 67):

      the term ‘child abuse and neglect’ means, at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm;"

    12. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's up to individual to explore, invalidate, reinforce their believes or give up and have answers fed to them. No matter what, one can never be 100% certain of something when all he/she has is belief

      Bottom line, if in fact religion forebodes vaccination than religion is *wrong*.

    13. Re:Religious is better than philosophical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "imminent risk of serious harm" - which vaccine prevented sickness are you referring to?

      rotavirus vaccine carries risk of intestinal intussusception vs diarrhea. Hep B vaccine is not necessary in early childhood. Hep A not necessary unless you travel to Mexico or other countries. Some people cannot afford to vaccinate because their kids develop fever high enough school policy makes them stay home.

  9. Even if it affects a few vaccinated kids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It will predominately affect the non-vaccinated ones. This should help remove this particular type of person from the gene pool.

    1. Re:Even if it affects a few vaccinated kids by omnichad · · Score: 2

      Except babies can't be vaccinated safely until a certain age. And unless they breastfeed (that's a declining number), they're not even going to get antibodies in the meantime.

  10. Holistic Nutbars by ADRA · · Score: 1

    I have a friend who is one, and no matter how hard you try to get them to see reason, you know you're talking to a brick wall, because their wall of ignorance will never allow for rational discourse. Their belief has only been amplified by all the media on new/old age of holistic medicines, aroma therapy, acupuncture, food alergies, etc. etc.. some may actually have some practical benefits for some illnesses, but that just reinforces the belief that a scorched earth approach to diet, medication, etc... are somehow better for themselves / children. I fear for those people, and apparently from the article, those around them.

    --
    Bye!
  11. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, I'm totally going to trust a naturalist with no formal training to give me advice on advanced medicine. Especially when they are selling herbal remedies at the same time.

    Don't think vaccines are safe? Try polio, rubella, whooping cough, and measles. See how safe you feel when your kid might catch one of those at school.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  12. Personal inviolability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    1. Re:Personal inviolability by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 2

      So be it. But you can't come to school if you aren't willing to protect public health. That's the deal.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    2. Re:Personal inviolability by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Sure, but having you walk around spewing viruses everywhere is making the rest of us insecure in our bodies. Your rights don't trump mine.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    3. Re:Personal inviolability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Libertarianism eventually boils down to "fuck you, I've got mine".

    4. Re:Personal inviolability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds preferable to the "give me yours, because I deserve it" mentality.

    5. Re:Personal inviolability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's pretty short sighted.

      If we bar the children of the ignorant from public schools we perpetuate their ignorance. Far better to take the oportunity to educate their children and reduce the prevalence of ignorance in the next generation.

    6. Re:Personal inviolability by tbannist · · Score: 1

      No, that's anarchism.

      Libertarianism eventually boils down to "Fuck you, I've got mine and your taxes are going to help me keep it."

      After all, the primary things that libertarians actually think taxes should be used for are police and armies, which both happen to be useful in protecting their property from other people. Effectively, they're just too cheap to pay their own way, even when it comes to protecting their own property.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
  13. In Massachusetts... by crow · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mass. Gen Laws ch.76, Â 15:
    "In the absence of an emergency or epidemic of disease declared by the department of public health, no child whose parent or guardian states in writing that vaccination or immunization conflicts with his sincere religious beliefs shall be required to present said physicianâ(TM)s certificate in order to be admitted to school."

    So there's broad religious exemptions such that anyone willing to claim them can skip the process, but if there is a serious outbreak, then suddenly the exemption goes away. That's not a bad compromise.

    I haven't heard of the state ever declaring such an emergency, but I hope they are ready to do so before an outbreak becomes a full epidemic.

    1. Re:In Massachusetts... by unimacs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that often you need multiple doses and time for the immunizations to work. After an outbreak is too late.

    2. Re:In Massachusetts... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      The problem is that by the time a state of emergency is declared and the logistics set up, it will be too late.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    3. Re:In Massachusetts... by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      A vaccine administered after infection can help sometimes, but yes, if you're far gone then it would be too little too late.

    4. Re:In Massachusetts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not too late to prevent the unvaccinated kids from coming to school, which is how I read the law.
      You're exempt from the requirement unless there's an outbreak, at which point you can't come to school unless you get vaccinated. Seems pretty reasonable, even though the existence of the exemption in the first place makes an outbreak more likely. That's one of the things you just have to deal with for religious freedom (I'm an atheist, but I support freedom of religion generally).

    5. Re:In Massachusetts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed the "in order to be admitted to school"

      On the one hand, declaring such a state of emergency would keep these kids at home, where they are safer since they don't have vaccines, and the other kids are safer as they won't get exposed to unvaccinated carriers.

      On the other hand, when parents are inconvenienced having to stay at home from work with them, home-school them, or send them to a private run daycare with all the other unvaccinated kids, they'll actually reconsider whether to vaccinate them or not.

      It's one thing to decide not to spend money on a vaccine because the woman on TV said so. It's quite another to suffer inconvenience and/or spend extra money while coming face to face with endangering your kid because the woman on TV said so. Then you have to try to drive home the idea that if they get the vaccine they'll be able to bring their kids to school in 6 months no matter what.

    6. Re:In Massachusetts... by sjames · · Score: 1

      The dosing schedule is irrelevant. The remedial action is that the un-vaccinated children are excluded from the school until the crisis has passed.

    7. Re:In Massachusetts... by unimacs · · Score: 2

      Are they excluded from hanging around with their friends, non school sponsored sports, or other activities?

    8. Re:In Massachusetts... by sjames · · Score: 1

      That will be a matter for the parents, including the parents of the other kids. But note well that the state has never even attempted to exclude unvaccinated children from anything other than school attendance (which is by far the strongest exposure to risk).

    9. Re:In Massachusetts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So then the kid doesn't go to school until the outbreak is over or the immunizations "work". I'd be ok with that if I wanted to have my kid skip immunizations (or more likely a particular immunization).

    10. Re:In Massachusetts... by unimacs · · Score: 1

      I'm not suggesting that the state try to exclude kids from those things. Excluding them from school is a huge incentive to get them vaccinated. Only excluding them in the event of an outbreak removes that incentive and doesn't stop the kids from contracting it or spreading it by the time the outbreak is identified (or after).

    11. Re:In Massachusetts... by sjames · · Score: 1

      There is a certain danger in that, but what's your alternative? Remove custody? Repeal compulsory education?

      There's just not a lot of options in a (more or less) free country.

    12. Re:In Massachusetts... by unimacs · · Score: 1

      Public schools aren't the only option. Most states now allow home schooling and there are always private schools (who may have their own policies). I think it's entirely reasonable for a state to say that not vaccinating your kids is putting other kids at risk and we therefore can't have them in a public school. As a parent, you may disagree but it is then up to you find alternative education, - and it is available.

    13. Re:In Massachusetts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They sure are by responsible parents. My kids didn't play with the neighbor's kids when there was an outbreak of whooping cough. The nutter was pretty pissed at me, her husband seemed to accept the argument.

    14. Re:In Massachusetts... by sjames · · Score: 1

      So you have little doubt that a poorly educated single parent on food stamps will have any problems homeschooling or paying for private school?

    15. Re:In Massachusetts... by BadDreamer · · Score: 1

      That is a *horrible* compromise, because what will *cause* an outbreak is compromised herd immunity. And this compromise allows for compromise of herd immunity.

      When the outbreak happens, cause by this excemption system, the damage is already done and children are probably already dying. And worse, this lets the disease get a foothold and provides it with a breeding ground to mutate from, which allows it to improve its ability to overcome vaccination.

      There is NOTHING good about this "compromise". It's horrible. The only way to conclude it is anything but atrocious is to be completely clueless about how disease and vaccinations work.

    16. Re:In Massachusetts... by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      Poorly educated single parents on food stamps probably are among those who can least afford to not vaccinate their kids--their children are the most vulnerable to the diseases on the standard vaccination list, among the most likely to suffer complications, and they're certainly not likely to be able to afford the costs involved should their children suffer complications. Spend some money on educating them, and have the vaccines provided cheaply or even for free to qualified individuals via the local board of health.

    17. Re:In Massachusetts... by sjames · · Score: 1

      I agree that vaccines are a good idea but that doesn't justify removing the right to control what goes into their and their children's bodies based on their inability to homeschool.

    18. Re:In Massachusetts... by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      Parents do not have the right to neglect their child, nor, through their actions, cause significant harm to their child and/or others. The suggestion that homeschool or private school be options is so the harm to others might be kept to where it's an acceptable risk. Conversely, no vaccine should be required which is not for a disease of childhood which has extensive real world data on its effectiveness. (Any vaccination that can safely wait until 12 or so shouldn't be required, at all.)

      That said: my experience with the group you cited is that of the ones who'd care enough to object, it's either due to financial concerns or their poor education, and the latter doesn't justify failure to try to address it.

    19. Re:In Massachusetts... by sjames · · Score: 1

      And the state does not have the right to demand that any individual accept any particular medical treatment. That's why the pressure is applied in a more round about manner.

      So that just leaves us with the choice. Do we want the kids to be un-educated or do we want to find a way to educate them? Certainly making the vaccines free will address the financial askect, leaving only philosophical and religious objections. We can certainly provide education fopefully convince parents of the value and even necessity of vaccination. However, at the end of the day some will still object. Since we don't want a society where someone from the government can show up at any time and inject whatever gunk they care to into anyone they care to, we must deal with the cases where the parent will not be swayed.

      Note that excluding their children from school just makes sure that they will make the same decision when they have kids. If they go to school, perhaps they will make a better decision when they become parents.

      It should also be noted that not all of the required vaccines actually make sense. The main ones we are all familiar with certainly do. MMR, DPT and polio certainly. But I remain more skeptical of chicken pox. That was never one of those scourge diseases. Evidence suggests that the immunity from the vaccine is less complete that you get from having the disease and that it wanes in adulthood, exactly the time when the disease becomes more dangerous and the vaccine is contraindicated.

  14. Slashdotters, do your part! by Rambo+Tribble · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If we all got vaccinated, at least we'd have a measure of "nerd immunity".

    1. Re: Slashdotters, do your part! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shouldn't this be modded 'Funny?' Or was I just trolled by the mods?

    2. Re:Slashdotters, do your part! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No that isn't true. It is much more complex than that. Your simplistic view of the situation flies in the face of the facts.

      http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/herd-immunity-myth-or-reality

      Tetyana Obukhanych (Ph.D. in immunology from Rockefeller University, New York, NY)

    3. Re:Slashdotters, do your part! by russotto · · Score: 1

      Yeah, herd immunity is just a card played against the freedom argument. It can't exist even theoretically for flu vaccine (where it's often proposed to exist) because flu vaccine is not effective enough, and it can't exist for pertussis. Why not? Because the acellular pertussis vaccine results in a substantial population which can spread the disease asymptomatically. It doesn't matter that the vaccine protects them from systems, they don't contribute to herd immunity because they can still pass the disease on.

  15. Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by Talderas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I cannot hide my incredulity over the fact that Mississippi is one of one only two states that do not permit religious or philosophical exemptions. The other is West Virginia.

    --
    "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    1. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's simple really, there are no atheists in Mississippi.

    2. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And, for the unenlightened, what, exactly, would be the difference between philosophical and religious exemption?

      In a country with freedom of religion, you can start your own religion at any time - based on (guess what) your philosophy.

    3. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by hendrips · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Most people who object to vaccination are either 1) wealthy and well educated or 2) members of certain non-mainstream cults/religions. Let's just say that Mississippi is not particularly well known for having a high concentration of people in either of those groups.

    4. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by internerdj · · Score: 2

      Practically nothing, but denying a religious exemption in authoring the law bears the threat of an expensive battle over the constitutionality of the law and probably court ordered delays in implementation.

    5. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Or many doctors.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    6. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's partially that, and partially that Mississippi is well aware that they can't afford to deal with outbreaks. Public health officials and state legislators both know they have to stop them the cheapest way possible, and that's vaccination. Somehow they've managed to not politicize it and just do what is necessary.

    7. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've never met a "well educated" person who is an anti-vaxxer.

    8. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      Call it Mississatheism: The belief that no Mississippi atheists exist ;)

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    9. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 2

      The irony with vaccination paranoia is that it's not the stereotypical rednecks that are objecting but the better-than-thou liberals that are pushing back. What part of Jenny McCarthy or Rob Schneider seems Mississippi redneck?

    10. Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, in West Virginia at least, getting the medical exemption can be quite difficult. It's a tricky issue though. Make it too easy to get the medical exemption and your no better off. I know of at least two families that homeschool because they have not been able to get the medical exemption for their children.

  16. Re:Freedom of choice by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Free country, sure. You're free to be foolish and suffer the consequences. You aren't free to drive on the sidewalk, discharge your firearm at a Walmart for target practice, or take a shit on the president's desk.

    Similarly, we should not be free to endanger public health with disease. If you want to remain unvaccinated, do so in your own backwoods shack, away from us. Thanks.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  17. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here is a rebuttal article http://scienceblogs.com/insole...

  18. Offer 'Em Ten Bucks by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You'd be amazed what stupid people will agree to do for a tenner.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    1. Re:Offer 'Em Ten Bucks by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 1

      This is actually a really good idea.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    2. Re:Offer 'Em Ten Bucks by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      or a hummer

  19. So how far are you willing to go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How far are you willing to go to enforce this?

    Before you suggest using the law to force anyone to do anything, ask yourself just how far you are willing to go, and if you're okay with the gruesome outcome when someone refuses.

    In the case of forced vaccination, will you be okay with police officers breaking into someone's (possibly barricaded) house to make way for a paramedic squad from the local hospital to physically restrain the occupants (including, and probably especially, young children) and then, if they resist, inject them with sedatives to ensure nobody gets hurt (which may have already happened if the occupants are militant). At that point you can give them the vaccinations by force and exit.

    If you feel comfortable with that (and the likely outcome of mentally scarred children, and likely to be in the future physically violent against authority adults), then the answer is yes. If you find that an uncomfortable scene to imagine, then the answer is no.

    There is always someone who will take whatever law you have to its ultimate conclusion. In the case of certain laws, it ends at a fine (and whatever fallout comes from refusal to pay it out). In the case of something like this, the ultimate conclusion from forced vaccination is going to be physical violence from the government--there's no way around it.

    1. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 2

      We're not talking about forced vaccination. You just have to be vaccinated to attend school.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    2. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Triklyn · · Score: 1

      if this were the polio vaccine how would you feel? if it were small pox?

      yeah, vaccines may possibly be bad, but smallpox was... words fail.

      You're damn right i'd be alright with forcing people to be vaccinated, i'd hold them down myself.

      people stopped killing each other so that the people they were fighting could get vaccinated... wtf does that tell you?

    3. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by sjames · · Score: 1

      The chain doesn't stop there though. We then have a choice, apply force to get the kids an alternative education or accept that they will likely become totally dependent on the state one day because they will get no education.

    4. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're forced to attend school...

    5. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >if this were the polio vaccine how would you feel? if it were small pox?

      Me, personally? I eschew violence in all forms even if it does put me at risk. That being said, I would encourage others (and of course, I would myself get vaccinated) to be vaccinated through non-violent means, even if it is not 100% successful.

      The missing item here is the lack of education. If it were offered with no repercussion those that have irrational fears would either have to choose to face them, or realize they aren't thinking rationally and thus help themselves. Once violence is included in the package, no longer does the person have to face such a fear. Instead they can easily dismiss the other side as being the irrational ones since we have the completely valid thought of "If you have to hurt me to get your way, you clearly don't have much on offer, do you" available as an out.

    6. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      With or without vaccinations, we already require education, and can use force to enforce that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    7. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And all those who are the ones 'at risk' because they allegedly CAN'T have 'vaccines' (due to allergic reactions, etc.) are ALSO exactly the same 'risk', aren't they? Or is it only the REASON behind not being 'vaccinated' that makes one a risk?
      You idiots. This is embarrassing.

      By this logic, ALL people who CAN'T have 'vaccines' (due to allergic reactions, etc.) should be kept out of schools and all other public places, according to you cretins. How embarrassing for you. Should have thought this through better...

    8. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by sjames · · Score: 1

      And by extension, we would then have forced vaccinations for anyone not wealthy enough for private school.

      If you must do something in order to be allowed to do a mandatory thing, then it too becomes mandatory.

      Whirl that around a few times and you have to either drop it or run afoul of the separation of church and state.

    9. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no shit! I'm paranoid and apocalyptic but that rant was insane

    10. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      You're damn right i'd be alright with forcing people to be vaccinated, i'd hold them down myself.

      I hope you would be OK with said person trying to or succeeding in killing you. If you attempted to force me into doing something against my will then I would defend myself and so would many others. You are a fscking ####

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    11. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Triklyn · · Score: 1

      i would be ok taking the risk that i'd get shot, some things are important enough. you think the WHO people that vaccinated people in war zones, who made pacts with tribal warlords in the wake of armed militia weren't risking death every second of every day?

      you have a disease like smallpox, you have a vaccine on hand, you got a shot at eradicating it, you take that shot with both hands and run as hard as you can.

      that means, you get vaccinated, voluntarily or no, or we gaurantee that every single person you have the possibility of coming in contact with you gets vaccinated. smallpox is estimated to have killed up to half a billion people in the 20th century.

      you know, better yet, advertise a vaccine-free municipality, watch all those new-age hippies flock there to live with like-minded enlightened people. watch as diseases thought largely controlled in the first world go through the community like wild-fire. then we ask them again if they want vaccines.

    12. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      You need to put the vaccine in the lentils and wheatgerm and that demographic is taken care of. Don't get me wrong here I am vaccinated and I discovered when I received Hep B vaccinations that I cannot create antibodies for Hepatitis B. I think that essentially means Hep B will kill me or at least make me very ill. That fact still will not make me agree that force should be used to vaccinate the unwilling. I suspect that with all the vaccinations and 'molly-codlling' that the weak are being allowed to survive and even prosper and that cannot have good ramifications for the future human race.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    13. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Triklyn · · Score: 1

      if it's an oral vaccine, doesn't mind being exposed to air, can tolerate humidity and temperature variation, exposure to sunlight etc. polio vaccines were such a bitch because one of them lost efficacy at high temperatures. Also scattershot approach like that is less likely to be economically viable.

      Also, you'd probably run into a lot of people complaining about secret experiments on the population, which you know this would be. The logistical nightmare of trying to mess with the food supply, and even then you wouldn't be guaranteed of hitting your target.

      you are literally of the class of people that herd immunity is critical for.

      indeed it's the right choice if considering economics too, the cost of prevention is always always always going to be less than the cost of treatment, to the individual and to society.

      we force people that want to share our roads to account for the situation where they'd be doing damage to others, why not the classroom, why not the office, why not the store? the only difference is that one ostensibly regards the human body, and the other what's surrounding it. no license no driving, no insurance no driving. can we make the argument that no vaccinations no using public spaces?

    14. Re:So how far are you willing to go? by Triklyn · · Score: 1

      bleh, social darwinism isn't a thing. evolution doesn't work on the timescales we live. At this point the future for the human race is increasing the rate of technological advancement to the point that it outpaces the problems it creates and the ones that would have arisen anyway. technological social security basically.

      as david deutsch said in an unrelated ted-talk. "problems are soluble, problems are inevitable."

  20. I can hear them now... by Vermonter · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I am so glad I didn't get my little Johnny vaccinated. Sure, he died of Measles when he was 3, but at least he didn't catch the autism!"

    1. Re:I can hear them now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounded funny because it was so ignorant. Death rate for measles is about the same as from the vaccine from measles, less than .05%

    2. Re:I can hear them now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I am so glad I didn't get my little Johnny vaccinated. Sure, he died of Measles when he was 3, but at least he didn't catch the autism!"

      I know you are joking, but there are many many people who would rather have a dead child than an autistic one.

  21. Re:Freedom of choice by Falos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Everyone else is free to bar you from THEIR offices schools stores transportation businesses hospitals etc

    Unless you want to force them, regardless of whether they want it or not.

  22. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And it is my choice to defend my family by dealing with the diseased. Cleansing fire is the traditional method of choice if we are going to return to basics

  23. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and why do you get to decide what's best for everyone else's child by letting your disease-ridden spawn of a retard into school to kill everyone?

  24. Re:Annnd..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As if there aren't blue state progressives who are anti vaccines and pro-homeopathy.

  25. Not the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The few nut jobs who are against vaccinations aren't the real problem. A shit ton of non-vaccinated illegals flooding into the public schools is driving the spread of whopping cough and EV-D68.

  26. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by Triklyn · · Score: 1

    if polio is back, that'd be a bad thing. the others yeah though.

  27. An entirely typical argument by HBI · · Score: 2

    I'd even have sympathy for this argument if it were anything but ignorant of how the world works.

    If the government wants you to have something injected into your body for a public health reason, laws already exist requiring quarantine and treatment. What this means is that in practice, people with guns will come in moon suits and escort you away to be dealt with as they please.

    The only illusion here is your illusion that you have a choice.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:An entirely typical argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The fact the government can do that in some kinds of emergency situation has nothing to do with whether or not we should allow the government to do that in rull-of-the-mill situations. I think it's you who is ignorant of how the world works - typical binary thinking from a Slashdotter: if something's possible under any circumstances therefore it's possible under all circumstances ... er, no, that's not how the world works, that's not even how logic works.

    2. Re:An entirely typical argument by silfen · · Score: 2

      The only illusion here is your illusion that you have a choice.

      By your reasoning, we might as well turn ourselves into a totalitarian superstate. After all, all the freedoms we have day-to-day are just an "illusion" anyway since under exceptional circumstances, they could be taken away.

    3. Re:An entirely typical argument by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      I did feel pretty conflicted when people were complaining about being quarantined during the Ebola in the U.S. thing.

      My idealistic side said, yeah, technically that's a violation of their rights.
      My pragmatic side said, damn straight, that's what ya gotta do to solve the situation.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    4. Re:An entirely typical argument by HBI · · Score: 1

      Do you believe we aren't? More illusory thinking. When I was a child in the 70s, we weren't. There were dark forces, but the country was essentially free. This is no longer the case.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    5. Re:An entirely typical argument by silfen · · Score: 1

      Do you believe we aren't?

      No, I don't believe that, I know it. How? Because I have lived in a totalitarian superstate, and it's entirely different.

    6. Re:An entirely typical argument by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      you are silly, no one sends the moon suits for chicken pox. and

  28. Oh, the humanity! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's be clear here. What we're talking about is the extermination of whole species of pathogens.

    Won't somebody think of the pathogens?

    This message brought to your by PETP.

    1. Re:Oh, the humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey PETP! How your campaign to ban Dr Mario is going?

    2. Re:Oh, the humanity! by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Hey PETP! How your campaign to ban Dr Mario is going?

      That man is a menace to pathogens, mushrooms and turtles everywhere. He must be stopped!

    3. Re:Oh, the humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesnt work that way. Most of these pathogens exist in nature and are either readily communicable to people or can mutate to become communicable to people. Everything comes from somewhere. Do you suppose Satan conjured them up? Even so, then "Satan" (nature) can conjure it up again.

  29. Re:Not the real problem by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 2

    Citation needed.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  30. Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    The articles cites a list of diseases on the rise, like whooping cough. None of these disease have required vaccinations. There was no increase in deseases related to the vaccinations so this looks like more healthcare industry propaganda.

  31. Didn't they learn from Texas? by rs1n · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A recent outbreak in Texas (last year, in fact) should have given these folks a heads up! http://www.forbes.com/sites/em...

    1. Re:Didn't they learn from Texas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You realize that the small numbers of infected are BECAUSE of the popularity of vaccination, right? If we stop vaccinations, then it can become an epidemic? And that the measles has very serious side effects and complications?

      You're basically using the data showing the effectiveness of vaccines as a reason NOT to vaccinate!

      (Aside: note that those side effect rates need to be compared to a control group, because they're not reported as an increase.)

    2. Re:Didn't they learn from Texas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Vaccines are definitely a PART (Along with improved sanitation, living/work environment, education, medical knowledge/availability, etc) of the reason for our improved health as a society. But there is a point where their application becomes far more of a cost to society than a benefit. Depending on a disease mortality, infection rate, vaccine side effects, etc that "break even ratio" may be very low, especially considering the exponential rate at which some infections can take place, but it does exist. Below that point it is far preferable to use less widespread containment methods, such as quarantines, regional vaccination campaigns, etc. Vaccinating an entire populace of hundreds of millions, and its associated costs, to prevent a few hundred relatively small and easily contained outbreaks is ludicrous.

    3. Re:Didn't they learn from Texas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly it's far too easy to blame other "not my fault" causes, like "the gays", "those athiests" and "that arab president" when you believe in a magic douchebag in the sky who has a bad temper.

  32. Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vaccine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Four of my co-workers have kids who turned autistic within a day of taking the MMR vaccine. There is no way that particular vaccine is not tied to autism.

  33. This is a Bad Idea (tm) by photon317 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We *need* the ability to object to government intrusion on philosophical (or any) grounds in the general case. Attacking that premise just because of these anti-vaccine nutjobs is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The problem isn't actually "philosophical objection", it's ignorance. If the government needs to take a stand on something here, how about taking a stand for improving the public state of scientific understanding and reducing ignorance? Let's start with not letting FDA-regulated things put words like "Homeopathy" on the label as if homeopathy were a real thing. Let's call the Chiropractics out for the fact that their field (and its exemption from most Medical regulation) is based on whacked-out semi-spiritual anti-science voodoo stuff that denies that Viruses actually exist as a real physical thing, instead of endorsing them and paying for them with state-mandated health programs. I could go on. You reap what you sow, and we allow a lot of bullshit to pervade our society that we could be preventing. It's no wonder at the end of the day that a bunch of people are confused and just believe whatever counterfactual pseudo-science bullshit some popular personality told them to believe.

    --
    11*43+456^2
    1. Re:This is a Bad Idea (tm) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes chiropractics is total bull. The entire nervous system is governed by the cord that sits in the spine; that could not possibly have any effect on health.
      Don't know who told you that you are smart but I would ask for my money back if I was you........

    2. Re:This is a Bad Idea (tm) by Moof123 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Good point.

      My wife got quite the little education when she bought some cough "medicine" for our toddler. She complained it didn't help and maybe that was a bad sign. So I get home and see she accidentally got some of that diluted by 10^12 crap, and educated her that she bought $8 of water in a tiny bottle.

      The labeling is done to look just like all the real medicines, and unless you are familiar with the whole dilution notation and concept the label appears to indicate it actually has ingredients.

      In the end the lesson is that these voodoo whack jobs are a major danger to more than just themselves. As such, they should be better regulated to protect us from their witchcraft.

    3. Re:This is a Bad Idea (tm) by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      got some of that diluted by 10^12 crap

      That one probably did actually have something in it other than water, but probably less than regular tap water. It is the ones that are diluted by 10^200 or other silly numbers that statically have nothing in them as you would have a better chance of picking one atom in the universe at random putting it back and picking another one at random and having it be the same atom both times.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    4. Re:This is a Bad Idea (tm) by rhazz · · Score: 1

      My sister in law recently commented on a friend's post about Wakefield's effect on vaccination rates. She talked about how she didn't believe in the flu vaccine since it's "just a crapshoot" and that the government "can't do math right" so how could they pick the right flu strain to vaccinate against. Many friends provided a very calm and rational explanation about how she was misunderstanding what vaccines are, statistical risk, and herd immunity. She went on to say that that healthy lifestyle choices and vitamins were far more effective, etc (interesting because both she and her children are obese). This is also a woman who takes her 4 year old daughter to the chiropractor.

      How do you even begin to educate someone like that?

    5. Re:This is a Bad Idea (tm) by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Thing is, if you take a homeopathic remedy (equivalent to what comes out of these faucets in my house) for a problem you've got, that doesn't really affect me. If you refuse to get your kids vaccinated, and insist that they go to school, they're potentially endangering other people.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  34. Evolution by mrflash818 · · Score: 2

    If those that do not get vaccinated die off, then those that get vaccinated, or have strong enough immunity, get to survive.

    Evolution, correct?

    --
    Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
    1. Re:Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that some things that looked like vacunations programs actually were hidden population control programs to make people infertile, and thus make you an evolutionary dead end. Hey, I've heard Bill Gates has being researching a new drug to make people infertile, he doesn't hide it, it's been covered in Slashdot as a great advance for humanity.

    2. Re:Evolution by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      Sort of... without herd immunity, immunocompromised and some unlucky ones where the vaccine didn't take will be swept away as well.

    3. Re:Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Citation?

    4. Re:Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/01/29/israel-acknowledges-shameful-contraceptive-shots-given-to-ethiopian-jews/
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseknutsen/2013/01/28/israel-foribly-injected-african-immigrant-women-with-birth-control/

      http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/11/07/8640744-victims-speak-out-about-north-carolina-sterilization-program-which-targeted-women-young-girls-and-blacks
      http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/vaccine-conspiracy-or-racist-population-control-campaign-kenyan-tetanus-shot
      https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/this-is-not-a-conspiracy-theory-planned-parenthood-is-targeting-black-women

      http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Family-Planning
      http://www.technologyreview.com/news/528121/a-contraceptive-implant-with-remote-control/
      http://preventdisease.com/news/12/102212_Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-Foundation-Vaccines-Reduce-Population-Growth.shtml

    5. Re:Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...said someone without children.

      Sure, you may like the idea of other stupid people dying off due to their own stupidity. It strengthens the herd. But what about when their stupidity and ignorance causes YOUR CHILD TO DIE?

      Then the idea of evolution isn't cool or funny, it's just sad. And that's when you want the law to step in....to slow down this horrible form of "evolution".

    6. Re:Evolution by markass530 · · Score: 1

      only if you go with a grade school level of understanding of the issue

    7. Re:Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If those that do not get vaccinated die off, then those that get vaccinated, or have strong enough immunity, get to survive.

      Evolution, correct?

      It would be great if death was what happened, but it isn't so much that.
      For every kid that was killed by polio, many survived and were crippled.
      Measles used to be the main cause of blindness and deafness in the USA until the vaccine became available. it is still the main cause of blindness in developing countries.

  35. stick to freedom. Treatmnts FAR more profitable by raymorris · · Score: 2

    Freedom is a reasonable argument, if not always persuasive.

    Drugs to treat sick people are an order of magnitude more profitable than vaccines. Mentioning your misunderstanding of the economics dilutes your argument by making it appear that you are misinformed.

    Stick to the freedom argument . It's like pointing out all of Obama's policy failures, then also claiming he was born in Kenya. The part you're completely wrong about makes you look silly and distracts from the strong part.

  36. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 1

    Yeah, there is. Your sources are highly suspect. Source: I've had the MMR. Also every MD ever.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  37. You have your own brick wall by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 0

    I've been going to an acupuncturist for over ten years, and I can tell you without any hesitation it has helped me tremendously. My main reason to go is back problems, but he has helped me with shoulder/elbow injuries as well as stress and allergies.

    With that being said, I wholeheartedly support vaccinations, and modern medicine. If I were in need of help, regardless of illness, and "Western" medicine could help me you're damn right I would take advantage of that. TCM(Traditional Chinese Medicine) is just another tool to use for health, along with Yoga, diet, etc;

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    1. Re:You have your own brick wall by Bazman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Of course it "helped". Its a "theatrical placebo". The more theatrical the placebo, the stronger the effect. Trials have shown that sticking pins in the accepted "acupuncture points" is as effective as sticking them any old place. So all the mumbo-jumbo about "chi" energies is just that.

      Surely if it "helped tremendously" you wouldn't be still going after ten years. And TCM was invented by Chairman Mao anyway

    2. Re:You have your own brick wall by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      I think that is what poster meant by "some may actually have some practical benefits for some illnesses". But when you take 'acupuncture helped me with back pain' and produce 'acupuncture cures everything!' you get the named holistic nut bar.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    3. Re:You have your own brick wall by ibpooks · · Score: 1

      I've been going to an acupuncturist for over ten years, and I can tell you without any hesitation it has helped me tremendously.

      Wow, and it's only taken 10 years of treatment?

    4. Re:You have your own brick wall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If 'alternative medicine' worked, it's be called 'medicine'.

      If they can't give you a peer reviewed study proving it works, it's bullshit. That is the basic level of veracity required. Alternative medicine is the equivalent of an 'I'm a prince from nigeria email'.

  38. Re:Annnd..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Historically, they're the ones who are anti-vax, anti-GMO, and anti-other things.

  39. Trusting in the establishment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am vaccinated, and my child is vaccinated, and overall I am in favor of vaccinations. What I am not in favor of is having the government require me to get vaccinated, specifically because of the chance of foul play. Corruption and greed are gaining a larger and larger hold on the US, and where there is money to be made, pharmaceutical companies will stop at nothing. I fear that doctors will start being bribed to push for untested and unproven vaccinations just because some drug company paid them a boat load of money to push the drug. Vaccines are great and have helped reduce/eradicate many diseases, but there is also a huge possibility for abuse.

    1. Re:Trusting in the establishment by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      pharmaceutical companies will stop at nothing.

      Are you aware that many pharmaceutical companies have stopped making vaccines because of the risk of lawsuits and the enormous price to insure against lawsuits? The combination of loonies and lawyers is capable of almost unlimited damage.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  40. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Ah, VacTruth.com articles, so very "informative". Thanks, Jenny.

  41. No by Pollux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I recognize that vaccinations save tens of thousands of lives every year: 100 deaths prevented from chicken pox; 400-500 deaths from measles; 1,000 from polio; over 15,000 from diphtheria. And let's not forget the millions of others who suffered from these diseases without dying. Without a doubt, vaccines have been one of the most brilliant inventions that have made an incredible positive improvement to the quality of life in our society.

    But our body is our own. Period. We cannot cross this line. If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

    And if we violate this tenant even in the name of vaccinations, it can be violated any other way "for the greater good." And that's a very, very dangerous precedent to make.

  42. I vote yes by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    As I would for any anti-technology personal objection that endangers public health or the environment. One example: we need to get rid of that "Wild Caught" label on fish. If fish depletion threatens the oceans, we need to eat more farmed fish. Maintaining standards for farm quality is just as vital, but is a separate issue.

    1. Re:I vote yes by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      You do realize that most farmed fish are fed primarily a diet of fish caught from the wild?

    2. Re:I vote yes by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Certainly, but all-vegetable diets exist also. I'm sure that our earliest experiments in land agriculture were filled with bad practices and dead villagers. Fortunately there were no Greenpeacers around at the time to lecture us on how we needed to give up before we got started because we were offending Mother Gaia. Instead we learned from these things, and moved on to be self-sufficient in food.

    3. Re:I vote yes by Moof123 · · Score: 1

      Farmed vs. Wild is a trickier issue than you seem to understand. Farmed salmon require feed in the form of ground up fish meal from other fish, making the net impact far from a clear cut win. Our shared resources, such as fisheries, really do need to be carefully managed for the long haul. Sadly a lot of evidence points to this being next to impossible to achieve until a fishery (or other resource) has already collapsed. Only once a group of interested parties can no longer deny the issue is there a chance to come up with a proper management plan.

      We need to encourage folks to eat lower on the food chain, and to adjust incentives to that end. A lot of subsidies need to be phased out, or adjusted to match the externalities of the product. Beef should be much more expensive, as should oil. But I am digressing from the topic at hand pretty badly...

  43. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It sounds an awful lot like elected representatives, providing their friends in big pharma a helping hand. Why I'm concerned?

    Over the last decade, evidence about toxicity of vaccines and side effects has come about that puts a serious question on the 'health' benefit of vaccinations especially on kids. If the question is between whooping cough for a kid and the possibility of autism (as examples) then I have some hard thinking and weighing to do. Do the benefits outweigh the costs in this?

    I'm not even touching the aspect that vaccinations have only worked because we've also improved our nutrition. It's a different flame bate for a different forum.

    Can the same elected officials provide controls and oversight of said vaccines and hold the pharma industry liable to their actions? So far doe snot look like it. Some yeah, this is not as simple as the above is claiming. The 'ludites' who avoid vaccines may have good cause and better information than what is otherwise provided...

  44. Parents Rights by Moof123 · · Score: 1

    How about we segregate out the non-vaccinated kids and send them all to separate schools that are just for un-vaccinated kids? The teachers can teach in full PPE to protect them, or maybe teach from behind a plexiglass wall. Maybe have a special fee to cover the hazard pay needed to outfit the teachers and retain them at the school to keep it revenue neutral for the community.

    It would satisfy the right to an education, and not step on a parents right to be choosy about vaccines. It would satisfy my rights as a parent of a vaccinated kid to go to school where his odds of getting something really nasty are no higher than they should be.

    1. Re:Parents Rights by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      Since the teacher could get vaccinated, and the vaccines are effective, why would he need to hide behind plexiglass? Or do you mean the glass protects the kids from whatever pathogens the teacher might carry?

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    2. Re:Parents Rights by plover · · Score: 2

      I know I'm feeding the troll, but vaccines aren't 100% effective. Little Johnny Pathogen could still be spewing out a virus he has no effective defense against.

      --
      John
    3. Re:Parents Rights by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

      No, you just choose teachers who aren't vaccinated.

      It's probably not cost effective to do so, though, so you may as well just prohibit them from attending public school if they're not vaccinated and call it a day.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    4. Re:Parents Rights by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      In addition, if somebody is NOT vaccinated (due to choice) and gets sick, I do not believe that insurance should have to cover any sickness. IOW, that individual or the parents should be held 100% accountable for their medical costs.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    5. Re:Parents Rights by Moof123 · · Score: 1

      Given that vaccines are good, but not bullet proof, I think it would be unfair to a teacher who's immunity may no longer be 100% to not be given an additional level of protection given the increased risk he/she has been surrounded by.

    6. Re:Parents Rights by markass530 · · Score: 1

      Just like every other medicine in the world, vaccines aren't 100% effective

    7. Re:Parents Rights by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      So I have just been reading. Still, a lot better than nothing

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
  45. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the biggest weakness of vaccines is that they were/are so effective. Do you think the anti-vaccine movement would have the strength it has now if polio, whooping cough, measles, etc were as prevalent today as they were pre-vaccines? Of course not. If there was a big threat that your kid could get these diseases at any moment and wind up dead or seriously injured, there would be lines to get vaccinated.

    Right now, we're dealing with small outbreaks of disease thanks to the anti-vaccine movement. Sadly, I think it will take a major epidemic before some people accept that vaccines not only prevent disease but that the disease is worse than any imagined "toxins" in the vaccines. I fear that many kids will need to die before the anti-vaccine movement goes away.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  46. Use social pressure, not gov't regulation by dbrueck · · Score: 1

    Instead of trying to make this be regulated and overtly forcing people to get vaccinated, it could be much more effective to try to address this via social pressure.

    Somehow in some places getting vaccinated has fallen out of favor - or at least not vaccinating is no longer seen as being a really bad idea. A coordinated campaign to change public opinion could do the trick, a combination of celebrity endorsements, news reports on how lack of vaccination is hurting the children, social media campaigns that get people to brag that their kids are vaccinated, etc.

    If you make it cool/positive to be vaccinated and backwards/dumb to not be vaccinated, the majority of this problem will go away. You'll always have the exceptions, sure, but I'd bet that with them you'd still be well above the herd immunity threshold, so who cares.

    We try to solve too many problems via regulation, and having the government force stuff on people comes with its own set of downsides, not the least of which is that people naturally resist anything you try to force them to do.

  47. Re:Useless attempt by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

    The immune response to disease is the same as that to the vaccine, that's why it works. The only additional response over a killed-virus vaccine you might have would be some T cell response due to having actual infected cells to kill. Incidentally that means that if they missed any cells due to only partial viral replication inside, your chance of getting cancer later in life ticked up a smidge.

  48. Re:Still not buying it by thaylin · · Score: 2

    Demonizing the innocent? I am sorry but someone who does not immunize themselves and their kids who causes an outbreak is not innocent. They are quite literally guilty of spreading a preventable disease that they know they could have prevented. It is more arrogant to think of yourself as above society, the same society that you depend on for survival.

    --
    When you cant win, ad hominem.
  49. Re:Freedom of choice by jbmartin6 · · Score: 2

    I would agree up to the point where the people banned from the schools are still forced at gunpoint to pay for them. Maybe a better long term solution would be to let non-vaccinators have their own schools, and then watch attendance plummet after the first disease runs through them. Or, if nothing happens, that can be a learning experience for the rest of us.

    --
    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
  50. Re:Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Non-vaccinated kids kill and cripple other kids. Do the children of others have less value than yours? You have a problem with your child. Deal with it. But don't be a monster and endanger the lives of others because of it. You should have the right to send a vaccinated child to public school. What you do with a child that is not vaccinated is your problem.

  51. Re: Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Says the guy who's afraid of vaccines and food.

  52. This is a trick question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is nothing but a trick question. The question that really needs to be asked is whether an "exemption" should have been offered in the first place.

    In this country, adults have a great number of responsibilities both for themselves and their families. Their choices are (or should be) based on the associated risks and rewards. For example: If I decided to drink alcohol and drive, there is a chance I might get pulled over and arrested, cause an accident, or worse. If I drink alcohol but do not drive, I might get a buzz but I also might kill my liver. These are the choices that mature adults make every day.

    With regards to vaccination, checking a box should not grant you a free pass from your obligations as a parent. If you don't want your child vaccinated, I don't want your child in school with mine. Thanks.

  53. Re:you're all insane. by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People used to die from smallpox. Now they don't. That's good enough evidence for me.
    How many deformed kids did you grow up with due to polio? Zero? Oh, me too. I wonder why that is.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  54. Collective vs. Individual by mi · · Score: 1

    herd immunity

    What a perfect term... One of the attractions of American way of life, in my opinion, is our tendency to value the Individual (however unreasonable) above the Herd (also known as Collective, however glorious).

    Yes, some times this approach fails — as seems to be the case now. But I'd rather we continued to err on the Individual's side — because the (glorious) Collective and The Greater Good cause much bigger problems of their own...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  55. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

    Every MD had it as a child? I am not agreeing with the parent's premise, just saying that your example doesn't contradict the statement that the MMR causes autism in a certain percentage of children.

    --
    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
  56. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by Millennium · · Score: 2

    No, they didn't. At our current level of understanding, you can't even test for autism at the ages when the MMR vaccine is typically administered, so there is frankly no way to trace the date that quickly.

    But even if you could trace the date, it wouldn't matter, because autism simply does not develop that quickly. If these children did indeed "turn autistic" within a day of receiving MMR, then the cause must have occurred weeks or even months prior: in other words, long before MMR was ever administered. There is no link here.

  57. Re:Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The articles cites a list of diseases on the rise, like whooping cough. None of these disease have required vaccinations.

    Whooping cough (pertussis, included in the Tdap vaccine) is a normal part of a rational vaccination program. My kids got the vaccine, which was required for entry into kindergarten*, and MD schools now require the booster for all 7th graders. So I think you're misinformed.

    *There is a religious exemption. Fortunately not too many nutjobs here.

  58. Re: Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody claims that vaccines are 100% effective. Perhaps you should reevaluate who is lacking logic in this scenario.

  59. Freedom! by Bonzoli · · Score: 2

    Passing laws to take away freedom is not the answer. Educate people and present solid non-biased analysis. Do you think those parents really understood the problems that could happen. Michigan has had poisoning(ddt), failed fluoride water, Nuke plants that disappeared(north of detroit), a new invasive species every week killing everything, massive poisoning of the water, Canadian Trash/medical waste that can't be stopped from coming in, self insured insurance laws(lobbies), and all other types of fun crazy things going on. In the mean time the state isn't exactly great when it comes to funding schools.

    I'm from Michigan and education in real analytical thinking for everyone is the big problem. Religions do not want it(what), certain political parties do not want it(guess), manufacturers do not want it(cheap labor), and many sellers of goods don't want it(profits).

    Teach them how to think and make their own choices based on facts and rational thinking. Right now you should all be saying where is the real education and why are we not informing them? Not new laws to take away more freedom.

    1. Re:Freedom! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because historical trends indicate that it will take generations to breed out that kind of pervasive ignorance, and the rest of us don't have that kind of time. The epidemic diseases aren't going to wait for them, either.

    2. Re:Freedom! by markass530 · · Score: 1

      DDT isn't poisonm it is something that has saved hundreds of millions of lives, and wtf do you mean "Failed fluoride water" ?

  60. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I echo the necessity of vaccines in the modern world as a necessary and effective tool for limiting infections and thereby human suffering, I am not a fan of abandoning basic freedoms just so we can all feel more secure. The law is very clear, the government shall not pass any law that infringes on the free exercise of religion. Thus, if vaccines are created that infringe on my freedom of religious expression, they have to pass a bar that is set pretty high before they can be enforced or have any hope of surviving a basic court challenge.

    Many of the arguments made about gun control are that we must ban all guns carried by citizens in public areas, because to have one present immediately raises the risk of violence to everyone in the immediate area. While there are wild differences between carrying a gun for protection, and the scientific certainty of disease prevention with vaccines, they do indeed share a parallel, to a degree.

    My final point is this:

    You said: "If you want to remain unvaccinated, do so in your own backwoods shack, away from us."

    If fail to see how any unvaccinated persons present any possible threat to yourself should you be vaccinated. How does an unvaccinated person present a risk to your health and welfare, if you cannot catch whatever they contracted due to their ignorance?

    I support the science behind all of this, because it is unquestionable. However, I worry for any society that wishes to abandon any semblance of freedom and personal choice, all of which involve risk, as it chases after every idealist utopian pipe dream in the name of safety. Freedom of choice involves risk. Eventually though, the only way to mitigate those risks is to remove those freedoms, just like some folks want to do with gun control.

    Something basic, fundamental, and precious is lost when we go about legislating away the freedoms of those we disagree with. It is well and good to talk about the possible risks we take on when we allow free expression, even expression that seems irrational to us, but that is not necessarily a reason to abolish free speech, and yes, religious speech, even up to not getting a vaccine, is free speech.

    I am not advocating one system over another, but I am just not so quick to quash all the risks in life, and therefore freedom, in the name of safety.

  61. Re:Here we go again... by TubeSteak · · Score: 2

    As we have increased the number of vaccines being given to children, we have also seen an increase in debilitating illnesses.

    We can't have a rational dialogue because you make statements like that one.

    Which debilitating illnesses?
    Is it possible that those "debilitating illnesses" have existed all along, but medicine didn't have a specific names for them and threw them into catchall categories?

    Yeah yeah, correlation does not prove causation but we can't even study at this point because anyone questioning is an "Anti Vac Whacko".

    Which correlations?
    Lots of time, money, and effort has been spent studying vaccines in the wake of Dr. Andrew "brought the medical profession into disrepute" Wakefield's original paper (which has since been retracted along with his UK license to practice medicine).

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  62. Time for another Big Project by Millennium · · Score: 1

    I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the best thing we could do for the public health is to start a project analogous to Apollo, but for autism: massively fund studies to nail down what causes autism (and, ideally, how to cure it) within ten years.

    My reasoning here has very little to do with autism itself, though finding the cause and (if possible) a cure would certainly be nice. My reasoning is that even though most antivaxxers don't find the no-proof argument ("there is literally no reason to believe that vaccines cause autism") to be compelling, most of them should find a counter-proof argument ("vaccines don't cause autism, because this other thing causes it") satisfying enough.

    The nice version of the consequences of this is that most antivaxxers should finally accept that they have been duped, which should boost the voluntary vaccination rate. The not-so-nice version is that with a counter-proof in hand, it should be possible to take those parents who still believe, deem them incompetent to decide on this issue, and administer the vaccinations anyway. Either way, the vaccination rate goes back up.

    1. Re:Time for another Big Project by plover · · Score: 1

      The problem is you are dealing with people who already refuse to participate in logical discussions. They have religious or other belief systems that teach them "facts come from this holy book and these people, not through discussion or science." They think applying logic means "we have a book, scientists have a book, therefore we both have equal basis for our points." They also have a poor grasp on the concepts of statistics, correlation, and causality, and usually can't explain the difference between a personal experience and a body of data.

      You will rarely win an argument with these people on a purely logical basis, and even if you do, it's often only temporary. They'll change their position back if their spiritual adviser tells them to.

      I wish it was different. I wish more people would learn and apply logic, instead of learning just enough fallacious logic for the sole purpose of defending their "beliefs". It's just the data shows a lot of people are a long way from improving.

      --
      John
    2. Re:Time for another Big Project by Millennium · · Score: 1

      The problem is you are dealing with people who already refuse to participate in logical discussions.

      I'm aware of that. I'm proposing a project like this precisely because we're dealing with people who refuse to use abstract logic. Give them something concrete -"we know X doesn't cause autism, because we know Y causes autism"- and most of them should cave. Even most fundamentalists will admit that the sky is not green, when you can take them outside and show them with their own eyes that it's blue.

    3. Re:Time for another Big Project by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Except that it's not a rational thing. Dr. Wakefield's original fraud blamed autism on the thimerosal in the vaccines, so he could sell his thimerosal-free vaccines. Since then, most First World vaccination is thimerosal-free, but we still have idiots believing that vaccines cause autism, regardless of the lack of medical studies, fraudulent or not, that say that.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  63. Stay away from you? Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want to remain unvaccinated, do so in your own backwoods shack, away from us.

    If you're vaccinated, then what the fuck are you worried about catching?

  64. Re: Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can relate. Unfortunately, decades of brainwashing and cluelessness of the general population regarding what vaccines do and how they are produced cannot be changed. So, fuck off and let me decide what I put in my body. You can have my vaccines - give them to your kids, it will surely prevent them from catching a cold in a kindergarten. That is what vaccines are for, right?

    In other news, slasdot has now degraded to being a website that feeds flame wars on controversial subjects. I suggest more ads to encourage people to quit a habit of checking now useless website daily

  65. I am okay with ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... a religious exemption because You at least need to demonstrate/articulate some semblance of religious belief and the basis for it in order to obtain the exemption and courts also have long held such claims can be challenged if insincere. Philosophical exemptions, however, have never had such requirements.

  66. Re:Lets not be lemmings here folks by bazorg · · Score: 1

    Hey... can we have some sources and explanations for all that please? Looks like serious accusations. Got to keep an open mind, you know?

    I for one need to keep an open mind to the possibility that the companies selling vaccines are the same that would sell the treatment. I have an open mind to the possibility that "chemicals" and "toxins" are dangerous in the wrong doses rather than as absolutely dangerous in all circumstances.I have an open mind to the possibility of herd immunity and immunisation from vaccines being false would mean that doctors and nurses would need constant treatment.

    It would be easy to dismiss antivaccination proponents as being dumb, and fear that giving attention offers credibility when none is deserved, but I'm giving AC a chance. Offer some proper evidence instead of FUD and we can have a useful discussion. Then you can show if you have an open mind or if that's something that only applies to people who disagree with you!

  67. Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A vaccine does not "cure" a virus. It allows your body to efficiently fight infections due to building of antibodies for that particular strain of infection.

    And we do have evidence that it WORKS. Measles, Chickenpox, SMALLPOX (worked so damn well that it is only existing in laboratory environments), polio (which is resurging due to not vaccinating). All of those are controllable, measurably so.
    We do have long-term data on vaccination side effects.

  68. Citation for German homeschooling ban by tepples · · Score: 2

    Otherwise [home schooling is] legal everywhere in the US.

    It's illegal in many countries outside the US, such as Germany, and US courts don't consider that reason enough for asylum.

    1. Re:Citation for German homeschooling ban by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      The courts don't, but there was political intervention in that case. Someone from the DHS got involved and declared that even though the family are technically in violation of the law, said law won't be enforced in this case. It appears the media coverage got them some friends in high places.

  69. Big Whooping cough deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My son has had whooping cough twice in the past, two years in a row. He was vaccinated against it. As was most of the schools that were sent home for a week because of it. Clearly the vaccinations against it don't work.

    1. Re:Big Whooping cough deal by plover · · Score: 2

      My son has had whooping cough twice in the past, two years in a row. He was vaccinated against it. As was most of the schools that were sent home for a week because of it. Clearly the vaccinations against it don't work in my child.

      I took the liberty of adding the words that were missing from your anecdote. You're welcome.

      I expect you should be pushing hard to ensure all the other children in your child's school are vaccinated so the herd immunity can help prevent future infections in your family. You've gotten lucky twice that your son wasn't seriously harmed, it would be truly tragic if he got it again from some deliberately unvaccinated child.

      --
      John
    2. Re:Big Whooping cough deal by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Really? Did your child die? Whooping Cough can and does kill kids. So, it is possible that your child's response was not strong, BUT, it would still protect him.
      And as was posted by plover, it is possible that your child had ZERO protection. If so, then it is very important that the rest of the herd be immunized. That is what protects your child.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  70. choice AND accountability by irrational_design · · Score: 1

    Along with the right to make choices, we need to emphasize the obligation to take responsibility for the consequences of those choices. You can choose not to vaccinate, but the consequence is you can't send your child to public school (or ideally to any public location, such as the library, though that would be difficult to enforce; hmm, no library card without an immunization form?). If you are willing to accept that consequence then go ahead and choose not to vaccinate.

    1. Re:choice AND accountability by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      No problem. Then you won't charge me taxes to cover your school right? Your school will fall apart quite quickly. It won't be public anymore.

      If you want to offer school for all, then that's what it is -- for all. You don't get to force anything more than taxes. You certainly don't get to assault and mutilate everyone as a result.

      Your solution to disease is vaccination. It's mine too. It would be wonderful (for us) if it were everyone's solution. We still don't get to force them to take our less-than-perfect solution.

    2. Re:choice AND accountability by shaitand · · Score: 1

      That's not how taxes work. You are paying taxes on revenue because a certain portion of every dollar earned is a loan against the public services required to generate the underlying wealth that dollar represents and you are the one who ended up with the benefit and therefore owes that debt. That's why the people who produce the most wealth but end up with the least pay less and the people who generate the least wealth and end up with the most pay more. Otherwise all the public services required by all those people who did the work to generate your revenue wouldn't get paid for, or worse, you'd get the benefit AND they'd be subsidizing your share of the debt.

      In the case of the property taxes used to pay for schools it's the same concept just more localized. You aren't paying for the school because you send your child to the school or you believe in it. You are paying for the school because the police who prevent a local gang from taking over your home and raping your wife and children went to public school and will be sending their children to it.

      See, they get have their children educated, you get to not have your property stolen and family raped and murdered by everyone stronger than you. What services you personally take advantage of is completely irrelevant to whether or not you owe your share of the cost because you use services that are provided by people who need those other services.

  71. Re:Still not buying it by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, I have not seen this is a while. A long and reasonably well written post where almost every sentence is factually wrong... Impressive.

    Logically, if the vaccine really does cure the virus, then the only people affected by an outbreak would be the unvaccinated.

    You really need a better understanding of how vaccines work. They do not cure shit. That is called a "cure." A vaccine increases resistance to a virus. This results in either not catching it, or having it pass more quickly. The amount of increase can vary with different people, and in very rare cases it does not increase resistance at all.

    But that's clearly not the case.

    Well, this statement is correct in it's assessment of your original statement.

    So we can't really know that it works as intended.

    Yes, we can and we do. On an individual level you can have a titer test to see if you have increased immunity. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline... On a global level, we can compare places with high rates of vaccination to low rates and see whooping cough explode in Michigan.

    We may have evidence that it sometimes works, but it certainly isn't a slam dunk of a technological advancement (as so many here imply every time it comes up) -- and yet we hear calls to force it on others as if it IS a slam dunk.

    It is not digital. It is not "Once in and never again." It causes an increase in immunity in the majority of the population. This results in either immunity or shorter and less sick times. That is known and proven. Also, herd immunity is known and proven, and is a "slam dunk."

    What we also don't have is long-term data on the side effects -- only an arrogant display of superiority.

    Yes we do. A couple hundred years, actually. The smallpox vaccine was created in 1796. Pertussis in 1927.

    You people aren't using logic to support your position.

    Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

    You're using intimidation.

    Well, the facts are intimidating, but it is not us making them facts.

    What I see here is hardly a noble call for the betterment of society.

    This is probably totally true. Perhaps you should look a little more.

    What I see is an arrogant, selfish display of superiority, and an utter disrespect for the basic human right of free choice.

    You really do find what you look for. If you try hard enough you can even believe that fury porn is normal.

    Instead of demonizing the innocent, why not make an honest donation to the multi-billion dollar businesses that produce and promote these vaccines?

    And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Or should I just stand on a chair and shout "Strawman! Strawman!"

    Put your money where your arrogant mouth is.

    I do. I pay for vaccines that are not covered by insurance.

  72. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by bazorg · · Score: 1

    I do have issues with the rate and ingredients of the vaccines that our state requires us to give our children

    That sounds fair if accompanied by some serious analysis. What were the quantities that you found would be acceptable and what was the basis for that decision? Were there quantities you decided to be adequate based on analysis or was it a matter of opinion?

    I'm having important discussions with my wife about this matter and I feel there is significant FUD being applied by the proponents of no-vaccination. It would be good to settle on what are the objective criteria or to admit that "keep an open mind" is something that "alternative medicine" proponents only demand from those who disagree with them.

  73. You got to watch out for these outbreaks! by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    When you actually look into the details of some of these outbreaks it isn't what it is sold as. In past outbreaks of whooping cough, most of the people getting sick and spreading it around were vaccinated. So the spread this news that there is an outbreak and we need more vaccination when the vaccination we already have isn't working anyway. It's just another ploy to take more freedoms away and force you to receive and pay for things whether you want them on not.

    --

    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  74. Didn't they learn from Texas? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you bother to read the article? The outbreak occurred there because a member of the congregation took a trip outside of the US, was infected, and brought it back to the US. While about 12 of those infected were not "fully immunized" (whatever that means) they weren't sure about the other 9. There is little evidence that the situation would be significantly different in any randomly chosen community in the US. Even the CDC only claims that a "majority" of those infected with measles are non-vaccinated. I have no doubt that vaccines have been a benefit to society, but when dealing with such small numbers (600 infections in 2014?) its hard to make a case for a national vaccination campaign and its impacts on millions (cost, time, side effects(headaches (1 in 3), stuffy nose, sore throat, joint pain (1 in 6), abdominal pain, cough, nausea (1 in 7), diarrhea (1 in 10), fever (1 in 100)).

  75. Perhaps a better approach by rolias · · Score: 1

    Why not allow all schools, daycares, babysitters, etc. to require up to date vaccinations before providing services?

  76. Re:Here we go again... by Vermonter · · Score: 1

    To be honest, I wasn't even considering the annual flu vaccine when I typed my response. I was talking about vaccines that you get as a young child that last for the rest of your life.

  77. Re:Not the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  78. Just stop screwing around with the messaging by quantaman · · Score: 1

    Who are the big three actually pushing the anti-vax message?

    Wakefield, a disgraced con-artist doctor.

    McCarthy, a former playboy model.

    Carrey, a formerly big comic actor.

    It's not exactly the A-list of public thinkers.

    The only reason they're successful is because they're the only ones willing to pull out the rhetorical big guns (think of the children! big bad pharma!), and everyone on the side of science is so damn respectful.

    It's time to start calling them out. Wakefield is a fraud who not only experimented on children and fabricated evidence for money but continues to build a career based on lying to keep people away from life-saving medicine.

    Carrey and McCarthy are the pinnacle of arrogance and ignorance. So confident in their own brilliance that they're willing to ignore thousands and thousands of scientists who are doing nothing but trying to help people.

    Things should be nasty, they should be treated with open and consistent scorn and mockery in the media every time they poke their heads up.

    Do that and this anti-vax BS goes away very quickly.

    --
    I stole this Sig
  79. Re:Here we go again... by Tipa · · Score: 2

    According to this study --> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/...

    The growth in childhood debilitating disease is overwhelmingly due to obesity, asthma, and ADHD. The last of which was only in the past decades recognized as an actual condition. Asthma is related to obesity, and obesity is related to kids not being as active as they once were, perhaps because sending your kid out to play can get you arrested and your child taken away from you.

  80. Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Your kid is unfortunately a statistical outlier with bad reactions to the vaccines. Shit happens. It is unfortunate. Fortunately, if everyone that does not react badly gets vaccinated, your kid will be protected by herd immunity.
    Vaccines protect even those that cannot (NOT WILL NOT) get vaccinated.

    Your reaction is idiotic, fear-based, and paranoid. If you cannot (or your kid cannot) get vaccinated, you should be trying your damnedest to protect said kid by getting everyone protected before, but no, you went the other way. You are extremely silly, and if it weren't due to vaccines being so goddamn important, I would laugh instead of be sad.

  81. Re:Not the real problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  82. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They didn't "turn" autistic. They were always autistic, probably unpreventably so, and they just happened to start showing symptoms (as their brains kept developing, as brains are wont to do in early childhood) at the same age when kids are recommended to receive the MMR vaccine. Have you done an investigation into children whose parents opt out of the vaccine, to see what percentage develop autism symptoms anyway?

  83. Re:Not the real problem by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/6/diseases-still-problem-illegal-immigrant-families/?page=all

    http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2014/07/illegal-alien-minors-spreading-tb-ebola-dengue-swine-flu/

    Most of the citations, alas, are in the right wing media, but the left wing media mostly buries the story.

    It does make perfect sense, many illegal aliens come from countries without mandatory vaccination, many come from countries with exotic tropical diseases. Diseases are popping up where there are concentrations of illegal aliens: big cities, border towns, and places where the Obama administration has shipped bunches of new arrivals.

    ****** It takes 2 things for an attack against the United States to be successful: disarmament and an attacker. This applies both to warfare and disease. *******

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  84. Re:Annnd..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Good, good, let the hate flow through you! Feel the power of the Dark Side! Use your hate, grasp it's power, feel it course through your veins, let it fill your soul. Destroy the unbelievers, crush those who dare disagree, compassion is for the pathetically weak! Your liberalization is complete.

  85. Re:Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can do the work to find statistics on vaccines and illnesses, there is enough there to at least start forming an opinion

    Well, firstly, stop forming opinions on that basis. There are all kinds of possible reasons for rises in illnesses which have nothing to do with vaccines. You can't just look at two upward curves and say, hey, look at that, I must start forming an opinion now. You either know something, or you don't know something. A partly formed opinion based on circumstantial evidence is 100% worthless, in fact it's worse than worthless because you pollute the debate with half-assed bullshit.

    You can also do the work to find the problems with the reporting system, and that very few cases of complications from a vaccine ever get into the system.

    Oh, right, so when we look at the reporting system and find that there are few reported complications from vaccines then you'll say "aha, that's because the reporting system is broken, really there are tons more cases" ... except if the reporting system is broken you have no idea how many more cases, and the only evidence you have that the system is broken is anecdotal and therefore inadmissible to anyone with any sense.

    You can further talk to doctors who are not pro-vaccine

    So you seek out doctors who are anti-vaccine, and talk to only them, ignoring all the doctors who are not anti-vaccine, because you like to select your evidence to match your pre-existing conclusion.

    One day I hope we can have rational dialogue on the subject

    Once you've learned how to sample evidence correctly maybe we can.

    if you read the posts here you will see it's quite impossible at present

    Yes indeed.

  86. Re:Still not buying it by plover · · Score: 1

    Vaccines don't cure diseases; that's not how they work. They only teach your immune system how to fight the disease without exposing you to a lethal dose, which is why they give you a "weakened strain" or a "killed virus". Because of this, vaccines are almost never 100% effective. Sometimes they are so weak your body doesn't learn how to fight, or sometimes your body isn't capable of fighting. Some vaccines are only 40-60% effective. Efficacy also depends on other factors, including whether or not the disease you're exposed to is close enough to the antibodies the vaccine caused you to produce. And there are about 10% of the population who physically cannot get vaccinated, due to allergies or pre-existing health reasons.

    In epidemic diseases, particularly those that readily mutate like influenza, it's hoped the vaccine is effective enough on enough people to keep the spread contained or manageable. A 90% vaccination rate is barely enough to convey herd immunity.

    On the other hand you've got ignorant pop stars, preachers, and pandering politicians who promote non-scientific claims from a discredited researcher about vaccines causing autism in toddlers. By allowing those 20% of extremely stupid people to excuse themselves out of the herd, it's become tough to protect the rest of us. If the flu vaccine has only a 60% chance of protecting you should you become exposed, and the herd is unprotected, you still have a chance of dying from flu, even with a flu shot.

    As for the rest of your post, there is a tremendous amount of experience and data on vaccines. They know the types of side effects, the rates of side effects, the rate of allergic reactions to the components, and can even predict the expected efficacy of each vaccine. They also know the expected mortality rate of the vaccines, and it's pretty easy to compare that to the mortality rate of the diseases they control. If the vaccine kills 1 in 3000000 people, and the flu kills 1 in 300 people (or 1 in 6, like the Spanish influenza of 1918), what do you think the ethical choices for a society are? Let the superstitious people kill off a bunch of us?

    --
    John
  87. Re:Lets not be lemmings here folks by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    I would assume it is the same as "Vaccines have never been tested." BS that Jenny McCarthy was spewing. Someone should have called her out on that. It's one thing to say that you don't think vaccines are safe enough, it's another to deny that any testing was done before a vaccine was issued. It's not like it is hard to get the studies if you looked.

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  88. Re: Fuck You by Assmasher · · Score: 1

    Look at all the anonymous cowards...

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  89. Re:you're all insane. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    And your answer to it is?

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  90. Re:you're all insane. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In this case though, there's a direct causal relation. Measurable.
    Polio is gone in areas where polio vaccine is administered. Polio is coming back in areas where the vaccination efforts have been disrupted or interrupted for whatever reason.

    Sure. If you can find a way to unlink them (because you know, correlation is not causation), please, please share it. Do show that polio rate diminishing is not related to polio vaccines. Then go and pick up a nobel prize.

  91. Re:Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .... I can't tell. I really can't tell. Is this an extremist post, or a parody of an extremist post? Poe's Law in full effect...

  92. Re:Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccin by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but the vaccinated people can carry the bacteria and spread it to others without even knowing. The people who don't get vaccinated know they have it and can stop spreading it around. Also, once you get sick for real, you are immune for life. The vaccine wears off after ten years and you can get sick anyway.

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    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  93. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that's no way to speak of illegals, you racist. They need a home too.

  94. What are the chances those on the side of force by pecosdave · · Score: 1

    as in forcing children to get the vaccines or incur penalties are the same ones who are demanding we leave our borders completely unchecked. As in allowing unvaccinated people to walk in unregistered and do as they please in our our country. So it's okay to force our own people to do it, but it's racist to expect other people in our borders to do it.

    Time to learn some objectivity here!

    Slashdot used to be a nice place to discuss technical things, it's slowly started taking on a pro-big-brother attitude.

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    1. Re:What are the chances those on the side of force by skam240 · · Score: 1

      You're literally making things up.

      Rather then address every point i'll just stick with pointing out Mexicans have excellent vaccination rates
      http://www.unicef.org/infobyco...
      As do most other Latin Americans.

      Please dont muddy the waters with an unrelated and highly partisan issue.

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    2. Re:What are the chances those on the side of force by pecosdave · · Score: 1

      The entire subject is muddied and partisan. I'm pointing out fallacies, you're jumping on a partisan bandwagon. Since you're sighting a pro-globalist source, so will I.

      http://www.abc15.com/news/nati...

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      The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
    3. Re:What are the chances those on the side of force by skam240 · · Score: 1

      Sorry for the late reply but...

      A) your linked to article does not mention a single disease that can be prevented with inoculation and is thus irrelevant.
      B) I'm jumping on the partisan band wagon? How is that? All I did was point out that illegal immigration was irrelevant in the context of the forced inoculation debate. I didn't even voice an oppinion on the overall subject.

      You're making things up again.

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  95. No profit from vaccinations? by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 1

    If we are going to legally mandate vaccinations, it seems that vaccinations should be absolutely free as well as the checkups that go along with them.

    1. Re:No profit from vaccinations? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      They are, at least in the civilised world.

    2. Re:No profit from vaccinations? by TheBilgeRat · · Score: 1

      Heh! US not included.

  96. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do not get a property/school tax rebate if you choose to send your child to private school, to homeschool your child, or to lock your child in a closet all day. It's a generally applicable tax. They are only being "forced at gunpoint to pay for [schools]" in the same manner as the rest of the citizenry, not as a result of their anti-vaccination beliefs.

    Sure, you could allow charter schools and vouchers to support those beliefs. But we shouldn't. Vaccination laws should not be altered simply to allow parents to make arbitrary or scientifically-unsupported choices. Those laws are there to protect children who have neither the capacity nor the ability to overrule their parents.

    The day a child who's turned 18 sues his or her parents for contracting a preventable disease/illness with lasting effects because they negligently failed to vaccinate him or her is going to be a grand wake up call for the movement. It will happen, and it won't be trivially disposed of based upon "We're the parents and we think vaccination is bad."

  97. Re:Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccin by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    That is not how viruses work. If you are immunized the virus gets killed by your immune system and you do not become a "carrier".

    Also, yeah, a lot of vaccines need boosters or reapplied. It isn't a conspiracy, it just needs updated. If you don't get the booster, you run the risk of getting the disease and dying.

    So you are saying, what, because some vaccines Are not permanent, why bother getting it?

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  98. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1, Insightful

    there are most likely strong positive benefits to vaccinations in general (although to be fair, and probably to the surprise of many people, if you look at the multi-decade trend data, in theory, the declines in infection could easily be attributable to simple things like generically better hygiene. the statistical significance is far from absolute.)

    the larger problem though is not with all vaccinnes per se', but with what vaccines have become NOW, versus even 10-15 years ago. there are BIG changes that have dirty fingerprints all over them.

    only real solution (or at least the beginning of one) would be to have truly independent studies done on the linkages between vaccinnes and any number of disease/disorders that have been very strongly linked. the more you learn about the FDA, USDA, big pharmaceutical companies, and their legal exemptions from prosecution, the money's involved.. etc, the more you realize how obvious it is that there are real dangers and risks being passed along to the unwitting public in the interests of $.

    before a study like that could happen, awareness needs to be raised, which is difficult in the face of such a full-on propoganda assault. the fact that my comment got downmodded to troll SO quickly, is telling. never mind the fact that i have a gazillion + points here and was not an AC. (although, i was admittedly abrasive, so that part is definitely my bad). i would definitely recommend the documentary i mentioned as a starting point, but simply point out that there are PLENTY of highly-intelligent people raising the issues i am, which the media/general-public are only too quick to slap with a demeaning label in what are effectively little more than ad-hominem attacks.

  99. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    It does greatly bother me that the source of some vaccines are aborted fetuses.

    And what is your exact objection here? Some of the cell lines that can be used to test vaccines may come from fetuses 40 years ago. But vaccines are not the only things they use those lines for and not all vaccines use the same lines. However, it is not the same as using fetuses to source the vaccine.

    Now I will never know the events that led to nor can I fully comprehend the difficulty of such a decision that led to them becoming aborted fetuses, but that is still a life lost in my eyes and I am not comfortable in benefiting from it.

    Remember the cell lines are derived from fetuses from 40 years ago; fetuses are not actually used. My best explanation is that they were discarded tissue (no owner) and the easiest to obtain. Also they are embryonic cells which may make some testing easier.

    --
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  100. As Stupid as anti-vaxxers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Surprise, surprise, the state is now in the midst of a whooping cough outbreak.

    Surprise, surprise, the resurgence of whooping cough isn't due to anti-vaxxers ... yet. It's due to acellular pertusis vaccine losing its effectiveness with time and not stopping those infected from transmitting the virus. But, by all means, go on with the alarmism so that when the cause really needs to be taken seriously no one will believe it.

  101. bad precedent, better alternative by silfen · · Score: 1

    This debate isn't about health or religion, it's about power. You can see this by noting that the debate isn't weighing the cost and benefits for specific vaccines, it's about vaccine requirements in general, requirements that can likely be increased simply through regulation based on the vote of some panel. It's about whether society can force you to have substances injected into every citizen because a few government experts decide that it's the right thing to do.

    Sometimes we don't have a choice to force people to do things with their body against their will, but that is an extreme measure. A much simpler way of achieving the same goal is to give individual employers, schools, towns, and communities the right and ability to require documentation of vaccination to allow your presence on premises. That achieves pretty much the same goal as a universal vaccination requirement, but it is far less draconian.

    Although such restrictions achieve pretty much the same goal, they are rooted in the principle of freedom of association. Freedom of association is a good principle that we should uphold because it's a democratic and distributed principle of government. The principle that government can inject stuff into anybody's body at any time because some panel says it's a good thing to do is a bad principle, because it is centralized and prone to abuse.

    (Forced vaccination is also not all that effective in achieving what its proponents claim. If you are in a population with a suppressed immune system, widespread vaccination will not protect you from disease, for the reason the article mentions: vaccinations are not completely effective anyway, and outbreaks happen even in completely vaccinated populations. In addition, there are many other diseases we can't vaccinated against. So, anybody at risk needs to control their exposure to other people anyway and no vaccination mandate is going to change that.)

  102. Nobody by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just as if your child was born with Spina Bifida or was hit by lightning.

    But if you have a predeliction for bad reaction, then you DO NOT want others who have NO problem with taking the vaccine (biologically speaking) not being immunised because "they don't want to". Because those people can be carriers of the disease and thereby give it to you or your child and kill them.

    The percent of people who have a bad reaction is in the few percent AT MOST, and likely in the fractions of a percent. At that rate, the herd immunity almost guarantees the extinction of the disease.

    More than a few percent is enough to keep the problem around.

    And kill your children.

  103. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    i am not arguing that polio vaccines are bad. few if any 'anti-vaccers' actually do. the argument you are presenting is very much the result of a manufactured attempt to obfuscate the much more nuianced issues (albeit VERY important) with a smokescreen of the 'seemingly' obvious.

    i in no way mean to imply that you are deliberately misrepresenting anything - just that the indoctrination is so deep - touching on all our heartstrings of 'save the children'.

    let's ask the question another way - if you are Pfizer, and your goal is to make $.. and know that to even QUESTION whether vaccines are necessary causes one to be ostracized, doesnt it seem like an easy money maker to keep adding (and selling) more and more 'stuff' ALL in the same one shot?? Who's going to call you on it? anyone that DOES you just say is anti-vaccine!

    well guess what. look at the ingredients and what's happened over the last 15 years. (answer: THAT).

  104. Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by holophrastic · · Score: 1, Troll

    I am vaccinated, and believe it to be the best course of action, but that is hardly the point.

    There is no way in hell that any government is going to demand that I stick anything into my body, let alone my child's body. And, if anyone were to try to pierce my skin, or the skin of my loved one, self-defense will cover my tearing them limb from limb.

    Make no mistake, these people do not "endanger the lives of everyone else with their views". The virus endangers lives. These people's views merely inhibit everyone else from benefiting from currently-available medical prevention opportunities, which apparently aren't even "100 percent effective".

    If you don't support someone else having control over their own blood, and the blood of their children, then you're for slavery, imprisonment, unlawful confinement, the crusade, and forced conversions of all kinds.

    If you're upset with the promotion of mis-information, then stop its publication. Let me know how that goes for you.

    You don't get to tell me what to put into my blood, and you don't get to tell me what I can say to my friends. Welcome to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

    You want to split public schools into two buildings, that's cool. You want to restrict some children from public school, that's no longer public.

    I'm so sorry; but you don't get to solve your problems by piercing someone else's skin. It's just that simple. It doesn't matter if that's what will work. It doesn't matter if that's the only thing that will work. You just don't get to do it. It's physical assault. It's bodily mutilation. You need permission.

    1. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by plover · · Score: 1

      I'd agree with you except for one very small detail. A virus pierces your cell walls without your permission. And you shed viruses on other people without asking them for their permission. It's not a choice anyone makes, it's simply a fact of how viruses replicate.

      If there was any practical way to stop the process prophylactically, without requiring you to get a shot, I'd say go for it. Wear a giant condom over your body. Sit in the "unvaccinated section" of a restaurant, or a bus. But really, those other solutions just aren't practical or even very effective. Vaccines are.

      Allowing people the freedom of choice is effective at protecting society only when enough people arrive at the rational conclusion. But too many people confuse decision making with rhetoric-spewing actors and pandering politicians, and they confuse the "right to avoid vaccination" with the mistaken idea that "vaccines are some kind of government plot and should be avoided". And it's now getting so bad that the rest of us are no longer safe in their presence.

      As a society, we pass lots of laws that infringe upon our rights: we don't each have the individual right to murder other people, or rob them. We don't have the right to drive drunk; even if we haven't hurt anybody, as a society we've agreed we don't like the risk. Well, I don't like the risk that unvaccinated people pose to me, and I don't think anyone has the right to run around shedding potentially lethal microbes when an effective preventative solution exists.

      --
      John
    2. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      Wow, that actually went far more coherent than I was expecting.

      So I'll push your very same argument one step further, which continues to align our two ever-closening (closening?) arguments:

      I think we can both agree that allowing a human to pierce skin without permission is, in a lot of ways, significantly scarier than a virus doing so.

    3. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by tbannist · · Score: 1

      There is no way in hell that any government is going to demand that I stick anything into my body, let alone my child's body. And, if anyone were to try to pierce my skin, or the skin of my loved one, self-defense will cover my tearing them limb from limb.

      Am I allowed to pre-emptively kill you and your unvaccinated disease-machine children before you infect me and mine? I really want to know, because according to your philosophy, "self-defence will cover tearing [you] limb from limb" afterwards, but I'd rather do it before I get sick.

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      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    4. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by holophrastic · · Score: 1

      direct vs indirect. opposites. so you're wrong, instead of right.

    5. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by plover · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid I have to disagree with you on that point. The virus has no "motive", it has only the genetic predisposition to achieve successful reproduction. The humans, on the other hand, have the motive of protecting society, and the responsibility to do so safely. We may be less than perfect on our implementation, but "do no harm" is at the top of the list. The virus does not have any such interest, and death of the host is a perfectly acceptable outcome for a virus.

      Do I mistrust the humans doing the vaccinations? Generally not in this country today, but in pre-AIDS Africa, forced vaccinations there were a terrifying prospect. Army units traveled the rivers by boat, and they would stop you to see your vaccination papers. If you weren't vaccinated, they jabbed the needle in your arm on the spot. They'd ask the next person for papers, and would jam the exact same needle in the next guy's arm!

      If our programs were that badly run, I'd not only agree with you, I'd take up arms myself. But they're not.

      Here, vaccination programs are stellar successes. Polio? Smallpox? Gone, thanks to strong vaccination programs. And most vaccinations are administered by private clinics, who can be sued into oblivion for making any mistakes. They take care with each patient. I trust them.

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      John
    6. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by tbannist · · Score: 1

      I don't see the distinction you're trying to make. They're directly helping you and you're indirectly hurting people? They're injecting you with an inactive harmless version of the disease that will protect you, while you're infecting other people with an active harmful version of the disease that may kill them. In either case, the sanctity of someone's body is being violated and it seems to me that what you're doing is worse in every way that matters. Therefore, if they deserve death, you deserve it more.

      Also what's your stand on inhalable vaccines? If you're not injected, but instead required to breath in the vaccine does that make a difference to you? Are you still allowed to murder people for violating your body or is it hunky-dory because it's not "piercing someone else's skin"?

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      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    7. Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      So what's the difference between the needle and your child's pathogens? Apart from one being done for good reasons and the other through some inflated sense of self awesomeness and a refusal to listen to actual medical advice...

  105. an issue of terminology by mothlos · · Score: 1

    "Philosophical" exemptions are, in effect, no different from religious exemptions, it simply words things to be more understanding of non-"religious" beliefs. To target philosophical exemptions is to hold supernatural philosophies higher than naturalistic philosophies, a road we should probably avoid.

  106. Horrible Idea by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    In this day and age where you pretty much need to be living in a hole in the ground, without internet access, to not know what sininster sort of stuff your government gets up to, this argument is ridiculous. We know that the government us not above secret medical testing on its own citizens, we know they are not above breaking every one of your legal rights if they can get away with it, we know they care more about maintaining their own power than your life or liberty. So why would anyone willingly give up the legal right to refuse an injection?

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    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  107. Re:Useless attempt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are so many layers of stupid in this comment I don't know where to start.

    Firstly - The "flu vaccine" is not meant to be an across the board vaccine for all flu strains - there are simply too many for that to be viable. What happens is that at the start of production they identify the top 3-4 strains they think will be prevalent (based on data gathered from past years etc) and the vaccine is built around those strains. This year another strain has proven to be particularly virulent and was not predicted as one of the strains to come to the forefront this year. As a result the vaccine is LESS EFFECTIVE it does still provide a measure of protection, even against the strain currently doing the rounds.

    Second - your immune system isn't a muscle, you can't "work it out" and make it stronger. What you can do is prime the system by either a) Being exposed to the virus once before through actually having the disease or b) Introducing a small amount of the virus (or part of it) in the form of a vaccine. This means that the next time your body encounters that particular pathogen it will mount a much strong defense and faster than if you had never been exposed to it.

    But hey - you have a REAL MUSCLE immune system, might I suggest you go and act as a carer in the Ebola wards in Africa. I am sure they would appreciate the help and your lean mean immune machine is sure to laugh at the virus.

  108. Paging Mr Smith by laurencetux · · Score: 1

    Home School Legal Defense is working on fixing that. in fact if you do not at least monitor the HSLDA website and you homeschool (in the US) then YOU ARE A MORON

  109. Not good enough. by westlake · · Score: 1

    I was thinking if you take the exemption and subsequently infect someone you have liability for medical expenses, or criminal liability in the case of death.

    I want my kids to live --- not compensation for their death.

    Which, by the way, would be almost impossible to link to any single individual ---

    even given the relatively simple and modest demands a plaintiff must meet in order to win in a civil case.

  110. Re:Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccin by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

    If you don't get the booster, you run the risk of getting the disease and dying.

    Nice way to fall for the lies. Everything is just soo dangerous and trying to kill you. The terrorists are full of these diseases and we must let the TSA inject shit into everybody who walks down the sidewalk.

    So you are saying, what, because some vaccines Are not permanent, why bother getting it?

    According to the CDC's site: Even though children who haven't received DTaP vaccines are at least 8 times more likely to get pertussis than children who received all 5 recommended doses of DTaP, they are not the driving force behind the large scale outbreaks or epidemics. However, their parents are putting them at greater risk of getting a serious pertussis infection and then possibly spreading it to other family or community members. So it isn't the unvaccinated that are the problem.

    In a study done by Oxford University for all pertussis outbreaks in San Rafael California between March and October 2010, 81% were completely up to date on their vaccinations, 8% were unvaccinated, and 11% were partially vaccinated. So people are hyping up the fear for something that isn't even the problem. If you want a prevention, then you need to focus on making a better vaccine, not forcing more people to take risks for something that is ineffective.

    That is not how viruses work. If you are immunized the virus gets killed by your immune system and you do not become a "carrier".

    And here we have a completely ignorant statement from someone who wants to tell me what to put into my body. Here are some links to the evidence that you do become an unknown carrier after getting the pertussis vaccine. Acellular pertussis vaccines protect against disease but fail to prevent infection and transmission in a nonhuman primate model and Whooping Cough Study May Offer Clue on Surge

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    -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
  111. Not all Vaccines are equal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some, everyone should get, MMR, Polio, Hepatitis where it's needed, etc. Maybe HPV now too. What I'll call "real" vaccines.

    Then there's the flu. It's a bloody crapshoot. Seems very hit and miss. I'd rather get sick once in a blue moon and let the antibodies build naturally than buy into that crap....

    Then there's the bits that are obviously just pharma trying to get rich. Chicken Pox?! Are you fucking kidding me? Fun fact, kids have started getting shingles on a much more frequent basis since that nonsense came about. No I'm not going to play war of the sources on this... plenty on each side of the argument. (Know several toddlers who've had to endure this now...)

    Asinine black and white thinking in either posture gets us nowhere. Like the OP, like McCarthy... two sides of the same coin I'm afraid.

  112. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The exclusions would include those who DO NOT refuse because of religious or personal preference but those who cannot safely use the immunisation process. E.g. the very young and those with a genetic problem in dealing with the shot (which can merely be because they are so virulently affected by the real virus that the neutered form is dangerous).

    In other words, those who merely DECIDE they won't take it are killing those who HAVE NO CHOICE.

  113. Missing part of argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm all for processing facts to form a rational opinion and it seems on the face of it that vaccination is the only rational answer. I'm a new parent as of 2 years ago and prior to that, I'd have agreed with the general consensus that we all need to be vaccinated for the benefit of the community. But I'm now firmly in the camp of "Whoa, whoa. Please explain to me why I need to pump all these foreign agents into my child's body."

    I have a BS in math and an MS in financial engineering and I'd like to think that I respect the scientific method and think and act rationally.
    Here are just some of the things I've been contemplating.
    1. When ever I've asked one of several doctors (except for one, my kid's current pediatrician) why do I need to do this? The response has been that it is recommended by the American Association of Pediatrics. This tips me off that the dr. doesn't know. They are just following the stock standard recommendations.

    2. Why do we vaccinate for Hep-B? Hep-B is primarily a problem for IV drug users and prostitutes. These groups are also among the most difficult to get to volunteer for a vaccination program. The idea was that if we vaccinate everyone at birth then we guarantee to get all future IV drug users and prostitutes. Solid logic and the program was started up. Problem was that the program was started prior to anyone evaluating how long these vaccines lasted. Turns out, the current regimen for Hep-B doesn't protect against Hep-B past adolescence and another round will have to be implemented to protect into adulthood. Why then vaccinate my baby? This is an example of logic and study not being respected prior to implementing a vaccination program.

    3. So now I have a solid example of the American Association of Pediatrics recommendation not aligning with what is right and good for my child, not to mention the community. This one example that I can clearly express is one among many examples of the medical community not making sense in their recommendations. I believe the medical community even stated that x-rays were safe for everyone at some point in time. My point is that I have a legitimate reason to doubt the recommendations of the medical community. And when it comes to my children, I have at least a reason to look deeper into why I should or shouldn't vaccinate my children.

    4. My child had a reaction to his 2-month vaccination. Severe redness, pigmentation, fever, and behavioral changes. At first, my wife and I doubted ourselves and what we were observing. We pushed forward and got the 4-month vaccinations... same result. We were very concerned. We immediately slowed down the administration of all vaccines and eliminated some of them. In fact, the documentation for the vaccinations everyone receives (but I doubt reads) says that you SHOULD NOT vaccinate your child if they've had a reaction. This simple advice right on the vaccine documentation is missed by most. Sure, there is a small chance that your/my child could have a tragic reaction to a vaccine. But we believe the risks are offset by the benefit of increased immunity to the targeted disease. However, when your/my child has already had a reaction that probability shifts. It shifts to such a degree that the vaccine documentation tells you not to vaccinate your/my child. But the dr.s don't want to hear this or tell you this. You have to do your own homework and look out for yourself. My 2nd child has had no issues because we have been taking vaccinations very slow.

    5. The way vaccines are administered are not consistent with how they are studied. Incorrect conclusions are drawn about the risks to your/my children when administering vaccines.

    I don't have the time to type everything I want to say. I did just want to point out that there are rational reasons to not trust the scientific and medical communities stock standard recommendations on vaccines. I'm on firm legal footing to not vaccinate my child as he's already had a reaction. But I can appreciate other's mistrust and hesitance. It isn't fair to judge them for being afraid just because they don't have the capacity to articulate why they are afraid.

    1. Re:Missing part of argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First, the fact that you post AC, says that you are already a liar. If you are moderating, then you could have simply put your login on the bottom. You obviously know that since your post is so full of shit, that you do not want to trash your ID. I will post similarly so that you do not go after me.

      1) he gave a short answer because the real answer is LONG AND INVOLVED and docs rarely have the time to indulge idiots. So by saying that a prestigious group which has his backing, he is telling you that can run out to their site and see all of the answers that you need.

      2) Hep-B is NOT a disease of hookers and drug users. It is a very large issue for CHILDREN. It is spread via fluid exchange. when an unknown infected kid is on playground and gets a cut, another kid puts their hand on the blood, and they have their own paper cut (without a bandage). Hep-B is a real killer of kids, though hookers/drug users are also exposed on the side (but they are exposed to just about everything).
      The virus is transmitted by exposure to infectious blood or body fluids. Infection around the time of birth or from contact with other people during childhood is the most frequent method by which hepatitis B is acquired in areas where the disease is common.
      This was right up at the top. A simple google and wiki would have shown you a bit more. So much for your belief in science methodology.

      3) well, right there, you posted a bunch of false assumptions which shows that you are not capable of figuring things out rationally. And sadly, this premise is SO far off base that it shows what a fool you are. The medical community DID say that LIMITED exposures to X-rays were safe. But, they did not know what those limits where. However, the mis-use of x-rays was not by medical community, but by business people who wanted a fast buck. You know, those that were 'financial engineers' of their time. You did not even have to look deep to find out simple answers. Sadly, you have obviously not even bothered to google for facts

      4) If your child had an ALLERGIC reaction to the vaccines, then yes, you should stop them. However, it is VERY common to have reactions to vaccines, esp. if they are attenuated (live) vaccines. BUT, you were told that if your child had more than a fever or a reddening in the area to bring the child back to their docs. Did you do that? I doubt it. Or if you did, the doc probably said that it was the normal immune response to fighting off the antigens.

      5) study after study after study has been done on all this. Over in Europe, they are getting ready to extend their vaccine levels to what America has. Why? Because it has been shown that these save lives. Simple as that. It is idiots like you and mccarthy that costs lives.


      Hopefully, some day, the state will take your children away from you. You are a horrible parent. You obviously have no sense of logic and are a total liar. At the very least, it is long past time to require that only real medical reasons be allowed for avoiding the vaccines, or at least isolate those that will not vaccinate. It is not fair to those that really can not vaccinate, or where their body does not have the right antibodies.

    2. Re:Missing part of argument by n6kuy · · Score: 1

      > First, the fact that you post AC, says that you are already a liar.

      So why should I bother to read the rest of YOUR reply? You posted as AC too!

      --
      If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
  114. I have used the exemption by maxwells_deamon · · Score: 1

    Yes but I am not a nut, here is why we did it.

    We had a foster child and kept his shots up to date.
    When adopted, all his medical records were sealed and under his old name
    The next year the state would not allow him to start school without the records
    His doctor (who had given him the shots and knew he was up to date said we should not just give him a second set)
    so we signed the exemption to get him back in school

    he was never out of date but on paper he was

  115. Remember Thyself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some choose to "solve" their perceived problems and worries by looking to the outside for aid - continuously filling their bodies with chemicals prescribed by those who KNOW not one, as well as one knows oneself. They seek to artificially balance themselves into temporary states of homeostasis, creating fear within - simply by looking outside the present moment into a 'future' world of potential infinity, in order to solve a self-proclaimed problem that hasn't yet arisen... Others choose to look within, to know themselves and remember that they are eternal beings and conscious co-creators - capable of anything they choose to focus their energies upon.

    There is no death, only change.
    The only fear that exists comes from within.
    There is no dis-ease for those who remember their true nature.
    It is all but a choice... Do you remember who you are, and why you are here?

  116. Re:Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some people are allergic to some antibiotics, and taking the wrong one can kill you. So therefore antibiotics are part of an FDA plot to kill you, and anyone who says you should take antibiotics for bacterial diseases are spreading ignorance and fear?

    Look, it's awful that your kid had a bad reaction, and I hope everything worked out okay. But please don't conflate that with the effectiveness of vaccines, or their safety for almost everyone.

    Plus, NO ONE arguing for everyone getting vaccines is saying that we shouldn't allow medical exemptions for cases like yours. If your child can't get the vaccine, we want them to be protected from horrible, sometimes fatal, but completely preventable diseases by everyone else getting the vaccine.

  117. Are acupuncture points related to referred pain? by tepples · · Score: 2

    The nervous system sometimes groups pain sensations across large parts of the body. Perhaps the accepted points are just points in a particular group that happen to be easy to access.

  118. Re:Freedom of choice by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

    While I echo the necessity of vaccines in the modern world as a necessary and effective tool for limiting infections and thereby human suffering, I am not a fan of abandoning basic freedoms just so we can all feel more secure. The law is very clear, the government shall not pass any law that infringes on the free exercise of religion. Thus, if vaccines are created that infringe on my freedom of religious expression, they have to pass a bar that is set pretty high before they can be enforced or have any hope of surviving a basic court challenge.

    Tell it to the Mormons of the late 1800s, or some of their current sects.

    Tell it to the Rastafarians.

  119. Re:Not the real problem by Rich.Miller.6 · · Score: 1

    A shit ton of non-vaccinated illegals flooding into the public schools is driving the spread of whopping cough and EV-D68.

    A credible citation is indeed called for. Physicians appear to disagree with you; see, for example, an NBC News article in July, 2014 debunking the idea that immigrants are diseased. With respect to measles - the subject of the parent comment - Mexico vaccinates 99% of children, and the U.S. 92%.

  120. Re:Stay away from you? Why? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 2

    You don't understand what vaccination does. It reduces your chance of contracting a disease, but not (necessarily) to zero. Please Google "herd immunity".

  121. Re:Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Instead of demonizing the innocent, why not make an honest donation to the multi-billion dollar businesses that produce and promote these vaccines?

    You know, I'm sure the big pharmaceutical companies could make a lot more money coming up with expensive drugs to treat the symptoms of diseases that people would get if they weren't given the (relatively cheap) once or twice (or maybe thrice) vaccinations.

    (Dons tinfoil hat) Why isn't there a vaccine against diabetes? Or obesity?

  122. Young girls shouldn't go to school. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should be married to men.

  123. Re:Here we go again... by silfen · · Score: 1

    Lots of time, money, and effort has been spent studying vaccines in the wake of Dr. Andrew "brought the medical profession into disrepute" Wakefield's original paper (which has since been retracted along with his UK license to practice medicine).

    Wakefield made generic and nonsensical claims about dangers of vaccines. People now respond with generic and nonsensical claims about the benefits of vaccines. Both sides are wrong. You have to look at vaccines one at a time to determine whether they are safe and effective.

    Each vaccine mandate should require a separate, public debate and separate legislative act because establishing the principle that government can mandate citizens to inject arbitrary proteins into their body without legislative action is fundamentally wrong.

  124. Re:Fuck You by sexconker · · Score: 0

    Non-vaccinated kids kill and cripple other kids.

    You're saying that as if it's purely a bad thing. Sure, it's a tragedy when a parent loses a child, but it's a boon to the herd when the weakest is culled, and their genes leave the gene pool before they get to procreate.
    If we allowed diseases to cull, say, 10% of children, future generations would be stronger.

    As it is, vaccination is a means to allow more bad mutations to survive and cause pain and suffering in the future. I think everyone who do give their children vaccines are selfish bastards who wants to increase the odds of their own children surviving even if it means that their children or grandchildren might suffer. People are concerned about the here and now, and refuse to think generations ahead.

    Think of future children, not just the present ones. Let predation happen, to ensure that the good mutations are rewarded and the bad ones are not.

    It's funny how pro-evolution certain people are until you suggest that we let evolution continue.

  125. Re:you're all insane. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    there are most likely strong positive benefits to vaccinations in general (although to be fair, and probably to the surprise of many people, if you look at the multi-decade trend data, in theory, the declines in infection could easily be attributable to simple things like generically better hygiene. the statistical significance is far from absolute.)

    So your explanation to the eradication of smallpox is not the worldwide campaign to vaccinate but "better hygiene". What about places like 3rd world countries where "better hygiene" is still a problem today? Cholera is still a problem today in India because of lack of hygiene yet smallpox is gone.

    the larger problem though is not with all vaccinnes per se', but with what vaccines have become NOW, versus even 10-15 years ago. there are BIG changes that have dirty fingerprints all over them.

    And what are these "dirty fingerprints" that you speak of? Vaccines are different in that medicine has changed, yes. For examples the flu vaccine has a much more manufacturing focus as tens of millions of them of a new strain has to be produced every year.

    only real solution (or at least the beginning of one) would be to have truly independent studies done on the linkages between vaccinnes and any number of disease/disorders that have been very strongly linked. the more you learn about the FDA, USDA, big pharmaceutical companies, and their legal exemptions from prosecution, the money's involved.. etc, the more you realize how obvious it is that there are real dangers and risks being passed along to the unwitting public in the interests of $.

    Could you be more specific in which diseases you speak of? If you are talking about austism, no less than 8 separate studies around the world could not find a link. That and the original study appears to have fabricated the data.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  126. Re:Freedom of choice by silfen · · Score: 1

    Similarly, we should not be free to endanger public health with disease. If you want to remain unvaccinated, do so in your own backwoods shack, away from us. Thanks.

    But that is exactly what vaccination requirements don't to: they say "even if you live in your own backwoods shack, you still must get vaccinated".

    I think it's fine for schools, communities, even shopping malls to say that you can only enter if you are vaccinated. That's freedom of association. It is not OK for a country or state to say that as a matter of citizenship, you must inject stuff into your body, no matter what.

  127. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If fail to see how any unvaccinated persons present any possible threat to yourself should you be vaccinated. How does an unvaccinated person present a risk to your health and welfare, if you cannot catch whatever they contracted due to their ignorance?

    Unvaccinate people present risks to those who cannot receive the vaccine due to age, due to other medical ailment that does not allow it and due to the fact that it is not 100% effective.

    Therefore there are major risks to those who cannot be vaccinated and there is a risk(albeit smaller) to those who are vaccinate but never developed the immunity. Therefore the people who present the risk (those willfully unvaccinated) are at fault if they cause an outbreak.

  128. Re:Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vaccines, including influenza, has more data to support it than anything else in medicine. The data for influenza is incredibly solid. If you don't believe in it, you probably should not see a doctor. Anything else they say will be even less supported by data, and more likely to be just personal opinion.

  129. Your "data" doesn't prove vaccines are bad by Overzeetop · · Score: 2

    You're playing games with words and statistics. To wit:

    "children who haven't received DTaP vaccines are at least 8 times more likely to get pertussis"

    There, you could stop right there. But your statistics belie the truth. If we expect that 16% of children are only partially vaccinated and 4% are unvaccinated, in a population of 100000 children, in which 0.1% get pertussis you get:

    81 children out of 80,000 get pertussis, or a vaccinated infection rate of 0.01%
    11 children out of 16,000 get pertussis, or 0.07%
    8 children out of 4000 get pertussis, or 0.20%

    In other words, it means that your child is 20x more likely to get pertussis in the event of an outbreak if her or she is unvaccinated vs being vaccinated. The linked studies you made actually prove the OP's point - a successful vaccine prevents transmission: you do not become s silent "carrier" unless you suffer from a successful infection. And in the case of the linked studies, the concern is over particular vaccines which are not as effective in producing a robust antibody reaction. They're saying you need more/better vaccines, not fewer.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:Your "data" doesn't prove vaccines are bad by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

      Did you even look at the links? What a fuckwit! They see the silent carrier in studies where the test subjects were vaccinated. And you then say it doesn't happen. What a asshole. And right there in the CDC page, 8x more likely, and you bump that up to 20 for whatever fuck reason your stupid little sheep brain thinks!?! They also say the unvaccinated are not the cause of the outbreaks. But you can't understand such simple language as that because it isn't put into terms of how many terr'ists are out to get you!!!! Go crawl under a rock somewhere you dumb ass!

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    2. Re:Your "data" doesn't prove vaccines are bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are not the ones that are conspiracy theorists that say "OMGEE the 'gubmint wants to inject MIND CONTROL DRUGS into us!!!!!112233"

  130. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Proof or GTFO. Another liar AC who thinks BSing anecdotal evidence means a hill of beans.

  131. Mod parent down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for being a liar.

  132. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, that choice belongs to your child. as long as you're not such a fascist as to deny them that choice.

  133. Re:Here we go again... by s.petry · · Score: 1

    The influenza vaccine is probably the most advocated against. That, followed by HPV and chicken pox. Today by age 6 a child is getting 49 doses of 14 different vaccines. Many of these are "combo" vaccines so finding one that may be causing issues has become statistically impossible. Compare this to when I was a kid and we received 8, one series and one combo. You can see the schedule and massive growth in vaccines (and the appropriate industry) here.

    Of course even the CDC admits that the MMR vaccine can cause permanent brain damage, yet we are not allowed to discuss this without facing attack. Victims of permanent damage are force to silence in order to receive payment from companies that get sued for damages and victims win. Silencing is not "new" or unique to medical issues but should be flat out illegal.

    As I said previously, there is plenty to research to form an educated opinion.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  134. Whoa hold on there hoss by gelfling · · Score: 0

    Islamic countries routinely murdered polio vaccination teams. So it's a self correcting problem in the long run.

    1. Re:Whoa hold on there hoss by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Some Muslims did indeed attack such groups, but only after the CIA used similar programs to engage in espionage... Religion wasn't the reason for the attacks, but perceived self-preservation.

  135. Re:you're all insane. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I went and looked up that movie and it has such rousing reiviews like this:

    This is the film’s fundamental flaw. Though appearing to present both sides of the debate — with most of the scientific water being carried by the infectious disease specialist Dr. Paul Offit — a cost-benefit analysis is completely ignored. Also elided are the mostly forgotten horrors of measles, mumps and chickenpox.

    Such images would have been consistent with their strategy, though not their emotional agenda, which relies heavily on fudging, anecdotal evidence and blatant grandstanding. Carefully excluding critical information that might challenge its sympathies, “The Greater Good” does a disservice both to the suffering of the few and to the public health needs of the many.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/movies/the-greater-good-review.html?_r=1&

    Sounds like you have been successfully emotionally manipulated. Thats OK, I will pass on the propaganda. Feel free to find me an alternative review from a third party that isn't blatantly partial and I will peruse it.

  136. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What vaccine uses aborted fetuses as an ingredient. When posting your source, please refrain from linking to sites with obvious biases. I cannot find any sources online from reputable, not obviously biased sources.

  137. Charter school for the unvaccinated by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Seriously, they need to create a single school in each district and simply have all those that are not vaccinated because of religious or philosophical reasons to attend it. Those that can not physically take the vaccine would be able to attend the regular schools.

    This would limit the exposure and issues.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      Seriously, they need to create a single school in each district and simply have all those that are not vaccinated because of religious or philosophical reasons to attend it. Those that can not physically take the vaccine would be able to attend the regular schools.

      This would limit the exposure and issues.

      So, you are wanting the government to treat a person with a religious belief you don't agree with differently than other people? Separate but equal didn't apply to segregated schools, why would they in this case? In addition, if it is not safe to have a non-vaccnated child in school for religious or philosophical reasons, then why would it be safe to have them in school because they physically can't take the vaccine?

      It would seem that if a separate school were created it would be for all non-vaccinated students. Of course, then if this school is a hazard, do the teachers there get paid more for the additional risk they must endure? Also, if the government puts all non-vaccinated together in one school, aren't they increasing the likelihood that others will get sick, because if one does, it will spread (whereas in the general population, this might not occur)?

      Don't get me wrong, I think vaccinations are important to have, even if they weren't totally safe (nothing in medicine is, btw). However, forcing them on people or segregating people is not the answer. Education is.

    2. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      the kid who can not take the vaccine would be protected by herd immunity. Those who voluntarily choose to not vaccinate then increase the risk of herd immunity being broken and then not protecting those that can not have it, or who do not have a response to the antigen.
      Since it is a CHOICE to not vaccinate, there is nothing wrong ethically with requiring that they go to a different school. And with it being a charter school, they can then have their say on how it runs. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

      What IS wrong, is when another person forces their child to have the ability to harm others. Those who can not take it or who do not have a good response, are the ones that must be protected via the herd immunity.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    3. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by Moof123 · · Score: 1

      Would you be OK if we made a charter school that was vaccinated ONLY and leave the rest of the schools open to all? You know, create a safe place for all the kids with paranoid parents (paranoid about disease rather than Big Pharma boogeymen). I would be fine with sending my kid there.

    4. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Considering that the vast majority of kids are vaccinated, it makes far more sense to send those that choose to not vaccinate to their own school.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    5. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      and what is wrong with sending the small minority of ppl that CHOOSE to not vaccinate to their own charter school? They get the same money / student that others get. The parents get to have more input on the school. For many, if not most, they will want the ability to hold bible study after school. In this way, it can be done.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    6. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      You are still creating a "separate but equal" system, which the SCOTUS has said is a form of segregation. In this case, instead of segregating by color, it would be by religious belief, at least for those whose belief system didn't allow vaccinations. In addition, since the government would be doing this, you would still be putting the children without vaccinations at greater risk for contracting a disease, than if they were in a mixed class. The people at risk from the unvaccinated are the elderly and the very young. Neither of those two are likely to be in a school (k through 12).

    7. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      the kid who can not take the vaccine would be protected by herd immunity. Those who voluntarily choose to not vaccinate then increase the risk of herd immunity being broken and then not protecting those that can not have it, or who do not have a response to the antigen.

      Since it is a CHOICE to not vaccinate, there is nothing wrong ethically with requiring that they go to a different school. And with it being a charter school, they can then have their say on how it runs. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

      What IS wrong, is when another person forces their child to have the ability to harm others. Those who can not take it or who do not have a good response, are the ones that must be protected via the herd immunity.

      The kid whose parents won't vaccinate them will also be protected by herd immunity. Herd immunity breaks done when there are a large number of unvaccinated individuals in close geographic proximity, in other words, exactly what you are proposing. It would seem a better solution would be to ensure these kids, who by the way are not refusing to be vaccinated (there parents are in control), to be spread throughout the school system instead of consolidated in one place. That is if the purpose is to protect everybody versus punish people.

    8. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      uh no. You are right that herd immunity would be lost in the charter school. BUT, herd immunity requires about 95-98% immunity. Those who have medical reasons to not take vaccines are about 1-2%. That leaves only 1-2% to play with. Sadly, the amount of ppl that have gone off the deep end is INSANE and therefore we only have less than 90% immune. So, it is not fair to those that have medical issues or those that took the vaccines, but it did not take, to mix in those who CHOOSE to not take vaccines.

      If you want your child to have that herd immunity, then they should be taking the vaccine. To insist that your chlid NOT take vaccines because you do not think that they work, or that they will impact your child, or that you have religious reasons, and then want to expose others is just beyond belief and shows that YOU are the one wanting to punish others.

      By offering up an alternative of a separate school for those that choose to not vaccinate, it allows ppl to make clear choices.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    9. Re:Charter school for the unvaccinated by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Charter schools are NOT seperate but equal. The ONLY ones going to those schools would be where parents choose it. In addition, those schools would get the same funding / child that others get. Why is that so bad to send these kids to their own school? How is this any different than my choosing to send my child to a STEM charter school, which we did? It is not ANY different.

      And as to the risk, that is a choice that parents make all the time. If they are choosing to not have vaccines, than that is a CHOICE.If they object to the risk, then they need to vaccinate their child and put them in the regular school. What is so hard to understand about that?

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  138. Vaccine court proves vaccine harm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If vaccines caused no harm, why would a vaccine court be established under the executive branch and not the judicial?
    http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/vaccine-programoffice-special-masters/

    If vaccines caused no harm, why would the US government VAERS system report 5,000+ deaths shortly after the vaccination?

    You can avoid posting this.. sure, it is not going to fix the propaganda that brainwashed you

  139. Megan's law for the unvaccinated by spasm · · Score: 1

    We need a Megan's Law equivalent for people who refuse to be vaccinated. Sure, you can refuse to vaccinate yourself or your child because your skyfairy says so, or for any other reason you like, but you have to be registered like a sex offender and banned from living or going within a thousand feet of any school.

  140. Re:Freedom of choice by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

    Would they really be the source of disease, or is it travelers from the 3rd World?

  141. Trust and accountablity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This all boils down to trust and accountability.

    Has the US Gov. ever lied to us about drugs or used it's citizens in drug experiments?
    Yes
    Was anyone held accountable?
    No
    Is it logical to be skeptical?
    Yes

    It's understandable that people who don't trust you are not going to do what you want just because you say so, or believe the evidence you provide, even if it's logical because they aren't open to hearing what you have to say no matter what it is. Once trust is broken it's extremely hard to get back. To regain trust actions must be taken that prove you are trust worthy again. My suggestion: start consistently holding people accountable for their actions with real proportional consequences at the top of the food chain in all areas of US society and display it loud and proud in the media and on the net even if it makes the US look bad for a while. Eventually trust is earned and a lot of things are fixed including vaccines being back on the table.

  142. Pay for their consequences? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe, instead of forcing them to take a drug at the requirement of the government, there shoudl simply be consequences to not taking the drug?

    * disallow attendance at public school
    * may them/their insurance pay for the other people's treatment if spread of the disease can be tracked back to them,
    * etc

  143. Slippery sloap? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

    But they should not be free to endanger the lives of everyone else with their views."

    That is a dangerous road to take. If people who don't want vaccinations, for whatever reason are forced to have them because they endanger everyone else, what about those communicable diseases? Should everybody with HIV or hepatitis or TB be rounded up and quarantined? After all, they, too, endanger everyone else. Yes, there are vulnerable populations, the elderly and very young to many of the diseases there are vaccinations for, but what is the likelihood they would actually be exposed by a non-vaccinated kindergartner that they were not known to?

    Does the government have the right to mandate medical treatment for the public? Vaccinations seem to be a minor thing, but if the government has the right to mandate that, then what about other more invasive things?

    It seems a more sensible approach would be for the government to start promoting vaccinations through PSA and other means to educate the public for the need and then trust the public to do the right thing.

    The problem with slippery slopes is that they are very easy to go down and next to impossible to climb back out.

    1. Re:Slippery sloap? by Moof123 · · Score: 1

      "Should everybody with HIV or hepatitis or TB be rounded up and quarantined?"

      HIV cannot be spread by coughing, kissing, or handshaking, so I am fine with HIV positive folks walking around freely.

      Same with Hep C.

      TB is a very communicable disease, and we do quarantine people with TB who can easily transmit the disease, along with some other dangerous communicable diseases. Heck, our recent experience with Ebola caused some whack job governors to try and quarantine folks who were not communicable.

    2. Re:Slippery sloap? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      "Should everybody with HIV or hepatitis or TB be rounded up and quarantined?"

      HIV cannot be spread by coughing, kissing, or handshaking, so I am fine with HIV positive folks walking around freely.

      Same with Hep C.

      TB is a very communicable disease, and we do quarantine people with TB who can easily transmit the disease, along with some other dangerous communicable diseases. Heck, our recent experience with Ebola caused some whack job governors to try and quarantine folks who were not communicable.

      Granted HIV and Hep C can't be spread by casual contact, but they can be spread by contact with bodily fluids. I shouldn't included TB, although it is interesting that there is a vaccine for it, but it is not required in the US for students. The over-reaction on Ebola is kind of what I am getting at. Yes, kids without vaccines are more likely to come down with measles, mumps, etc., but their ability to spread it is limited unless they are in contact with somebody with a compromised immune system such as the very young and very old or with somebody whose vaccine didn't take hold. For the former, it is unlikely that a school child would be in contact with such an individual at school. Their own family, yes, but that is the risk they take. For the latter, ineffective vaccine, they are at no greater risk than they are even if all of the people have had the shot.

      Personally, I think the notion of these vaccines be dangerous is crazy. Is there some risk, yes, there is with everything. There's even risk that not having the vaccine and getting the disease will lead to complications. However, I don't think it is up to the government to quarantine people unless they are known to be infectious. People still have rights to seek medical treatment or not.

      ps. thank you for not pointing out the misspelling of slope! I wish /. allowed edits.

  144. Re:Here we go again... by caseih · · Score: 1

    Please provide a citation to support your somewhat extraordinary claim. Which CDC study was this and where were the results published? Who silenced whom?

    As far as your desire for rational debate, how is this helped by referring to conspiracy and innuendo?

  145. Two Words by soast · · Score: 1

    tuskegee experiment

  146. Vaccine the mind virus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These assholes and their religious beliefs. Your religion is a disease once it puts non-practitioners at risk. Quarantine all those who insult science.

    1. Re:Vaccine the mind virus by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Do you believe that society would be better off if it no longer permitted freedom of religion at all? If it were revoked from the charter of basic human rights and freedoms, what do you think the ramifications would be?

  147. Insurance companies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Make the vaccination data publicly available or just to the insurance companies.

    Once they get a look at those stats, their insurance premiums will skyrocket.

    Even idiots understand money.

  148. Re:Here we go again... by s.petry · · Score: 1

    I provided a link and enough information for you to perform a search on anything else. Stop being lazy and do some goddamn work if you want to argue, none of this information is that hard to find.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  149. Re:Freedom of choice by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    Not a big pharma corp, that makes 2 billion dollars a year in vaccine sales
    and pushes them as mandatory for everyone.

    This is vaccine fascism, to force everyone, regardless whether they want it or not.

    I think this is a valid point. Allowing pharma with a direct conflict of interest to influence legislation and vaccination schedules must not be allowed if you concurrently expect people to trust you.

    Pharma routinely belches out millions in support various vaccination campaigns and legislation directly responsible for authoring quite a bit of supporting scientific literature.

    As long as this is allowed to continue don't expect public trust deficient to improve. People will just be scared and have no idea "who to trust"

    While I believe in principal not being vaccinated is stupid so is the scope creep in vaccination schedules.

  150. Re:Fuck You by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's easy: The entire fabric of human society is to provide safety nets to those "less able" to survive on their own. Mankind takes care of itself and bypasses natural selection.

    Hell, agriculture itself is bypassing natural selection. Going for social darwinism only makes you look like a sociopathic asswipe. Being "less able" to survive does not mean "is useless in the long run" at all. So, humanity has an incentive to keep those "less fit" live and participate.

  151. Re:Here we go again... by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but you are the one who is arguing irrationally.

    GP didn't say that vaccines were bad. He said that he was uncomfortable with the government forcing medical treatments on its citizens. Yet you responded all huffy-like that vaccines are good. Well, no shit vaccinating is a good idea. But that is beside the point.

    If you want to respond to GP's assertion that he is uncomfortable with the idea that governments should be forcing medical procedures on his citizens, then you need to argue why it is a good idea for government thugs to be kicking down doors and stabbing citizens with needles at gunpoint. Because that is the point that is under discussion.

    --
    They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
  152. Re:Here we go again... by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 1

    FYI, they don't all last the rest of your life. There are some that require boosters in adulthood. If you see the doctor regularly you should be covered, but just letting you know.

    --
    They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
  153. Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...another black and white subject..

    this is the smartest (and most demonstrative of how NOT black and white this topic is) answer...

    While I think not getting vaccinated is incredibly stupid, I also worry about setting a standard of the government being able to force things in to your body.

    Which vaccine? Polio or Mumps which have a pretty long history, high rate of effectiveness, and low chance for complications? or influenza which has a very poor rate of effectiveness, short history, and an extremely high number of complications for a large percentage of people? You should not lump all vaccines into a single category because they are all quite different in just about every way. Lumping everything into a single category is ludicrous, yet we can't have a rational dialogue because that is exactly what people do.

    I have spoken at length with numerous medical doctors, and their opinions of vaccines is not the same as what we see in media. Vaccines in their opinion are a medical procedure. If you are ill you should not get a vaccine until you are well, and you should only get what you need for vaccines. It's the former that gives medical professionals pause when looking at the massive increase in childhood illnesses that result in permanent damage over the last couple of decades. As we have increased the number of vaccines being given to children, we have also seen an increase in debilitating illnesses. Yeah yeah, correlation does not prove causation but we can't even study at this point because anyone questioning is an "Anti Vac Whacko".

    You can do the work to find statistics on vaccines and illnesses, there is enough there to at least start forming an opinion. You can also do the work to find the problems with the reporting system, and that very few cases of complications from a vaccine ever get into the system. You can further talk to doctors who are not pro-vaccine, though you will have to do so off the record because they can lose their licenses for being against "vaccines" (even though they may only be against _some_ vaccines) or simply blackballed out of their jobs.

    One day I hope we can have rational dialogue on the subject, but if you read the posts here you will see it's quite impossible at present.

  154. Re:Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, the longer people live, the more they pay to the health companies. Therefore, they actually want to keep you healthy as long as possible. (It's the same reason smokers don't necessarily cost more in the long run in terms of health costs.)

  155. reactions to vaccines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well - of course we do not, as yet, have a test ( genetic? simple allergy testing? ) to determine who will react
    adversely to a vaccine. Just administer to as many as possible and hope the negative effects are minimal
    ( or, at least of an acceptable level ).
    Compare the negative percentages to death or ER visits by kids for Hot Dogs, Fireballs, meatballs, pizza, chicken nuggets, fries and
    being driven to school, swimming, bicycling, tree-climbing, and sports. These are documented.
    See if the anti-virus parents let their kids have or do any of these things. If they do..... prescribe psychiactric treatment for
    neurotic psychoses - at their expanse.

  156. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    That schedule is NOT arbitrary. It was based on need. They start out with the bugs that you are most likely to be exposed to early on. And then it takes several years to go through everything. So, it is already spaced out.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  157. Putting something into your body by force by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe it's foolish and selfish not to get vaccinated, but I don't believe it should be mandatory. Mandatory vaccination = someone puts something into your body by force.

  158. Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What I see is an ignorant moron talking trash about things before even trying to understand the issue. Vaccines are never 100% effective; there is always people that won't develop immunity to the vaccine and others that can't get vaccinated for valid medic reasons (like allergies, other conditions, etc). The problem is that as long as the amount of unvaccinated individuals in a population remains small, those people benefit from the so called herd immunity (an infected person has a very low chance to infect a vulnerable host, so the chance of contagion for vulnerable people is negligible).

    Things change rather quickly when a lot of people opt to not vaccinate their kids and the end result is not only increased risk for them (if that were the case, nobody would give a damn, evolution in action and all that) but for people that did not develop immunity to the vaccine and those who can't be vaccinated at all.

  159. Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vaccine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a good read for anyone who is honest about wanting to understand why some folks might want to refuse a vaccine:

    http://therefusers.com/refusers-newsroom/the-healthiest-children-in-the-future-will-be-unvaccinated-by-dave-mihalovic-naturopathic-doctor/#.VIs6cXr9FfI

    If you click on the links you'll end up getting to links to studies that I and many other vaccine skeptics have read. There's certainly enough room in the conversation for both sides.

  160. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Aborted fetus are NOT used in vaccines. Good lord. You need to quit reading BS out there. As it is, any stem cell line comes from embryos that are less than 4-5 days old.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  161. Re:Stay away from you? Why? by plover · · Score: 1

    Vaccines are not 100% effective. Many are only 60-70% effective. Or maybe he's allergic to the vaccine components and can't get vaccinated from the particular virus you're spreading that you could easily have prevented.

    --
    John
  162. Censorship by s.petry · · Score: 1

    Have to love watching this post which is neutral and promotes dialogue, research, and education go from +5 insightful to a troll in under 20 minutes. Amazing how easy it is to censor isn't it?

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Censorship would be removing the post. This is not censorship. Merely a reflection of the collective's opinion on the post, and one of the main reasons people browse here. Since it shifted so rapidly I would say it is clear that mods are deeply split on the issue. Anyway, anyone browsing at -1 can easily see these posts, and even if they aren't, they will likely read them anyway since it has a lot of replies.

  163. One other 'philosophical' problem by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Right now, religions - at least, some religions - get extra legal benefits that the non-religious don't. Government employees get extra time off for relgious holidays; the non-religious get nothing. Religion is family of metaphysical worldviews, and non-religious philosophies are another branch. Why do certain philosophies get extra privileges?

    If a rule really is a good idea, then it should apply to everyone. If we can get by with some people not complying, then it doesn't need to be mandatory. Religion has nothing to do with it.

    In terms of vaccines, we just need to arrange for consequences. Your kids not vaccinated, and can't demonstrate a medical reason why not? Fine. No public school for them, sorry. Quite probably other benefits are now off-limits, too.

    --
    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
    1. Re:One other 'philosophical' problem by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 0

      You right-wing Islamophobic assholes will never stop, will you? You're just going to continue with the hate. Any possible reason you can cling to to hate the people with whom you disagree, you're going to take it. You fuckwits make me sick. You need to be eradicated from our scientific society. We have no place for bigots like you.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    2. Re:One other 'philosophical' problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Government employees get extra time off for relgious holidays; the non-religious get nothing.

      Not true. Stop spreading falsehoods.

      (speaking as a retired government employee) Yes, there are some holidays, but all people get them off, including non-religious. And some religious holidays nobody gets off, unless one uses some of their annual leave time to take it off. (Yes, priority to take off that day will be given to those whose religion recognizes that day, but they still don't get it off as an extra holiday.)

    3. Re:One other 'philosophical' problem by jdavidb · · Score: 1

      I'm religious, fundamentalist, and I agree with you.

  164. No profit from vaccinations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The vast majority of vaccines are free here in Mexico.
    Free/accesible healthcare should be a human right.

  165. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the biggest weakness of vaccines is that they were/are so effective. Do you think the anti-vaccine movement would have the strength it has now if polio, whooping cough, measles, etc were as prevalent today as they were pre-vaccines? Of course not. If there was a big threat that your kid could get these diseases at any moment and wind up dead or seriously injured, there would be lines to get vaccinated.

    Right now, we're dealing with small outbreaks of disease thanks to the anti-vaccine movement. Sadly, I think it will take a major epidemic before some people accept that vaccines not only prevent disease but that the disease is worse than any imagined "toxins" in the vaccines. I fear that many kids will need to die before the anti-vaccine movement goes away.

    The anti-anti-vax stuff is a good example of a moral panic. Smallpox is eradicated worldwide; polio is practially eradicated. During the last ten years, more people have died of ebola in the United States (two) than measles, mumps, and rubella combined (zero). MMR is a good and worthwhile vaccine, but the perceptions of anti-vaxers as a threat to the prevailing moral norms of society has caused the dangers of noncompliance to be absurdly exaggerated.

  166. Re:Not the real problem by Moof123 · · Score: 1

    Also lots up upper middle-class white families with a good education. Poor tend to be under-vaccinated (poor access). The unvaccinated seem to have bizarre first world fears.

    http://pediatrics.aappublicati...

  167. Re:Fuck You by ganjadude · · Score: 0

    im sure someone will mod you down, but i agree withwhat you just said

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  168. Share the second side of the story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://vactruth.com/2014/02/19/cdc-and-emory-university/

    Seriously... Vaccine damage does not exist just like global warming and government surveillance. It just might take a couple of years for the truth to get out

  169. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem with your argument is that there is no line.

    Your body may be your own, but presumably you recognize that if you use your body in ways that inflict harm, or are reasonably likely to inflict harm on other people, the state has a valid interest in preventing you from doing that. If I decide it would be fun to drop cinderblocks off a highway overpass, you're probably okay with me being depriving of my bodily autonomy to some degree (say, by throwing me in jail), in order to protect the people my ignorance might harm. Note that you don't even need to prove I actually hurt anyone; just the fact I'm putting other people at risk of injury is enough to warrant depriving me of my rights.

    Similarly, if you choose not to be vaccinated, that creates a risk of harm to anyone around you who may be unprotected due to immunocompromise or failure of the vaccine. For highly transmissible diseases, it's entirely reasonable to argue that you shouldn't be allowed to behave in a way that risks the health and safety of those around you.

    Maybe you could argue that forcing you to accept an injection is qualitatively different from forcing you to be locked up in a way that makes vaccination more objectionable. By all means, have at it.

  170. No vaccination? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then no public school or other public services! I'm 66 years old, and had my polio, DPT, smallpox, and other vaccinations as a kid. I only wish there was a measles vaccine then, or my eyes would probably be better now! And I had the mumps as well - again, no longer necessary! Wake up people! Yes, we need to make sure that these vaccines are safer than they are now, mostly by minimizing the side-effects of some of their components, but by-in-large they do their job. Do some of those components cause autism in children? More research needs to be done in that regard, I would agree. However, the increase in such syndroms in our children may be due to many other environmental or industrial causes, and need to be thoroughly investigated.

    So, don't jeapordize the rest of the community by not having your children vaccinated. The effects are WAY worse than then cause!

  171. Re:Fuck You by Immerman · · Score: 2

    Absolutely. We should re-introduce large predators to urban environments in order to cull the slow and stupid.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  172. Require classes in logic by myid · · Score: 1

    School children should be required to take simple classes in logic. At least teach them common fallacies like affirming the consequent and the post hoc fallacy ("someone got a flu shot and later developed X disease, so the flu shot causes X disease.")

    This kind of training would help them see through irrational anti-vaccination arguments. And if logic is taught and emphasized in school, hopefully the students will learn to prefer logic and facts over touchy-feely "I feel/believe X to be true".

  173. Quarantine them! by jtara · · Score: 1

    Anybody should be able to avoid vaccination on a philosophical exemption.

    And then society should proactively quarantine them in order to protect society.

    You have a right to not vaccinate. You do not have a right to endanger everybody else by doing so.

    Australia would be a good place. I hear they have some abandoned prison facilities. (They might need some modern updates...) And a government that envies the U.S.'s high incarceration rate. This should give the politicians something to do, rather than further restricting the rights of Australians.

  174. Mod parent up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdotters are hopeless imbeciles.

  175. Greater good vs individual freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This discussion is, at its essence, not about science. It is about finding the right balance between requiring people to act in ways that benefit the greater good, and in protecting their individual freedom to do what they like for whatever reasons they choose.

    We could create a utopian society if we had the right dictator and no freedom at all. But history has shown that people react very badly to a lack of freedom (even when they benefit from it). And of course, finding the right dictator is basically impossible.

    So, sometimes allowing people to do things that harm themselves and others (like vote republican) is more important than forcing everyone to do the right thing.

    And, when you do choose to respect freedom, you can still use persuasion to guide everyone else's behavior.

  176. Jesus Christ help us. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    " For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing."

    Wow, just wow

    Yes science is altogether voodoo and black magic.

    Indeed these charlatans called "doctors" and "biologists" should have an armchair degree from tin-foil hat websites created by folks with endless anecdotal and conjectural evidence that have spent HOURS "learning" the nuisances of the art of quackery.

  177. Re:Still not buying it by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

    What I see is an arrogant, selfish display of superiority, and an utter disrespect for the basic human right of free choice.

    To reference a common /. idiom, your "right" to not get vaccinated for no valid medical reason ends with my right to not be pointlessly at risk of contracting diseases we could (and did, for a long time) prevent.

    --
    Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
  178. Re:Here we go again... by s.petry · · Score: 1

    We can't have a rational dialogue because you make statements like that one.

    Oh, the fact that you want clarification makes it an irrational dialogue? I don't believe you actually understand what dialogue is supposed to be if that's the case, but I'll bite once. All of the information that follows is using the CDC as the source unless I provide a link.

    First, you can look up the rates for Autism without any help. This is one of many neurological disorders which have skyrocketed in the US over the last 40 years. In the 1970s and 1980s we were at 1 in 2000, and today it's at 1 in 68. This is only one of many, not the only disorder that has increased. Yeah yeah, our detection is better now but the reported cases of severe autism make up the majority of those numbers.

    You can also look up the fact that we have moved from 8 vaccines (1 combo 1 series) from 1960-1980 to today's 49 doses of 14 vaccines today without help as well. CDC link, and here is a breakdown link to help you get started. Oh, and this by age 6 and by age 18 this goes to 69 doses of 16 vaccines.

    We have drastically increased the amount of vaccines we get in our most sensitive year of development, and at the same time seen a similar rise in Autism and other neurological problems. As I said above, this does not prove causation but sure as hell does indicate a link. The CDC guidelines show that "severe" side effects for vaccines are about 1 in 10,000 but we are giving a kid 644 vaccines by age 6 (which is what the CDC recommends) we have upped the odds of receiving severe side effects to 6.44% of the population

    Which correlations?
    Lots of time, money, and effort has been spent studying vaccines in the wake of Dr. Andrew "brought the medical profession into disrepute" Wakefield's original paper (which has since been retracted along with his UK license to practice medicine).

    Do you mean the correlation that I just demonstrated above using the CDC as a data source showing a correlation between increased number of vaccines and increases in the number of autism? Or are you really trying to argue that these profit generators are purely altruistic as your second portion seems to imply?

    Have done away with the fast track programs for vaccines? We have forced independent study so that Merck can not do the study for a Merck vaccine, and Bayer can not do the study for a Bayer vaccine to ensure no conflict of interests exist? In fact this is not the case at all. I'm not saying that Merck and Bayer don't spend money on researching effects, I'm saying there is an obvious conflict of interest with our current laws regarding how vaccines are tested and approved for consumption. We further have known issues where contaminated (bad) vaccines have been shipped for use overseas in developing countries.

    Lets also not neglect that most of a vaccine is not just the live, altered, or inactive virus but a laundry list of other things that we are exposing kids ourselves to when getting vaccinated. Vaccines contain chemicals, metals, proteins, antibiotics and human, animal and insect DNA and RNA. Those mixtures are sometimes varied batch to batch without additional testing.

    Nobody in their right mind should be hedging all of their bets on one doctors paper, just like nobody in their right mind should be claiming that all vaccines are the same.

    I really don't get why people are against science when it comes to vaccines. Against it to irrational religious levels.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  179. Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And certainly not to kill rats! Any level of arsenic in the water supply that would kill rats would kill every PERSON who drinks it in short order!

    In fact, the standard for "potable" water, at least in the USA, says that effort should be made to drive the concentration of arsenic in tap water to ZERO.

    --PM

  180. Sure, when CDC's data is honest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There have been many insiders in the vaccine industry who are clear that the system is flawed, the rate of serious side-effects seriously under-reported.

    One of the people in the study that absolved the rubella vaccine from possibly causing autism confessed that they removed data that would have produced a significant result, it was .07 afterwards.

    All indications are the CDC is just as corrupt as the FDA, nobody should trust any data coming from either agency nor the drug companies they supervise.

    VIOXX, Ron Uns has a nice writeup on the great people who protect us from those evil capitalists. China does better. They execute people who lie and cause deaths by doing so. Ours maybe get fined, after a long time and for a fraction of their profits. Well, their companies get fined.

  181. Which begs the question... by Pollux · · Score: 2

    Your right to refuse a vaccine does not give you the right to harm others.

    So when two fundamental rights are at play, which one triumphs?

    Let's take your argument to the next extreme possibility. Let's say that science one day invents a chip that, when implanted into the brain, suppresses violent aggression in humans. Implanting it into every human would end murder and war, saving millions of lives every year. Would we as a society require everyone to accept the implant, then subsequently ban from our nations those who refuse it? Would you personally accept such an implant?

    1. Re:Which begs the question... by jeff4747 · · Score: 1

      So when two fundamental rights are at play, which one triumphs?

      The one that causes the least harm to the least number of people.

      If you're going to insist on receiving the benefits of living within a society, you're going to have to pay the tolls that society erects. If you are unwilling to pay those tolls, you don't have to live there.

  182. The Government can force you to FIGHT and DIE by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 2

    In military service. I figure if I can be drafted, and be made to fight and quite possibly die to protect this country, I can be forced to get stuck with a needle to protect this country too!

    Military service is FAR more invasive and dangerous, by many orders of magnitude, than a vaccination.

    By that standard, forcing EVERYONE in this country to GET VACCINATED for the COMMON GOOD is about the most resounding slam dunk I've ever considered.

    --PeterM

  183. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by bazorg · · Score: 1

    So at what age did you expect the babies in question to display symptoms of autism? Before they learned to speak?

  184. Re:Not the real problem by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

    What schools are letting them enroll without their shots?

    That's the problem right there.

    --
    Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
  185. Re:Freedom of choice by Rich0 · · Score: 1

    While I echo the necessity of vaccines in the modern world as a necessary and effective tool for limiting infections and thereby human suffering, I am not a fan of abandoning basic freedoms just so we can all feel more secure. The law is very clear, the government shall not pass any law that infringes on the free exercise of religion. Thus, if vaccines are created that infringe on my freedom of religious expression, they have to pass a bar that is set pretty high before they can be enforced or have any hope of surviving a basic court challenge.

    Vaccines don't make us "feel more secure." They have been proven effective in preventing disease and saving lives. This isn't security theater.

    Free expression of religion doesn't include driving without auto insurance, or without passing a basic automotive safety inspection where required. It doesn't include being free to practice human sacrifice. It doesn't include being free to raise your kid in a tribal lifestyle without basic education. Your freedom to practice your religion ends where you begin to infringe on my own freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If your choice to not be vaccinated increases my risk of getting a dangerous disease, then I'd say that your choice is not one automatically protected by the constitution.

    Of course vaccines have risks as well as benefits, and those should be weighed, but this was already done when the government approved the use of the vaccine in the first place. If the risks weren't outweighed by the benefits as demonstrated by the scientific data, then you wouldn't even be allowed to buy the vaccine in the first place.

  186. Re:Still not buying it by thaylin · · Score: 1

    There are tradeoffs. If they can get you to live for 40 years and give them 100k, or you live to be 80, but you pay them 50k, what is the better cost/benefit for them?

    --
    When you cant win, ad hominem.
  187. Cough medicine in general doesn't really work by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 1

    Hate to tell you, but most OTC cough medicines don't really work very well at all, according to some studies that have come out recently.

    http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-...

    There *is* a study that says that dark chocolate, of all things, is pretty good at suppressing coughs.

    http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-...

    I welcome it if you cite sources to refute the credibility of either of the links I gave. At least you're thinking about the subject then. Myself, I'm actually not sure that cough medicines DON'T work and I'm not sure that chocolate does. But I sure like chocolate.

    --PM

  188. Re:Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you try hard enough you can even believe that fury porn is normal.

    People are angry everywhere, why not in porn?

  189. Near-vertical, oily teflon slope. by Chas · · Score: 1

    As much as I think these people, for lack of a better term, fucking morons, I'm VERY leery of making this sort of thing "mandatory".

    We could all be mentally ill! Let's make Prozac mandatory!

    We have a population problem. Let's make injectable birth control mandatory!

    Yes, we're not there yet. And YES, there's a BIG difference between chemically sterilizing someone and giving them a vaccine. But the very act of making the putting of a foreign substance in your body COMPULSORY is the big scary issue here. And it SHOULD be scary. You're being told you have no right to control your own body and what goes into it.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  190. Military service? by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 1

    Sir,

        If I can be made to join the military, be ordered to go fight and die, (for the greater good) by the Government, then I do NOT see why I can't be made to take a shot!

    --PeterM

  191. Vaccines aren't that greate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. About 1% of people injected end up getting the illness because sometimes not all of the virus is killed off when the prepare the vaccine
    2. You can get very sick from vaccines. Vaccines are made by infecting live chicken eggs. After the virus has run its course put all of the eggs into a vat (including egg shells and the run it through filters and centrifuges. The cream off the selected product which becomes the vaccine. Basically you get injected with raw egg. Not to meanton any contaminates that make it through the filteration system.
    3. The add Thimerosal which contains mercury which is linked to austim:
    http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/cdc-whistleblower-comes-forward-admits-coverup-on-vaccine-link-to-autism/

    The CDC has sequestered its own doctors to cover up the issue with vaccines and Autism, because they fear that people will stop taking them if the knew the risks, and nor do the Pharmaceutals want to spend the money to replace Thimerosal or reactify the issue and they fear wide spread lawsuits that would bankrupt them.

  192. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Free country, sure. You're free to be foolish and suffer the consequences. You aren't free to drive on the sidewalk, discharge your firearm at a Walmart for target practice,
    or take a shit on the president's desk.

    Similarly, we should not be free to endanger public health with disease. If you want to remain unvaccinated, do so in your own backwoods shack, away from us. Thanks.

    That's news to me. In my neighborhood, it's tradition to discharge weapons at Walmart every Black Friday.

  193. Oh, the humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, but I can't take your pleas seriously unless they're delivered by an attractive naked (body paint optional) woman in a cadge.

  194. Re:you're all insane. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you simply believe vaccines are a big pharma conspiracy. That's not a cohesive argument, nor even an answer to the parent post's question.

    Why is it impossible to believe that we've been adding new vaccines because we've found a way to prevent more diseases? Because that's why we've got more vaccines.

    Also, note that once a disease is eradicated -- by getting everyone vaccinated -- we can stop administering the vaccine.

  195. Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vaccine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or it's just a coincidence that they scheduled the autism screening for the day after the vaccines.

  196. Re:Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, it wouldn't. You don't know anything about the arsenite toxicity of drinking water. The amount of water you'd have to drink to receive a lethal dose of arsenic from the above treatment would cause fatal hyponatremia long before you had any negative effects from the arsenic. Rats, with a far lower body mass, and which are literally swimming in the stuff 24/7, are far more susceptible to the poison, as administered.

    I lived in a town (Linden, Alabama) where daily alerts were issued giving the arsenic (and salt) content of the municipal water supply. There were more days than not that citizens were strongly encouraged to use tap water only for washing clothes/dishes. You could always spot any newcomer... they were the ones with all the dead grass.

  197. Off to Africa! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should amend the law so these dolts can still object but not be allowed to run loose and infect everyone else. Send them to Africa!

    Current policies are nuts and one day there will be a big enough epidemic of "some old disease" to make these idiots very, very sorry. Too late by that point.

    These idiots and their spawn should be completely isolated but since that would never please their huge egos, they can go to Africa and believe they're doing good deeds.

  198. Did Jenner mention 'herd immunity'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL. There is no such thing. It is yet another pathetic attempt by the so-called 'vaccine' companies to FORCE everybody to take their poison, thus maximising profits.

    Isn't it strangely convenient that there is no 'vaccine' for the common cold, or the 'flu', you know, diseases that hundreds of millions of people get every year! But wait! The virus 'mutates' by magic, that's it!

    Dr Hadwen was right, Jenner was a fraud, and NOBODY has refuted a word Dr Hadwen said...

    http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen1.html

    http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/12/30/dtp-vaccine.aspx

  199. Re:Fuck You by arth1 · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. We should re-introduce large predators to urban environments in order to cull the slow and stupid.

    We have - they're called "cars".

  200. Re:Fuck You by magarity · · Score: 1

    Is this a parody? Even with GIFW theory I'm having a hard time accepting someone wrote this seriously.

  201. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    http://vec.chop.edu/service/va...

    Do vaccines contain fetal tissues?
    Varicella (chickenpox), rubella, hepatitis A, shingles and one preparation of rabies vaccine are all made in fetal embryo fibroblast cells. These cells were first obtained from elective termination of two pregnancies in the early 1960s. These same embryonic cells obtained from the early 1960s have continued to grow in the laboratory and are used to make vaccines today. No further sources of fetal cells are needed to make these vaccines. Fibroblast cells are the cells needed to hold skin and other connective tissue together.

    The reasons that fetal cells were originally used included:
    Viruses need cells to grow and tend to grow better in cells from humans than animals (because they infect humans).
    Almost all cells die after they have divided a certain number of times; scientifically, this number is known as the Hayflick limit, and for most cell lines it is around 50 divisions; however, fetal cells can go through many more divisions before dying.
    So, as scientists studied these viruses in the lab, they found that the best cells to use were the fetal cells mentioned above. When it was time to make a vaccine, they continued growing the viruses in the cells that worked best during these earlier studies.

    Reviewed by: Paul A. Offit, MD
    Date: April 2013

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  202. Worse things "cause" autism than vaccines by Theovon · · Score: 1

    Vaccines don't cause autism.

    There are two legal causes I know of where autism was linked with vaccines. In one case, the girl had mitochondrial disorder and was given too many shots at once. In general, doctors don't recommend getting too many shots at once, because it's a burden on the immune system, so if your immune system is compromised, you have to take it easy and spread out the shots.

    As for things that MIGHT "cause" autism (or more precisely, some autism-like symptoms that may or may not really put you in the autism spectrum), I think we should reflect on all the other crap we put in our bodies. Pollution in the air and water, pesticides, the really shitty diet Americans eat, and so forth. A highschool in the southeastern US changed its lunch program to include primarly healthy foods: Behaviorial problems and absenteeism were reduced substantially. Eat better, and you'll think more clearly. This works on anyone, and helps alleviate some of the symtoms experienced by people with ASD.

    Recently, autism was linked with some neocortical malformations. I'm not sure what is the cause of the malformations. But in some cases of mild autism, dietary changes anecodotally appear to help. Lowered immune system load and toxin load may be associated with some reduction in some autism symptoms. In my case, dietary changes have helped substantially with fatigue, brain fog, and OCD. I haven't narrowed down exactly which changes have helped the most, but I avoid wheat, soy, and dairy, and I take vitamin supplements only in their biologically active forms. My wife has Hashimoto's disease, so she got on the auto-immune SCD diet (similar to paleo), and following that to a degree has helped me too, and I also lost weight. Also, it's good to maintain a good array of intestinal flora, so eat your cultured vegetables, and drink kombucha and kefir. These things don't treat autism, per se; they just mazimize your baseline health, which can help with all sorts of disorders that might otherwise cause you more trouble.

  203. Re:Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are fucking mad if you think anybody is adding arsenic to drinking water to kill rats. Arsenic occurs naturally and enters the water supply naturally, and is only considered safe at a concentration at or below 10 parts per billion in drinking water, and even at that level, there are demonstrated negative health effects (increased susceptibility to various viral infections, as an example)

    They may be dying from ingesting too much arsenic from the water, but that does not mean the arsenic was "added" to treat the water - in fact, they were probably monitoring and reporting on the water levels because there was a large source of arsenic in the aquifer serving your town.

    It wasn't being *added* to kill the occasional mythical Alabama Water Rat.

  204. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    http://www2.aap.org/immunizati... (BTW, that would be the American Academy of Pediatrics site suggested by the CDC as a place to go for information on vaccines.

    Q. Do vaccines contain fetal tissue?

    A. No. A few vaccines involve growing the viruses in human cell culture. Two cell lines provide the cultures needed for producing vaccines. These lines were developed from two fetuses in the 1960s. The fetuses were aborted for medical reasons, not for the purpose of producing vaccines. These cell lines have an indefinite life span, meaning that no new aborted fetuses are ever used. No fetal tissue is included in the vaccines, either, so children are not injected with any part of an aborted fetus.

    So you are correct in that while they do not contain fetal tissue, they are derived from aborted fetuses. As I said, personally I look at it as two who were considered "inconvenient" for reasons I do not know and really never wish upon anyone to decide, at least good has come from their existence in providing life for so many.

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  205. Why allow ANY non-medical exemptions? by HiThere · · Score: 1

    The purpose of vaccination is herd immunity. Protection of the individual is secondary, and in any case not perfect. So why allow any children to attend school without vaccination? They will be a focal point for the incubation of diseases and give them a chance to evolve to avoid the induced immunity.

    It's fine to require that children be educated, but public schools should not allow children to attend without being immunized. If a parent refuses to allow that, then let them make some other arrangement.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  206. Educate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's make more educated choices. Read this report then make a choice to support more scientific research.

    http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2013/The-Childhood-Immunization-Schedule-and-Safety.aspx

    Driven largely by concerns about potential side effects, there has been a shift in some parents’ attitudes toward the child immunization schedule. HHS asked the IOM to identify research approaches, methodologies, and study designs that could address questions about the safety of the current schedule.

    This report is the most comprehensive examination of the immunization schedule to date. The IOM committee uncovered no evidence of major safety concerns associated with adherence to the childhood immunization schedule. Should signals arise that there may be need for investigation, however, the report offers a framework for conducting safety research using existing or new data collection systems.

  207. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    And that is great when it is a recommended schedule and parents with their doctors can have flexibility to adjust based on medical need. It is an entire different conversation when that schedule has been enshrined in law and becomes inflexible, and doctors are scared to go against that law because of lawsuits. What if my child was unable to receive one of those vaccines (and again, my children are being vaccinated on a controlled modified schedule overseen by their physician)? There are here that advocate they not be allowed to participate in society just because they are unfortunate to be in the small percentage of the population that is incompatible with a vaccine due to an deadly allergy to the delivery agent (egg protein),

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  208. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I support the science behind all of this, because it is unquestionable.

    There is no science that says "all vaccinations are safe". We only know that a small number of specific vaccinations are safe and effective, and we know that some preservatives and other chemicals used in the production of vaccines are safe. However, mandatory vaccination laws don't apply just to those vaccinations that we know to be safe, they apply to all vaccinations that public health officials deem safe, now and in the future.

    Therefore, the question this proposal raises is not "Should we mandate that people get injected with vaccines that are known to be safe and effective." The question it really raises is: "Should public health officials be empowered to designate arbitrary substances as vaccines and forcibly inject them into people, without any further recourse or legislative review."

  209. In Massachusetts... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By the time there's an outbreak it's already far too late.

  210. I think Pen and Teller presented it best... by kimgkimg · · Score: 1

    Pen and Teller on Vaccinations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  211. Re:Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh? So, the rats you scooped out of water towers died of natural causes, and you weren't explicitly informed by the water treatment plant what they were adding to the water to mitigate certain regional problems? What's that? You didn't actually work in the industry at all, and you're just talking out of your asshole?

    That's what I thought. Shut the fuck up, and let people who know actually dispense facts for a change, you self-righteous man-child.

  212. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except that what's actually happening is that children who would benefit tremendously from vaccination are not objecting to the vaccinations. Their parents are denying it to them. This is not an issue of conscientious objection, but rather one of parents abusing powerless children in order to make a point.

  213. Re:Annnd..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here we have the problem. You are a drooling, neanderthal idiot motherfucker and are very much part of the problem. Go kill yourself promptly before you or any of your larvae infect the rest of the general population.

    Maybe we can cordon off Texas and quarantine all these redneck and red-state fucktards all together there and let "God" sort 'em out.

    Sounds like you are a "True Believer"! I'm sure your masters are very pleased with your performance.

  214. Over Selling for years is the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The vaccine companies have OVER sold the value of the vaccines for years. Perhaps they have caught up with their claims, perhaps not.
    They have used Africa as a testing ground, hence the hatred of them by the Ebola infected populations.
    They have done long term double blind tests on people and denied them treatments in the name of continuing the experiment.
    If you think your child is very sensitive to Mercury or Thalidimide or whatever the preservatives they are using, would you give it to them.
    If you have seen evidence of a company lying to you, do you believe them the next time?
    I and my children have gotten the vaccinations. I do understand the objections can be reasonable and science based.
    If you have a sensitive child, and they DIE, who PAYS, someone always has to PAY?

  215. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Hold on.
    NOBODY is suggesting that any child that has an allergy to the vaccines not be allowed to interact in society. Hell, nobody is suggesting that even if you choose to not vaccinate a kid that they can not interact with society.
    HOWEVER, if somebody CHOOSES to not vaccinate, then they should be kept away from those that have the allergies on a day-to-day basis. IOW, those that the parents choose to not have vaccinated and their is no good medical reason, should go to a separate charter school that would then hold all of the k-12 kids that are not vaccinated. In this way, that parents choices will not harm others that did not make similar choices.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  216. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    Just because the fetuses are over 40 years old doesn't make me feel better about the wrong done to them. We are going to probably disagree because for me this boils down to the question of when life begins and what I believe theologically. At the end of the day for me, those fetuses were people that had their life terminated by someone else.

    I am not looking for a debate on the issue, it's far more complicated and messy than either of us with be able to sort out with a black and white answer. Again, I cannot imagine the mental anguish that would be brought upon facing such a choice or definitively answer how to deal with each situation that brings someone to face that decision. I ultimately fall on the view that giving someone almost no chance to survive is still better than not giving them that chance at all. I think we all should give pause to the fact that we benefit from someone given the later, if for anything to honor the sacrifice of their life.

    What I can say is that I believe and practice a religion that teaches to choose "sacrifice" over "personal comfort". That the greatest thing to do is to lay down your own life for another. To treat others how you wish to be treated. Those commands of my faith are not easy to follow, most of us (including myself) fail daily because I still have a sinful nature. But it is still the standard I try to hold myself to. Again, I am not trying to pick fights but to give voice to where someone else is coming from.

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  217. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep repeating the lie often enough, etc. etc. Must be nice to be a paid fucking shill!

  218. Re:Not the real problem by rhazz · · Score: 1

    Just look at the URL for that second link "illegal-alien-minors-spreading-tb-ebola-dengue-swine-flu". When you actually look at the article there is no mention of ebola. I bet the original had ebola in there too, but they figured the numbers for that were too readily available for anyone to swallow the bullshit.

  219. Placebos work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Provided the person receiving the placebo is not aware that they are receiving a placebo.

    1. Re:Placebos work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, placebos do tend to have a positive effect even if the patient is aware that it is a placebo.

    2. Re:Placebos work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interestingly, the positive effect is stronger if the patient truly believes in the power of the placebo effect.

    3. Re: Placebos work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And they don't know what 'placebo' means.

    4. Re: Placebos work by ancientmyth · · Score: 2

      Jedi mind trick: "These are not the placebos you are looking for..."

  220. Re:Fuck You by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Huh? Who's pro-evolution? Most of us know that evolution happened, and more or less how, and I suppose we're mostly in favor of the part of it that led to humans, but this doesn't mean deliberately allowing people to die. I'm not real interested in causing suffering so something else can replace my species.

    Moreover, we've spent a LONG time letting children die of diseases, so we're probably about as strong in that way as we're likely to get.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  221. Stay TF home by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you are sick, feel the symptoms etc. Prevent the spread. Taking a baby into the public is asking for shit. Bring home strangers, asking for shit. Know who you are around, touch, kiss, etc. Stranger danger exists outside the playground children. Don't touch your nose, mouth eyes sores whilst in public. Shit spreads like butter.

  222. Re: Fuck You by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    there is a part of me that thinks that we should skip AC.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  223. There is no vaccine for the worst diseases by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't you mean "the common cold and the 'flu", which they rather conveniently can't 'vaccinate' against, because those evil viruses keep 'mutating'? LOL.

    You want compulsory 'vaccination' because you're a brainwashed idiot who can't think for themselves. Jenner was a well known fraud!

    http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen1.html

  224. Re:Useless attempt by Khyber · · Score: 1

    "Firstly - The "flu vaccine" is not meant to be an across the board vaccine for all flu strains - there are simply too many for that to be viable."

    You assume I didn't know that. You assume incorrectly. I knew about that from BASIC HIGH SCHOOL starting almost.. twenty years ago, child.

    "Second - your immune system isn't a muscle,"

    You fail at recognizing analogies. You obviously haven't graduated from high school, yet.

    Try again when your knowledge and reading capabilities are on par with mine.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  225. Re: Fuck You by Assmasher · · Score: 1

    It would make it simpler to realize if they're just taking the piss or really are as stupid as what they write... (Although I've seen some quality AC posts as well.)

    --
    Loading...
  226. Re:you're all insane. by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    there are BIG changes that have dirty fingerprints all over them.

    Please state them. What are these changes? What are the dirty fingerprints?

    the more you learn about the FDA, USDA, big pharmaceutical companies, and their legal exemptions from prosecution, the money's involved.. etc, the more you realize how obvious it is that there are real dangers and risks being passed along to the unwitting public in the interests of $.

    Please state, explicitly, what those dangers are.

    awareness needs to be raised

    OF WHAT? So far you're throwing around vague fearmongering. Come on, do the work, put in the effort, reasearch it a bit, cite those sources, and present your argument.

    I have very little trust in bigPharma, and like most megacorps, they're probably swindling the masses for all they can. But just because, say, ConAgra is getting Tax breaks doesn't mean that corn is poison or we should stop eating food.

  227. The attitudes on both sides are unhelpful by Kris_J · · Score: 1

    Looking at the increasing rate of disorders and other health problems affecting younger and younger children, there is some sort of problem with early life medical policy, but the "You're stupid!", "You're a liar!" screaming match between both sides of this debate is drowning out any civilised dialogue about the problem.

  228. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    I have concerns for medical reasons for delivery via egg protein because of serious allergy issues. My youngest son was moved to the specialized formula because my wife was down to eating Lamb, Apples, Rice and Peaches because that was all he didn't react to that we could find. My older son has been tested and is highly allergic to egg protein, soy, peanut, pea, avocados and bananas (that is not counting foods he never has eaten out of concern of allergies). So every vaccine that has that carrier causes them to react, and they have to go on a regiment of medicine to counter the side-effects.

    I also have concerns for theological reasons regarding the vaccines derived from two fetuses aborted for medical reasons in the 60's. As I stated before, I accepted the vaccines because I feel at least then we are honoring the sacrifice.

    The schedule that we are using is a vaccine a month as long as there is no serious reactions. Under the advisement of the physician, we delayed some vaccines in order to give time for their bodies to become stronger before administering them. Ultimately it is something that you need to discuss with their doctor's, and longer than the 15 seconds they usually want to give you. We are blessed by finding a great physician that has severe food allergies and understands the fears and concerns we have, and goes above the board in both educating and advocating for our children.

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  229. No such thing as 'vaccination' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.naturalnews.com/035715_vaccines_history_fraud.html

    "A 2012 study led by Dr. David Witt, an infectious disease specialist at the San Rafael, California Kaiser Permanente Medical Center concluded that whooping cough occurs more among vaccinated children than children not vaccinated.
    In 2010, a mumps outbreak occurred among 1000 children in upper New Jersey and lower New York. Almost 80% of them had been vaccinated with the MMR (measles, mumps & rubella) vaccine.
    Throughout the 1980s, official agencies reported several outbreaks of measles occurring among children who had been vaccinated in various locations including an Illinois junior high and high school, a Massachusetts high school, a region in France, and a rural area near Helisinki, Finland.
    Both USA schools had well over 90% vaccinated against measles. The vaccinators claim a 90% vaccination rate among any specific population guarantees herd immunity for that population. This bogus claim serves to create more revenue while blaming non-vaccinators for endangering humanity."

    Jenner was a fraud, thus the whole premise of 'vaccination' has no basis in reality...
    Surely all those people who can't have 'vaccines' because of allergies, etc. are ALSO exactly the same amount of 'threat' (LOL) as those who don't have 'vaccines' because they know they are a fraud? But somehow their germs are less of a risk?

    It's like a modern day witch hunt, what a joke Slashdotters are... thinking isn't your strong point.

  230. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    Just because the fetuses are over 40 years old doesn't make me feel better about the wrong done to them. We are going to probably disagree because for me this boils down to the question of when life begins and what I believe theologically. At the end of the day for me, those fetuses were people that had their life terminated by someone else.

    Again, they are not using fetuses. The origin of the cell line was from 40 years. For example if they sample you today and find that your cells make good cell lines, they may be that cell line long after you die. Sometimes they use cell lines from people who have donated their body to science. I would guess there would be advantages to using fetal cells as they are embryonic cells.

    Second it is not clear that they are even using them at all. In testing vaccines, a researcher may use a cell line and not know the origin of them. The anti-vaxxers have made the objection that they are using aborted fetuses when they themselves don't know which lines were used in the testing. Some do not use cell lines to test at all.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  231. Re:Here we go again... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Where the bleep do you get that stuff? Looking at the CDC vaccination guidelines, I come up with an absolute maximum of 33 doses of 10 different vaccines, and a lot of that stuff is pretty well optional. Similarly, your claim that the CDC says MMR can cause permanent brain damage would be more believable if (a) it was taken from a CDC website, and (b) you hadn't already made a ridiculous claim.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  232. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    sorry, but im not fearmongering. just trying to point out that which hides in plain sight. in any case, even though you will probably dismiss me as a hoax and charlatan for not spoonfeeding you a litany of facts and figures, i'm gonna let it be here. at some point, maybe you'll see. best regards.

  233. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    I am not saying you are. What I am pointing out is that the laws that would have to be made to accomplish what you advocate are inflexible things. It's either you comply with the law or you are violating the law. Fear of violating the law will bring about the unintended consequences I am talking about. It's not even law now and we faced physicians that either wouldn't see my children unless I followed the state recommendations to the letter, and others that demanded that we be isolated in a small room away from anyone else while on their premises.

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  234. Re:Useless attempt by rhazz · · Score: 1

    Just curious, to which lab did you send your viral samples for verification that the flu strain was different from the one you were vaccinated against? Also, did you know that the typical flu symptoms last 3-7 days? Sounds to me like your immune system was able to overcome the virus thanks to the vaccine increasing your immune response to it.

  235. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're joking, right? You do realize that almost all those dieases you mentioned are still alive and well in large parts of the world, namely Africa? And by the way, check out what happened in the recent past when large groups of people chose not to be vaccinated against measles in Africa. Does the deaths of over 500 children sound like moral panic to you? Because THAT is what large-scale vaccine refusal results in. Death and suffering. Is that what you want for people?

  236. Herd Logic. by Anonanonaon · · Score: 0

    Paraphrased from a dozen or so people in this thread: "The unvaccinated are a threat to the rest of us! They must be ____ (punished, killed, forced, quarantined, etc.)

    Okay.

    Does anybody else see the problem with this common logic?

    If the vaccines work and you've been medicated with them, then what have you got to worry about? How can anybody but those not vaccinated suffer from their choices?

    I see this logical knot constantly. -It leads me to thinking that it's not about medicine and health at all with authoritarian follower types; It's about obedience. Those who think for themselves are threatening to those who choose not to, and this is on a deep level. "How DARE you disobey Father?! You are a BAD person and must be punished! See? I am the Good son!"

    There is plenty of evidence that vaccines not only don't work, but that they make people sick. It is, however, very hard to come across because the media programming has been so powerful; ignorance can be forgiven, but with time and research it can be found.

    Polio, for instance, was wiped out not by vaccinations. It was stopped by two things: 1. Pulling back on the neuro-toxic pesticide use in and around the epidemic areas, and 2. Re-defining the symptoms used to identify polio victims. The motivation for this came from two camps; leaders seeking to avoid political embarrassment and from the virology establishment which wanted desperately to justify their continued livelihoods and time/ego investments to that point. People lie for a whole lot less.

    So they just instructed doctors to use the same symptom list to make a diagnosis of meningitis and other diseases instead of polio. The numbers of afflicted didn't change, but meningitis went from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand, and polio dropped accordingly.

    ~~~~~

    Quoted from "Fear of the Invisible"

    Other cases previously diagnosed as polio would in future be classified as 'cerebral palsy', as 'Guillain-Barre syndrome' and even as 'muscular dystrophy.' Some were called 'Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease', which can also cause paralysis. (And recently the Coxsackie virus was found in cases of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which is also sometimes associated with polio-like symptoms of muscle damage.)

    But this reclassification of polio cases seemingly did not satisfy the regulatory authorities. Apparently there were still too many cases of the worst kind of polio,

    "The diagnostic guidelines also specified that the patient must have, 'No history of immunisation' if they are to he diagnosed with the illness they were vaccinated against. ('Textbook of Infections Diseases' - University of Colorado School of Medicine. 1982). In other words, if they are vaccinated against an illness, it is presumed they cannot have already had it - so it was finally decided that these cases must also be removed from the polio case registry, thus eliminating nearly all the remaining cases of polio in the world - giving the heath authorities a stunning and utterly fraudulent victory.

    This was achieved by instructing doctors that in future they were not to diagnose polio. This decision was to be left to the regulatory authorities. If patients came to them with the classic symptoms of paralytic polio, these were to be diagnosed as 'Acute Flaccid Paralysis' (AFP). The doctors were, and still are, told to send samples of two turds from such a patient to the official laboratories. There these turds are inspected to see if the poliovirus is in them. If signs of its presence are not found, it is declared not to be polio - no matter that the children have all the classic symptoms and distress found in the worst cases of polio during the great US epidemics.

    This astonishingly revealed that the 'poliovirus' is rarely to be found in these paralysed children. Logically, one would think that this would force the health authorities to conclude that the virus could not be the cause of polio - but

  237. Re:Useless attempt by Khyber · · Score: 1

    I was not vaccinated. Please re-read my comment and revise your questions and statements.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  238. From the same people who recommend circumcisions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm skeptical of vaccines, but not completely against them. One thing that adds to my skepticism is the same people who recommend vaccines also recommend circumcisions. I am adamantly against circumcisions. I'm willing to bet most /.ers are pro-vaccine and anti-circumcision. How can you trust what the medical community says about one thing while disagreeing with them on another?

  239. Re:Here we go again... by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

    As I said above, this does not prove causation but sure as hell does indicate a link.

    That's not how science works. Find some peer reviewed research that supports your theories

    I really don't get why people are against science when it comes to vaccines. Against it to irrational religious levels.

    or admit you are exactly the person that you "really don't get"

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  240. Re:Freedom of choice by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Lots of people pay for schools and don't have children to benefit from them. Lots of people pay for lots of things and don't directly benefit from them. Ask me about the football stadium I'm helping pay for sometime.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  241. Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    The example also doesn't contradict the statement that alien mind probes cause autism, which has precisely as much supporting evidence and a lot less evidence against it.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  242. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're vaccinated it shouldn't matter, right?

  243. Re:you're all insane. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Pfizer doesn't control what gets injected into people. Doctors do that. Pfizer is shielded from liability for direct harm caused by vaccination, but if they put something that isn't a vaccine into the doses their liability is tremendous.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  244. Re:you're all insane. by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    You're working REALLY HARD at NOT pointing out anything.
    If it's hiding in plain sight, I imagine it'd be pretty easy to point out.

    Yes, there's the possibility that you're just trolling for shits'n'giggles, but that's unlikely. There's the chance that you're literally paid to promote this sort of drama by... geeze, I don't even know. That's even less likely. I think you're most likely deluded and have been sucked in by propaganda and have a natural inclination to look for the scam. The exact sort of thing you're rallying against.

    Now, commentators like Vermonter, operagost, and photon317 are arguing against this idea because it sets a bad precedence for government control, while they recognize that vaccines are important and good. You should really take a second look at the way they're presenting their point. You, on the other hand, seem to straddle the fence on the benefit of vaccines in general.

    But come on, you're ranting about how people need to be informed, I'm asking you to inform me, and then you complain about having to "spoonfeed"? Even if you're not a troll, you're certainly not worth listening to, because you're not saying anything. Imagine you had to routinely pass by this group of really annoying people that had a bad reputation.
    One of them runs up to you "HEY, LISTEN TO ME!"
    And you uncharacteristically stop, turn to them, and replay "Yeah, what do you want?"
    And then they run off saying "LOL, not a troll. Best regards"

  245. The draft by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 1

    If I can be forced into military service and be made to go fight and die, why can't I be forced, for the greater good, to get a jab in the arm that protects me (and everyone else) from getting some REALLY nasty diseases?

    Or would you argue that compulsory military service is unconscionable too?

    --PeterM

  246. There is a point when vaccines kill more... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    There is a point when vaccines kill more than the diseases they prevent.

    Say, there's a 1:10,000 chance you die from vaccine against disease X, and 1:20,000 chance you contract and die from disease X.

    The pleb reaction is an outcry "BAN THE VACCINE".

    What they fail to realize is that the chance of death from disease X is so low is only thanks to the prevalence of the vaccine. The disease can't spread, and the chance of contracting it or medication failing is minimal because great most of the population is immune - the disease can't find many viable hosts.

    Shortly after you ban the vaccine, number of deaths from disease X will spike, far overshadowing the number of deaths from the vaccine. It won't be 1 in 20,000 or 10,000 but 1 in 100 or so! But that's something ignorant people don't realize. They pick up the numbers "as of now" and claim the medicine is worse than whatever it cures.

    I wonder if money would talk. Unvaccinated people simply taxed for extra health insurance for those whom they endanger.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  247. Re:Fuck You by xaotikdesigns · · Score: 1
    Your child had a reaction to which vaccine exactly? Was it just one? Was it multiple vaccines? Do you even know what exactly the reaction was to?

    Just because one child had a reaction to one vaccine, it doesn't mean that all vaccines are bad, or even that the vaccine in question is bad for everybody.

    --
    XDInd
  248. Re:Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccin by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but the vaccinated people can carry the bacteria and spread it to others without even knowing.

    No shit, Sherlock.

    Protip: Vaccines don't protect you from bacteria.

  249. Get rid of both exemptions by shaitand · · Score: 1

    Just require vaccination regardless of religion and/or philosophy.

    Also ditch the age requirement for taking the GED. What kind of sense does that make? If a 5 year old can pass the test and get a major head start, LET HIM. A GED is a way to establish you've met the state requirements for a high school diploma, not a last chance for dropouts. People using it to shortcut high school is a good thing and saves tax dollars.

  250. Re:Fuck You by Immerman · · Score: 1

    Oh please, cars mostly stay where they're told to, and average far less than one kill in a lifetime. Let's replace 1% of them with saber-tooth tigers, dire wolves, cave bears, and other large predators. Then tell me cars are "predators"

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  251. Right to be smart == right to be stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's fine to end the philosophical objections, but if you think about the real purpose of the First Amendment, then phobosophical objections are still on the table.

    You have the right to be stupid. You have the right to let your staggering stupidity and willful ignorance and denial of reality, impact your life and the lives of innocent people around you. You think I'm joking, but if you deny the existence of this right, then you're also denying the very values behind the First Amendment. People simply are wrong, and often. It's normal to be wrong. And part of the point of America is that we've agreed to either smile politely and let them be wrong, or debate them, but you never bring a GUN to a debate! In the end, if they're wrong, you let it go without using force.

    It's so easy to be pro-establishment on vaccinations right now, since the establishment happens to be in line with reason and common sense on this particular issue. I wonder, though, how you'd feel about saying this is government's area (as opposed to The Peoples' area) if they were trying to outlaw vaccinations, rather than mandate them.

    I'm telling you, government's correctness on this, is just fucking luck and ephemera.

    In 2009 we came damn close to having a Surgeon General whose entire "philosophy" about medicine was completely tautological, absolutely anti-science. He had strong opinions about marijuana that he shared with his voice of authority as a doctor, based completely on "the DEA says so, therefore it's true, therefore my professional medical opinion is that it's true, therefore the DEA's statements are supported by expert medical opinion."

    I know, you think I'm joking. No, it happened, and it was 2009, not 1909. And to a perhaps less-spectacular (I have to admit, it's hard to match the irony of a Surgeon General candidate being anti-science) it's still happening.

    That is the thread supporting the weight over all our heads. Do not grant them more power. Not until they can show themselves to be trusted, and that won't happen until we, as voters, show we can be trusted. And here we are just a little over a month after America just voted a bunch of Republicans into Congress. It might sound excusable to do that, since it was at the expense of Democrats, but it was at everyone else's expense too. America still hasn't won a single election in living memory. And now you want to give the enemy more power. WTF.

    Philosophical objections are all we have. And you want to trade it all away, for some mere short-term health.

  252. i've had severe reactions to vaccines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i was given an iv for a few days ( i don't remember more than that)
    i am still alive thankfully

  253. Time to end all tax exemptions for non-immunizers by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Time to remove all tax exemptions and all tax deductions for all adults in household that don't immunize.

    All of them.

    (waits for panic as kids suddenly get immunized)

    Yeah, I thought so.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  254. Re:Here we go again... by s.petry · · Score: 1

    I provided science from the CDC, and I did the math using data from the same source. Are you going to claim the CDC is wrong on half of their data? Or you are claiming that you only believe the science that you want to believe? You can't have it both ways and be rational.

    Show me which CDC report is wrong and show me where the math is wrong. Demonstrate it! If you can't do so, then you don't give a rats ass about "science" you only care about supporting a deluded believe that your opinion trumps science.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  255. Re:Here we go again... by s.petry · · Score: 1

    http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#jeixiaro

    It is really not so difficult to follow a link to the source, you only need to read a little bit to find the page they reference. Which claim is ludicrous, the one that backs science you don't happen to like? Got it.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  256. Time to remove ALL exemptions by markass530 · · Score: 1

    either get the vaccines or find a new country

  257. Re:you're all insane. by markass530 · · Score: 1

    sadly enough nutjob anti vaxxers have some pretty ridiculous answers to those questions

  258. Re:you're all insane. by markass530 · · Score: 1

    there are most likely strong positive benefits to vaccinations in general (although to be fair, and probably to the surprise of many people, if you look at the multi-decade trend data, in theory, the declines in infection could easily be attributable to simple things like generically better hygiene. the statistical significance is far from absolute.) .

    No, No, No India has just seen diseases eradicated with vaccines, and they do not have modern hygiene. As far as your contentions about "Big Pharm" very typical and total BS, every other modern country has socialized medicine, no profit motive and still uses vaccines

  259. Get away from me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The day I'm forced to inject mercury and formaldehyde into my kid is they day we have "irreconcilable differences."

  260. Not actually Exempt, just lazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I sign all the religious exemption wavers, but my kids are all vaccinated. I just sign the wavers because I don't what to actually show the government/school/scouts my kids records. I'd have to pull them out of the safe and photocopy them.

    There would be some level of child endangerment to not get them vaccinated.

    However, there are some vaccines that are made against my religious views. Those I would have to exempt from.

  261. Re:Stay away from you? Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    New A.C. to the conversation here.

    I don't like the government being dictated what they can force us to put into our bodies.

    With that being said, the exemption should require that someone sit down with their doctor and listen. The doctor would explain all the associated risks and benefits. Only then, after all is said, should the person be allowed to be exempt if he or she still is willing to be.

    Furthermore, regardless of my feelings toward vaccinations, I think they should be free. What is the saying, "Free as in beer"? Yes, free, 100% free. I don't know if any insurance companies charge for it, but if they do, we should amend the law to require that all necessary vaccines should be at zero cost to the patient, regardless of income.

  262. Petition by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    That stuff will drown you. You can DIE! Plus, fish -- and alligators -- have sex in it. Ew. Here, sign my petition against dihydrogen oxide. It agitates for no more imbibing of the stuff unless properly moderated by either the beer-making process, coffee-making process, or the soda-making process, and in any case, buffered by pizza. Or when used as ice. Drink quickly, though.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  263. Tough call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I think not getting vaccinated is incredibly stupid, I also worry about setting a standard of the government being able to force things in to your body.

    I agree with you but that standard already exists.

    Women are already forced to undergo medically unnecessary, physically invasive, trans-vaginal ultrasounds by lawmakers in 23 states before being allowed to exert their right to an abortion.

  264. safe vacines - not really! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Saulk / Sabin polio vacines INFECTED 90MILLION people with cancer.
    Merc blood disease vaccines in the 70's INFECTED MILLIONS with AIDS!
    Safe, not really!

  265. There is no vaccine for stupidity. by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    In fact, spreading his nonsense hurts his situation. The greater number of people who do not vaccinate for whatever reason, the more likely a significant outbreak becomes, and as he is without vaccination himself, he is much more likely to be one of the victims. If he can't vaccinate because of allergy, he should be whooping and hollering for everyone else to get vaccinated so they don't bring something horrific and unavoidable directly into his unprotected life.

    Sometimes all that runs through my mind is "the stupid, it burns..." but then I remember that some people aren't stupid, they're just ignorant. Then I remember how hard it is to convince the ignorant of the facts when they have already taken a stand against them. Then I quietly despair.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  266. The SAME people who TORTURED want this power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The SAME people who murdered 3 million Humans in Iraq want 'compulsory' vaccinations.
    The SAME people who exterminated Africa's most socially enriched and equitable nation, Libya, want 'compulsory' vaccinations.
    The SAME people who supported the Jewish Israeli Holocaust in Gaza want 'compulsory' vaccinations.
    The SAME people who belong to the US EUGENIC FOUNDATIONS that originally gave Nazi Germany their pseudo-scientific theories of 'racial purity' want 'compulsory' vaccinations.
    The SAME people who introduced NSA TOTAL SURVEILLANCE want 'compulsory' vaccinations.
    The SAME people who authorised massive acts of TORTURE by US forces, and then gave those same forces TOTAL IMMUNITY form prosecution want 'compulsory' vaccinations.

    If I were a Demon, I'd crave nothing more than the power to forcibly introduce into the bloodstream of every sheeple whatever substance I so wished. No bullet, bomb or gas chamber could ever be this efficient.

    Originally Vaccines, improvements in hygiene (including access to fresh water), and antibiotics made the most massive difference to the Human condition from the late 19th Century onward. But the present day military industrial complex is as nothing compared to the power of the US pharmaceutical industry. American sheeple- especially betas found on sites like this one- must be presented with endless excuses to introduce ever larger numbers of chemical 'problem solvers' into their bloodstream, using ever more elaborate propaganda campaigns.

    In a First World nation today, most vaccines pose more of a risk to the sheeple 'persuaded' to take them than the so-called problem the vaccine is supposed to be preventing. But one CANNOT watch a US film or TV drama without the VERY middle class family having at least one child permanently at DEATH'S DOOR. How can this be- the nation that spends more on 'health care' SATURATED with the meme of EXTREME inherent healthiness in the young of families certainly privileged enough to fill their child full of 'pills and potions'.

    Americans are retards- especially American Betas. Not once do you retards (for you form the majority of visitors here) question why American children uniquely need so much more daily medication for so many more 'reasons' than the children in any other first world nation. How do you Yank beta retards- so 'certain' of your 'scientific' understanding- explain this highly non-scientific situation. If you Yank retard betas had ANY proper scientific understanding of the TRUE issues surrounding current vaccination 'science', you wouldn't allow your drug companies to convince you that you children suffer from 'maladies' at a VASTLY greater rate than the children in other similar nations.

    60+ years ago, you Yank beta retards were convinced of the medical efficacy of LOBOTOMY and believed in the 'hysterical' illnesses of the female. You Yank beta retards gave the HIGHEST scientific prizes to the frauds that promoted these sickening abuses. Anther 40 years back, and you Yank beta retards were supporting FEMALE genital mutilation 'in the name of science'. Today, you Yank beta retards still mutilate your male children, like the 'primitives' of Africa, and you CLAIM the same medical excuse as do the practitioners of FEMALE genital mutilation in present day, US supported Egypt.

    Yet you Yank Beta retards have the damned cheek to suggest you should have the power today (actually it is your masters who crave it) to force other Humans to put chemical substances into their blood stream.

    When Bill Gates and Tony Blair meet, and declare you all to be worthless scum, so any means is reasonable in culling the Human Population down to three billion, people like me find it hard to defend you against this fate.

  267. Re:Useless attempt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like an army - you keep giving it a weak force to fight against, it gets complacent and is unprepared to take on a strong force.

    Captcha is appropriate: stronger

  268. Social standards and limiting parenting by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    Oh, man, I truly hate to go there, but... at what level of risk, if any, do you feel it is appropriate for society to step in? What if Mom gets her jollies from dangling little Joey over a pit of alligators by a raveled string? What if daddy thinks his little cutie-pie looks best with a mouthful of semen? What if both parents like to hear the kids squeal when they shoot them in the limbs with a .22? Will you still stand up for inviolate parent's rights? What if they just want to pup out kids and sell them to the highest bidder? Personally, I think putting little Joey at intentionally higher, and almost certainly reducible, risk of some kind of horrific plague stands right at the level of selfish, ignorance-driven crazy evident in the preceding examples. Not to mention the increased risk to everyone else.

    The only argument along these lines that has any credibility at all is the one that notes the legal and bureaucratic tendency of limited, appropriate interference to become large, inappropriate interference, and suggests that the risk to the relatively small number of kids who have a pair of batshit-crazy parents (perhaps if only one is fucktarded, we can at least hope the other will interfere) does not outweigh the risk to everyone else of the government interfering with, and/or taking their children for what amount to some or all of the wrong reasons.

    Do you really mean to say that parents can do anything they want with their kids?

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  269. Hoping you arent vaccinated against logic... by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    Slippery slope fallacy ahoy! Just because one decision is made for a sound and logical reason of communal good does *NOT* mean that other (unjustified) decisions will be made even if they are promoted on the basis of communal good. Each choice needs to be evaluated on its own merits. Just because some idiots or fraudsters will try to claim that something unwise should be "done for the greater good" doesn't mean doing things for the greater good is invalid as a reason to do things, and the reverse is also true.

    Incidentally, did you know that the government is already empowered to arrest you for spreading infectious diseases. If you knowingly infect other people, or if there's an outbreak and you attempt to violate it, you can be prosecuted as a criminal.

    Mind you, if you want to withdraw from society and go live in your own little 21st-century equivalent of a leper colony with all the other plague vectors, be my guest. You won't get many visitors - nobody can be 10% sure a vaccine will protect them, so we are all potentially dependent on herd immunity - but you are sure as hell not welcome to freeload on our herd immunity without a valid medical reason!

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  270. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by cbhacking · · Score: 1

    Similarly, the highly-infectious diseases that the current generation of American parents grew up with - chicken pox, the flu, etc. - tend to have minor effects. Some people die of them every year, but the number is miniscule and most people show no sign of having ever been sick a week after the infection runs its course. Compare with things like Polio (used to kill people by paralyzing their chest so they couldn't breathe and suffocate where they lay, though more often it simply left you with misshapen and crippled limbs for life), Smallpox (scars covering your body even if you made an otherwise-full recovery), and so on. I'll bet a lot of the anti-vaccination crowd, whether they know it or not, think that even if they get infected it'll basically mean they have to stay home from school/work for a few days, maybe take some medicine. They don't ever think about things like being confined to iron lungs (not that we use those anymore, but hospitals used to have entire wards full of them)...

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  271. Ah, Darwin. Evolution. Andbject failure to think. by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    See, here's the problem. When the susceptible, that is, those you consider genetically deficient, engage in a mass die-off, there is a rather immediate and severe problem with bacterial and viral outbreaks that have little directly to do with the initial vector. Disposal of bodies becomes a severe problem (I refer you to Google for massive and unequivocal reams of corroborating evidence), the economy takes it in the shorts as all manner of people in all walks of life fall victim, distribution of necessities are disrupted, water supplies become corrupted, many newly desperate people begin to engage in rapidly upscaled numbers of antisocial acts -- theft, violence, etc. -- basically civilization shits itself and falls in it. Into this uniformly unpleasant and dangerous swamp of defecation you, complete with the pure and holy genes that rendered you immune from the initial outbreak, will almost certainly fall. Along with your spouse, offspring, pets and friends.

    So let's not get too excited about letting nature run wild when we have the ability to prevent it, shall we? Life is ever so much more pleasant when you can go outside without a surgical mask, automatic weapons, and night vision equipment.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  272. Use Caution by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    When it comes to those folks who have religious objections to vacination we need to be very cautious. There may be those that argue that the scientific mode should dominate law. In a way they are saying that you must prove your religion is correct in order top follow it. I take all the vacinations that are available to me. But I doubt anyone has the right to force others to do the same. Many other issues have similar disputes. For example any use of alcohol or tobacco harms society in many ways. Should society be able to insist at force of law and arms the right to live a life free of the influence of alcohol or smoke? After all some drunk might run over my kids and some smoker can start a fire that wipes out a hotel with me and my family inside.

  273. Re:Slippery soap! by Strange+Attractor · · Score: 1

    What's dangerous about slippery soap is that it leads to falls in showers.

  274. What does game theory say about the issue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It could be that some people that fail to vaccinate are cheating the system, until the point where there is no longer the critical mass to control the diseases. It works like this, the risk to your kid is non zero unless you let the other guy's kid take the risk for you and you do not vaccinate your kid. This is separate from the fear type motives.

    All that aside it is a very dangerous thing to think you can ethically impose any medical procedure onto 100% of the population.

    Only incentives are both ethical and potentially effective. If the incentive is great enough many people will find it overrides their other motives.

  275. Anti-anti-vaxxer hysteria caused by bad vax by russotto · · Score: 1

    It's not anti-vaxxers responsible for the whooping cough outbreaks. It's the DTaP (the 'aP' is acellular pertussis) vaccine, which just isn't very good. The old DPT vaccine provided very good protection against pertussis. The new DTaP provides weaker protection that doesn't last as long; it can't provide herd immunity in any case.

  276. Remove the religious exemption too by mattack2 · · Score: 1

    You don't get a vaccine, you don't get free public education (or a school voucher, which is probably what the idiots refusing vaccines are doing anyway).

  277. Nonsense by harduser · · Score: 0

    How can unvaccinated kids pose a risk to 'healthy vaccinated adults and children'? If they were vaccinated then should be safe.

  278. In this case, patient zero was a teacher by tlambert · · Score: 1

    In this case, patient zero was a teacher:

    "Grand Traverse County Health Officer Wendy Trute said last week that a teacher fell ill with whooping cough in October. Some of the teacher's close contacts did not take the antibiotic until they started to show symptoms, which is too late to prevent the disease's spread, Trute said."

    The spread of the disease was exacerbated by the fact that this was a charter school, which accepted students from across district lines, and those exposed kids then went home and exposed more kids in their neighborhoods outside the district in which the charter school was located.

    Perhaps mandatory vaccinations for teachers traveling abroad, so that they don't bring the disease back with them from their trip, and give it to their students?

    You can't have a patient 1 without a patient zero...

  279. Ebola by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    I wish everyone who is so smugly sanctimonious on this topic also supported travel bans and enforceable quarantines when it comes to, oh, I don't know, deadly hemorrhagic fever.

    Yet it's generally the opposite.

  280. natural selection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every time I see an article on the effects of groups of people not vaccinating themselves and/or their kids, I think of natural selection and population control. Nature at work, in other words. I know it sucks, but...well, it's not like it hasn't happened before, and humans still exist. For now, at least.

  281. Re:Wooping cough on the rise not related to vaccin by russotto · · Score: 1

    Protip: Vaccines don't protect you from bacteria.

    Pertussis (whooping cough) is caused by a bacterial infection. So is diphtheria, so is tetanus -- all of which the DTaP is made to protect against.

  282. Annnd..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here we have the problem. You are a drooling, neanderthal idiot motherfucker and are very much part of the problem. Go kill yourself promptly before you or any of your larvae infect the rest of the general population.

    Maybe we can cordon off Texas and quarantine all these redneck and red-state fucktards all together there and let "God" sort 'em out.

    Dude, he doesn't get a vaccine nor do his children. Ultimately this is a self solving problem.

  283. Re:Not the real problem by dmr001 · · Score: 1
    Taking care of quite a few un-documented immigrants in my medical practice, I find that vaccination rates are typically pretty good, and parents are thoughtful enough to bring in their immunization cards (and their vaccine schedule is similar to ours, only we vaccinate for chickenpox and they vaccinate for tuberculosis). The Mexican immunization program in particular (at least according to the Houston Chronicle) does significantly better than the US one.

    MONTERREY, MEXICO – If parents here are late getting their child inoculated, a public-health nurse will come to their home, pull down the youngster's pants and give the vaccination right there in the living room. If the parents are away at work, the nurse does not wait for them to come home and give permission. Shots are given anyway, and the paperwork is left with the baby sitter. It is a paternalistic approach almost impossible to imagine in the United States - where privacy rights and other freedoms are highly valued and immunizations are increasingly feared - but it has proved remarkably effective: Mexico has a 96 percent vaccination rate for children ages 1 to 4, compared with an immunization rate of 79 percent for 2-year-olds in the United States.

  284. Re:Fuck You by arth1 · · Score: 1

    Moreover, we've spent a LONG time letting children die of diseases, so we're probably about as strong in that way as we're likely to get.

    I don't think you understand how evolution work. It's not a synonym to evolving. How strong we are now does not say anything about how strong our descendants are going to be unless we have predation.
    Each generation introduces new mutations - a small number of mildly beneficial, somewhat more mildly detrimental, and most of all highly detrimental. The latter are usually not carried to term. The mildly detrimental, on the other hand, are those that are of concern. Unless they get culled, they will propagate, and accumulate with more mildly detrimental mutations from the next generation, and even more from the next, and so on. The net result is a population evolving into degeneration.
    How strong we are as a species now does not ensure that the following generations will be as strong. They will be adapted to a life with reliance on medical technology and medicines to counter that they are unable to survive on their own. A few massive solar flares, and we are back to the stone age. Except that we may not have a population that can survive those conditions, because there has not been any predation, and detrimental genetic mutations have been allowed and encouraged to spread through the population.
    Much unnecessary suffering in the future is the result of avoiding it now. What we're doing is peeing our pants to keep warm. It feels good right now.

  285. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    There is a REAL reason why more and more Docs are refusing to see kids that are not vaccinated. Basically, they are making it hard on parents who are immature and are not good parents. And yes, anybody that is NOT vaccinating their kids without medical reason, is a piss poor parent.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  286. Re: Fuck You by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of quality AC posts. However, there is no reason why ANY of these posts can not be associated with a login.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  287. Re:Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by swell · · Score: 1

    Where I live, and probably you too, arsenic is found naturally in the soil. It may have been filtered from your water. Or maybe not. Here an annual report is required on certain (but not all) contaminants in the public water supply.

    A construction site near me was studied because there seemed to be more arsenic than usual. Eventually they decided that construction could continue- not a problem. Many of us are probably breathing arsenic.

    Personally, I've had massive exposure to mercury, asbestos, lead and probably arsenic in the past 70 years and I'm remarkably healthy. I take certain nutrients and I find at least 100 hours/year keeping up with the science of good health is a good investment. Simply turn off your sports channel and spend some time with science. Yeah, that's Science- not some fitness magazine or gym guru! Could be the difference between a short wasted life and a long useful one for you and the people you care about.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  288. Article is dead wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The vaccines are NOT working for whooping cough. Kids which have been vaccinated are getting whooping cough. This article is dead wrong on multiple points.

  289. trust science, beware government by swell · · Score: 1

    Most of us are rational and accept that science has presented the facts accurately. Yet there is a danger.

    In the USA, our Food & Drug Administration has given us the Food Pyramid as a healthy scientific guideline for nutritious eating. They've told us to avoid fats and eat lots of carbohydrates. And they've killed millions with this advice.

    When government sticks its nose into science, a bad odor emerges. In this case, the intention seems to have been to support certain commercial food producers (corporations with the ability to influence government decisions). As far as vaccines, nobody is profiting enough to buy congress.

    Government decided some years ago that second-hand smoke was dangerous. They commissioned some studies to prove it. But when the studies came back without statistically valid evidence, the government simply redefined the term 'statistically valid' to fit their purpose. When it comes to sin- smoking, drinking, drugs ... the government isn't going to let facts intrude on their moral campaigns.

    So science can be wonderful. It's essential for an honest evaluation of such things. But sometimes government trumps science. Here's where we have to be diligent.

    Some day we will discover the drug that government dreams of: the brainwash pill. We will hear many lovely stories about how this drug will improve our lives, make us taller and studlier, make us happy and smarter .. We'll see many 'scientific' analyses to prove that it's true. And we'll all become drones, subject to the will of our overlords.

    Beware the mix of government and science.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  290. Yes, absolutely. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People have no right to question the wisdom of better people. Force them to be vaccinated at gunpoint if necessary. Enough with this "democracy" foolishness: the opinion of an uneducated redneck is not worth the same of a sophisticated, learned academic. Only a technocratic oligarchy can bring real progress to mankind.

  291. Life is risky by nha · · Score: 1

    Get used to it. Requiring everyone to be injected so you might maybe be safer? That's a No Go. Adding insult to injury, those injections contain known poisons, are of questionable effectiveness, and there exists a substantial body of evidence pointing to collateral damage such as autism.

    http://www.collective-evolutio...

    http://www.greenmedinfo.com/bl...

    --
    NHA
  292. Harmful injections required. by nha · · Score: 1

    According to the article: "They are free to continue believing vaccines are harmful, even as the entire medical and scientific communities try in vain to tell them otherwise. But they should not be free to endanger the lives of everyone else with their views."

    That says that I should be required to inject myself with vaccines which I consider harmful. How goofy is that? With a few minutes searching the internet you'll see that there's plenty of doctors and researchers who consider vaccines dubious at best, especially for children.

    --
    NHA
  293. Think what you like about vaccines. by nha · · Score: 1

    The issue here is whether parents should have control over the lives of their own children.

    In Japan, parents do everything they can to ensure that their children catch all the usual childhood diseases. The resulting immunity is better than what vaccines provide. Japan is an advanced industrial nation, and I presume that Japanese parents love their children too.

    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Frankilin

    --
    NHA
  294. Re:Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by PeterM+from+Berkeley · · Score: 1

    I didn't say it wasn't IN the water, I said it wasn't ADDED to city water supplies in order to kill rats.

  295. Re:Sometimes there are reasons by DarKnyht · · Score: 1

    Yes, but treating someone that has a medical reason the same was is a piss poor doctor, and that is what we experienced. No imagine that scenario with the law behind them saying they don't have to see you.

    --
    Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
  296. vioxx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please research and think carefully about vioxx.
    Even the CDC estimates tens of thousands of people were killed.
    Clinical trial results manipulated, adverse events under reported, ubfuscation, . . .
    All the major pharmaceutical companies do likewise.
    Do we really want to live in a society where they can buy politicians to mandate we inject their toxic sludge into our children?

    http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/5881914

    vaccines are materials made in factories where cutting cost is paramount.
    they can be shipped improperly, left out on loading docks, even left on your pediatricians shelf past expiration, or too warm on a high shelf near a light, or too cold, etc. And don't tell me these things never happen. We live in an imperfect world full of fallible humans. Nothing is risk free. The risks are much higher than your corporate overlord would have you believe.

  297. here is one of my objections by volcan0 · · Score: 1

    Ever heard of san francisco and the aids vaccine which the govt and the cdc admitted had really happened? http://www.rense.com/general68...

  298. Re:Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Former person that did analytical work on that for various government agencies... No, I'm not linking you my papers. Yes, I did have better data than was available to the public. No, I probably wasn't qualified to analyze the data in a PhD sense, but in practice I was more qualified than the scientists that had buggy excel macros that gave them the wrong answers to their questions, and who routinely polluted their data sources because they didn't know the difference between int and floating point. And don't get me started on the researcher that was impressed she had learned enough perl to make a matlab model run by filling in gaps in a statewide sample with a national average because she didn't keep track of filenames...

    The law is interpreted as that the reported level must be 0. The law does not specify sensitivity or specificity of monitoring. Or what the report really is.

    The EPA actually allows Arsenic at 10 parts per billion. .. AKA 10 micrograms per liter.

    The potable standard, at driving concentration to 0 is, as a matter of science, bullshit. But I'm going to assume you really meant potable community water systems so you at least have a plausible leg to stand on. Don't worry, it gets more complicated than that with seasonal systems and distribution networks, where there's even less monitoring, but at least that's not 90% of the population.

    Quarterly and annual sampling may occur at various frequencies (non quarterly, non annual), and be reported more often than actually sampled when the water system is in compliance (as of the last sample). Fortunately, they do still have actually sample every few years, but I have seen runs as large as 11 reports with just one sample -- and I strongly suspect, but could not prove it was longer.

    You're right, enough Arsenic to kill a rat would cause toxicity in humans over time. But "driving concentration to zero" is a lie. A number of systems already report zero when knowingly reporting at units less granular than lab specificity. DO NOT RELY upon significant digits in government reports.

    Beyond that, fairly complex behaviors are routinely engaged in: including obtaining surface or ground water from known contaminated sources, and mixing it with lesser tainted sources -- relying upon mathematic averaging premises to report characteristics of the ultimately consumed water. It is not clear that this ... mixing behavior is actually likely to obtain the desired distribution, particularly in cases where the mixing is temporal instead of physical.

    There are however, multiple toxic chemicals actually added to the drinking water supply as a matter of routine fact. Toxicity, like all things... is a matter of dosage. It seems fairly obvious that they are not generally toxic at the concentrations we introduce them -- although there are verified cases of poisoning. Typically (I almost said usually, but this is NOT usual), this is due to something like a failure of a flourine injection pump deciding to empty itself overnight...

  299. Problem is ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First let me say I'm vaccinated and so are my kids against the serious stuff. We will not get the seasonal flu vaccine nor the HPV one. So who decides what kids should be forced to get? The CDC? Ha. Good one. They are bought and paid for. This is what happens when science is for sale.

    What about the follow up research that has shown that the outbreaks have occurred in highly vaccinated groups? Most of the kids getting sick are vaccinated. Maybe it doesn't work as well as it's advertised. Maybe there has been genetic drift in the virus (or bacteria in the case of whooping cough)?

    Maybe you missed it but one of the 3 doctors involved in the CDC's 2004 study on autism and the MMR vaccine has got a lawyer who specializes in whistleblower cases and is willing to testify before congress. They knowingly took out statistically significant information.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/autism-links-to-vaccines-whistleblower-reveals-evidence-of-criminal-coverup-by-the-centers-for-disease-control-cdc/5397928

    So put yourself as the head of the CDC and one of your scientists comes to you and says "we have a 340% increase in autism amongst black males who get the MMR vaccine before the age of 3". What would you do? I'd change the protocol and give the shots later. But that isn't what happened. They withdrew almost half (41%) of the kids from the study so that the rise wouldn't show up. Total fixing of the numbers.

    This after the mumps part of the MMR has had scientists who worked for Merck file lawsuits over the spiking of samples

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm

    Then you have the endless pushing of the seasonal influenza vaccine even though its effectiveness is so limited that the risks outweigh the benefits. Cochrane Review "Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults" shows how close to useless it is
    http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults-

    And of course you also have the work showing that the vast amount of scientific proof for the flu vaccine doesn't hold up when you account for the healthy user effect as shown by Dr Lisa Jackson's out of season influenza vaccine research
    http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/2/337.short

    So the CDC itself has created a huge problem and now you want to solve that problem by taking away exemptions? How about clean up the CDC and try honesty for a change? People will respect you more and trust your judgement. But hey this is all about money so keep the lies flowing and lets get all the people who think like us to attack all the others so we at the CDC don't have to change our ways.

    And you wonder why people don't trust the CDC? The CDC is the problem.

  300. Re:Freedom of choice by hxnwix · · Score: 1

    A public health official in the United States may not require administration of any vaccination not approved by the FDA.

    Therefore, the question this proposal raises is not "Should we mandate that people get injected with vaccines that are known to be safe and effective."

    The question, "is a vaccine known to be safe and effective," is indeed answered before a vaccine may even be offered to the public. Do you live in a country where this is not true? If so, it's not the United States.

  301. Re:Stay away from you? Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, the majority of us do want you vaccinated. Take your medicine or go to jail where your medicine will be administered.

  302. immunity not vaccination by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    " the public health concept that when at least 93 percent of people are vaccinated, their immunity protects the vulnerable"

    No it isn't. First it depends on the disease. Second it depends on IMMUNITY not percent vaccinated. Most require 85-90% IMMUNITY. The high end is measles which requires 93% IMMUNITY and the low end is influenza with 75% IMMUNITY. Plus herd immunity is much easier to achieve with natural infection than with vaccinations (measles is 68%). So to get herd immunity for something like measles you need a vaccine that is almost 100% effective and almost 100% implemented.

    For influenza you have at best a 65% effective vaccine (much lower this year) so even if 100% are vaccinated you won't get herd immunity because you can't get to the 75% level.

    I'm not advocating "measles parties" or anything stupid like that but this concept of herd immunity gets bandied around by people who are very ignorant about the details. A great start are these articles:

    http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/7/911.full

    http://vran.org/about-vaccines/general-issues/herd-immunity/herd-immunity-the-misplaced-driver-of-universal-vaccination/

    So in short if you are relying on herd immunity from vaccinations you are as blind as those who condemn all vaccines.

  303. Re:Freedom of choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is not OK for a country or state to say that as a matter of citizenship, you must inject stuff into your body, no matter what.

    Do you imagine that if you were before a judge and interrupted his pronouncement of your guilt to explain that, "sir, I respectfully disagree," your words would carry any weight whatsoever?

  304. Herd immunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Measles cases imported into North America after the eradication of the endemic virus in the early 2000s had typically resulted in small or no sustained outbreaks in the last decade, in part due to the vigilance of the public-health authorities in quarantine implementation. However, the 2011 imported outbreak of measles in Quebec, Canada, characterized by de Serreset al. (2013), appeared to be ominously different. Strict quarantine measures were not implemented, possibly because of the assumption that the region was well under herd immunity due to an exceptionally high and uniform vaccination compliance for measles (95-97%) in this region. The consequences of relying on non-existent herd immunity as opposed to quarantine in curbing an imported disease outbreak were very telling.

    http://www.naturalimmunityfundamentals.com/

  305. Re:Stay away from you? Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With that kind of argument...

    The majority of us don't want you to marry outside your race
    The majority of us don't want you to have an abortion
    The majority of us don't want you working outside the home (sexism)
    etc.

  306. Re: Fuck You by Assmasher · · Score: 1

    Word

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    Loading...
  307. I objected to vaccinating my son... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I objected to vaccinating my son when he started Kindergarten. Stupid state wanted him vaccinated 6 months earlier than necessary. So I wrote out a nice letter, quotes the legal statues, and objected on philosophical grounds. A few months later he came of age, got his shots, and I gave them an updated medical record.

    Stupid laws do not allow for the flexibility needed. They would have had him double-dose within too short a period of time just so they could check their little box off. Even the CDC and the pediatric physicians association said we didn't need that set of 4 shots so early in his life! But whoa. He's in Kindergarten. God forbid you don't get him that 4th or 5th shot in the series right away!

    Objecting on philosophical grounds gave us the time we needed.

    1. Re:I objected to vaccinating my son... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1. We also vaccinated on different schedules depending on state we lived in and, skipped rotavirus vaccine completely. I don't mind vaccinating older kids on CDC schedule but toddlers are different matter.

  308. Re:Here we go again... by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

    It amazes me that they think the anti-vaxxers are nuts. People are citing Michigan where only the vaccinated have gotten sick. I also believe that a whistleblower has come forward regarding autism being caused in the African-American community being left out of drug company funded studies. I have no intention of looking up any of this information for the vaccine enthusiasts as it is very easy to find and BTW I am vaccinated.

    --
    The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  309. We statisticians refer to anecdotes as non-random samples of size N=1.

    Completely and totally worthless. Actually, not worthless (value 0), they are worth-negative, as they actually prevent good decision making.

    And as Kahneman and Tversky discussed, the availability heuristic and the ease of remembering the outliers makes for very bad decision making. This is exacerbated by the modern un-filtered news system (aka, "the web" cross the "infotainment industry"). This warped noise delivery system, masquerading as "news you need to know" results in a really bad decision making process. Modern medicine (where I worked as a statistician) is unable to help with this extra-scientific process.

    --
    "There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
  310. autism rates in non-vaccinated kids? by PrBr · · Score: 1

    What is the autism rate among the non-vaccinated population? The overall autism rate in the USA is 1% plus afaik.

  311. Re:Still not buying it by surd1618 · · Score: 1

    I pay for vaccines that are not covered by insurance.

    I am speaking for myself and don't want to be construed as speaking for you, but I think this sucks. They ought to be free, considering that most of the people who are most at risk don't want to pay extra for them. I remember working public-facing jobs, not making much money, having to weigh the cost of getting a flu shot (or the extra effort of a free one, which amounted to roughly the same), against the risk of catching the flu (and possibly passing it on to my coworkers or the public).

  312. my choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is my choice to not be vaccinated. I will, however, vaccinate my children, even if there is a small chance it will do any good. Quit trying to control people. I don't see *you* people controlling the people who come here for sanctuary. It's peoples right to choose whether or not they want to be ignorant.

  313. "Anonymous" and "Vaccine" Don't Mix. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ANONYMOUS ? Or.....?

  314. Without Vaccination by cramoft · · Score: 1

    Not vaccinating your children is putting their lives at risk. I am a perfect example of that. I caught polio in 1942, it effected my left leg. This was before there was any vaccine. I was never able to play any sports and I was on crutches and wore braces up until high school. I relied on my parents entirely until I was 18 years old. Why does a parent want to subject their children themselves to this kind of life????? I have been in a wheelchair for the last 10 years.

  315. Herd immunity is not a right. by Immerman · · Score: 1

    You get an awful large dosage of a great many heavy metals just by living in the 21st century. Granted that makes intentionally subjecting yourself to further contamination almost less appealing, but there's a benefit to be weighed against as well. There may indeed be a weak link between vaccines and various health issues - and that may be reason to consider refraining from things like annual flu vaccines, etc. But there is a devastatingly strong link between developing a lot of these serious diseases like mumps, etc. and far more dire consequences. Death or permanent crippling - suffering of a kind rarely seen by modern Americans precisely because we've struggled long and hard to almost eliminate the diseases.

    Someone might say: "Hey, we have pretty good herd immunity, why should I subject my child to the risks of vaccination, whatever they may be?" To them I say, "By what right do you claim the benefits of herd immunity for your child without subjecting them to the same risk as all the children who had to be vaccinated in order to provide that immunity?" That is the behavior of a social parasite. My child risked death, however small the chances, to take that vaccine. How *dare* you claim the benefits of herd immunity without subjecting your own child to the same risk. I am not heartless, and I will gladly make allowances if your child would face a substantially higher risk than my own. But because you are a coward? Never. How dare you even suggest such a thing.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  316. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are not allowd to drink and drive either, so why should you be allowed to endanger others by failing to use vaccines.

  317. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    i'm reminded of the line from the godfather...

    Kay: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed.
    Michael: Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?

  318. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    dude - i already recommended a documentary called 'The Greater Good'. start there. when you've seen it, come back to me and talk. until then, try and keep your insulted sensibilites to yourself. love, cardoor

  319. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    sigh. just watch the documentary dude. start there.

  320. Re:Fuck You by dave420 · · Score: 1

    You clearly haven't thought this through. With your logic Stephen Hawking would have been thrown in the bin at the first sign of his disease, as he would not be strong enough to round-house a sabre-tooth dire bear in the teeth. When Darwin wrote of "survival of the fittest", he meant fittest as in "most suited", not "strongest". Humanity is as successful as it is today because we take care of our weak, not because we destroy them. You are confusing evolution through natural selection with eugenics...

  321. Re:Annnd..... by vandon · · Score: 1

    You seem to forget that it's all the true-blue liberal "smrat" people and areas who are the real anti-vaxxers.
    We red-necks get our free guvmunt medicines.

    http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe...

    Broken down by vaccine, the states with the best MMR vaccine rates were:
    1. Mississippi (99.9%);
    2. Maryland (98.2%);
    3. South Dakota (97.9%);
    4. Texas (97.5%); and
    5. Wyoming (97.5%).

    Blue California was well behind at 92.7%
    Summary from a CDC study linked:
    Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a household with an annual income exceeding 75,000 dollars, and to have parents who expressed concerns regarding the safety of vaccines and indicated that medical doctors have little influence over vaccination decisions for their children.

    In other words, Whole Foods, organic, homeopathic liberals.

  322. Re:Fuck You by arth1 · · Score: 1

    There is no reason to belive that Stephen Hawking would not have made it into adulthood. ALS isn't a disease that decreases resistances in any great way, and it is also a progressive disease, and most of his childhood he was doing pretty well.

    But even if some of the brightest would not have made it, those would be compensated for by the increased number of children born to replace those who didn't make it. By chopping off the tail on the left hand side and increasing the magnitude of the Gauss curve, you cause an increase in the long tail on the right hand side.

    And I have never said anything about it being the strongest that survive - of course it is the fittest. Those who are less fit get reaped by predation in species that maintain a healthy base. Whether it's because they can't see the predators coming, can't run away, don't have a immune system fighting off diseases, or otherwise. Those with detrimental mutations are less fit than average, and thus less likely to live to propagate their detrimental mutations, and the culling of the herd leads to the average herd member being fitter than otherwise, especially over multiple generations.

  323. Re:Fuck You by arth1 · · Score: 1

    Humanity is as successful as it is today because we take care of our weak, not because we destroy them. You are confusing evolution through natural selection with eugenics...

    This deserves its own reply. No, it's you who are confusing the two.

    Eugenics is when people choose who should live and who should die. This is abhorrent, for a variety of good reasons. It's not only morally repugnant, but from an objective point of view, it is detrimental to the species because when you kill those who are different from you, you also kill the good mutations, i.e. those who are fitter than you.

    Natural selection is when those who survive due to their own abilities have more viable offspring, causing a propagation of successful genes and mutations, not selected genes.

    If anything, vaccination is more like eugenics than anti-vaccination is. Money and culture controls who gets vaccinated and who doesn't, and most people want their own children to have an advantage, even if unfair.

  324. Re:you're all insane. by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    pft, hey, you should be a pastafarian. There's a book out there about it. Start there. After you've read it, you can come back to talk to me. Until then, imagine this whole thread was me trying to convert you to the religion and failing because I didn't actually say anything about it. loveysnugglepuppies, heckruler

    But oh hey, SURE, let's go that extra mile to show you how you're wrong.

    The Greater Good is a documentary film about the risks vs. benefits of vaccines ...

    The three anecdotes around which the film is based on are those of:

    Gabi Swank of Wichita, Kansas, who received an HPV vaccine and attributes a number of adverse reactions, including a seizure, to this experience,
    Jordan King of Portland, Oregon, who regressed into autism following routine vaccination, and was one of the test cases for the autism omnibus proceedings and whose case was rejected by the Special Master, and
    Victoria Grace Boyd Christener of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who died at the age of 5 months after receiving a vaccine.

    Oh my god, it's an emotional gut-wrencher fluff piece about three specific individuals. First off, Gabi Swank's case derives from their Neurologist Dr. Lindholm claiming that her condition was caused by the vaccine. Hey, if he's got evidence that links the two, all the more power to him and getting that sort of thing published and the vaccine pulled. Shit happens yo, and we need to fix it. If it's real. But I can't find anything he's published about this. All I can find is a single quote and it's dropped like fart in the wind. Was this one stray comment from a doctor that the family picked up and ran with? Hey, the need to blame someone is strong. I get it. But choose your target with care.

    Let's look at Jordan King of Portland and the autism omnibus proceedings:

    On February 12, 2009, the court ruled in three test cases that the combination of the MMR vaccine and thiomersal-containing vaccines were not to blame for autism. Hastings concluded in his decision, "Unfortunately, the Cedillos have been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment."[17] The ruling was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals,[18] and upheld.

    "This case, however, is not a close case. The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners’ causation theories."

    And an infant died, which sucks. We've come a long way in lowering the infant mortality rate. There's still the edge cases.

  325. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    you believe that a 'court ruling' has to do with truth? cmon dude. i sincerely have no animosity toward you (even though you are apparently now my first 'foe' . i hope you are at least enjoying the humor in this exchange).

    joking aside though, i understand why this is hard to see, and why i no doubt seem to you like an a-hole crackpot. it's ok. but these are larger issues about information control and a fundamentally deceptive process. i dont wanna fight, and im not going to convince you absent a "manifesto", which im not really into. ive said my peace. if im right, then maybe at some point you'll see it. if im wrong, then hopefully i'll see that. i dont think the latter is likely, but hey - anything's possible.

  326. Re:you're all insane. by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    you believe that a 'court ruling' has to do with truth?

    Sure, it's not iron-clad, but there's a strong correlation with the truth. And they lost the appeal too. And typically when there are questionable legal shindigs, you don't have the uppity-ups double-down and lay their reputation on the line with such hard language like:

    "This case, however, is not a close case. The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners’ causation theories."

    They pussyfoot around the call for plausible deniability.

    i sincerely have no animosity toward you (even though you are apparently now my first 'foe' . i hope you are at least enjoying the humor in this exchange).

    joking aside though

    I find it useful to keep track of the crazies. And this exchange hasn't been humorous. I've tried to give the anti-vaccers a legitimate chance to convince me that there was something to their argument and you've failed to present anything other than vague fear-mongering and the name of a bullshit documentary.

    i understand why this is hard to see, and why i no doubt seem to you like an a-hole crackpot. it's ok

    No, it's really not. This is a debate in an open forum. If you just accept that you look like an asshole crackpot and lack the ability or facts or reason to justify your position, then trying to participate in the conversation actively damages your sides claim. You're both stirring up controversy, and then damning your own side of the argument by failing to deliver.

    but these are larger issues about information control and a fundamentally deceptive process.

    Uh huh, "it's a conspiracy"? Is that what you want to say? "We can't trust any information we find out there and the whole system is decieving us. All the doctors and scientists must be in on it." If this isn't the groundwork for some epic baseless fear-mongering I don't know what is.

    Listen, there probably is a conspiracy of some sort. All it takes is two guys with a plan they don't tell anyone. That's a conspiracy. And I'm positive that the pharmaceutical companies are getting paid WAY too much money. And a sizeable chunk of that is probably straight up corruption. But I don't think that they're poisoning kids with vaccines just to make a buck.

    and im not going to convince you absent a "manifesto",

    I was really looking more for examples of what these "big changes with dirty fingerprints" are, what the dangers of vaccines are, and what exactly you're trying to raise awareness of. Something concrete that would either be refutable, or give your argument some legs to stand on.

    ive said my peace.

    Geeze, are you 12? Come on, "I've said my piece". It's not that hard. You're doing this from a phone aren't you....
    If this was your piece, then you've got nothing except shadows and boogieman.

  327. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    dude. tldr. i thought these piece-by-piece rebuttals were one-off, but they seem to be youre mo. uncle. you're right about everything.

  328. Re:you're all insane. by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    Sorry for the length, but it's hard not to go piece by piece when everything is just so wrong. And you know we can't have people being wrong on the Internet.

  329. Re:Vaccines are totally safe by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

    You have anti-vaccination folks like Meryl Dorey who actively spout such nonsense as "nobody dies from Whooping Cough." Then, when someone dies of Whooping Cough, they brand the family of that person liars unless they give Meryl the person's complete medical history so she can verify that it the death was actually due to Whooping Cough. Apparently, she's more of an expert than all of the health care workers that treated the person. This happened with Dana McCaffery who died of Whooping Cough at 4 weeks old. Meryl called her parents liars and demanded they give her all of Dana's medical records. They refused, but of course had they I have no doubt that Meryl would have found the "real reason" that Dana died - especially if Meryl could somehow tie the death to a vaccination no matter how tenuous the link.

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  330. We don't need no stinkin pills. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bunch of damned sheep in this place. Well I can say almost everyone is just part of the herd. Please give me a pill, I need a pill or pills.

  331. Re:you're all insane. by markass530 · · Score: 1

    youtube videos are not documentaries, they're propaganda pieces

  332. Re:you're all insane. by Cardoor · · Score: 1

    just because a film might be on youtube (is the greater good even there? i dont know), doesn't make it a 'youtube video put together by someone in their basement.' go to http://www.greatergoodmovie.or... if you want, and see what was put into it and making it.

    frankly, i don't care where the truth comes from. it could be scribbled on the back of a napkin.



    the only thing more painful than having to listen to propaganda, is having to listen to it regurgitated by it's victims.

  333. Where's the science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually the count of worst diseases around the world strongly reduced with the rise of sanitation and improvements in living condition.

    And when it comes to vaccination, most of what you think you know, is just as much religion as what the common doomsdayers and naysayers believe in.

    http://www.dissolvingillusions.com/

    Go take the time, read the book, do your own research and then tell me again, you believe that it is vaccination that protects us.

  334. What if I roll a 1? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think humans are wired to intuit high-risk, high-reward probability spaces very well. There's the lottery, and then this vaccination thing, too (ignoring a few pertinent facets of it, obviously).

    Imagine the following game: you roll 2d10 to determine what happens to you. On a roll of...

    2-5) You are instantly murdered.
    6-95) You receive $100 and are free to go.
    96-100) You receive a million bucks and are free to go.

    Do you play the game?

    What happens if I roll a 1? :-)

  335. Re:Still not buying it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > why not make an honest donation to the multi-billion dollar businesses that produce and promote these vaccines?

    If enough people get vaccinated, there's a chance that the disease gets wiped out entirely At that point vaccination becomes unnecessary, and the risks associated with vaccination (if there are any) disappear. Everybody except the businesses wins.

    So by NOT getting vaccinated YOU ENSURE that the multi-billion dollar businesses continue to be profitable. They are eternally grateful to Mr A Wakefield.

  336. Re:Useless attempt by rhazz · · Score: 1

    My bad. Revised question: Do you think that general healthy policy should be based on your own personal anecdotes, or on years of statistical evidence about the efficacy of flu vaccinations?