Slashdot Mirror
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."
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."
Stupidity and fear.
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.
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...?
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.
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.
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.
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?
We don't have that ability.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
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!
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"
It's considered a universal human right to be secure in your own body.
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.
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.
If we all got vaccinated, at least we'd have a measure of "nerd immunity".
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
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"
Here is a rebuttal article http://scienceblogs.com/insole...
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
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.
"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!"
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.
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.
if polio is back, that'd be a bad thing. the others yeah though.
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.
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?
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Citation needed.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
A recent outbreak in Texas (last year, in fact) should have given these folks a heads up! http://www.forbes.com/sites/em...
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
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.
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.
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"
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.
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.
Ah, VacTruth.com articles, so very "informative". Thanks, Jenny.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
Says the guy who's afraid of vaccines and food.
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.
So all of the people doing this are independently wealthy? Or do you plan to restrict the option only to the independently wealthy?
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why not allow all schools, daycares, babysitters, etc. to require up to date vaccinations before providing services?
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.
You're an idiot, and for proof, Mexico's vaccination rates are at the same level as USA.
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
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.
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.
Especially because 93% of illegal immigrants are adults.
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. *******
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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
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Look at all the anonymous cowards...
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And your answer to it is?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
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.
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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.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
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.
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
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.
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.)
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).
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.
"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.
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?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
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
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.
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
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
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
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.
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.
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%.
You don't understand what vaccination does. It reduces your chance of contracting a disease, but not (necessarily) to zero. Please Google "herd immunity".
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Would they really be the source of disease, or is it travelers from the 3rd World?
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
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.
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?
tuskegee experiment
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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...
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.
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".
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.
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?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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
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.
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
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?
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
So at what age did you expect the babies in question to display symptoms of autism? Before they learned to speak?
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
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.
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.
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
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!!!
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
> 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.
Absolutely. We should re-introduce large predators to urban environments in order to cull the slow and stupid.
We have - they're called "cars".
Is this a parody? Even with GIFW theory I'm having a hard time accepting someone wrote this seriously.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pen and Teller on Vaccinations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
"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.
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.)
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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
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
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"
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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! --
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.
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.
either get the vaccines or find a new country
sadly enough nutjob anti vaxxers have some pretty ridiculous answers to those questions
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
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
What's dangerous about slippery soap is that it leads to falls in showers.
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.
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).
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
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
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
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
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.
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.
Ever heard of san francisco and the aids vaccine which the govt and the cdc admitted had really happened? http://www.rense.com/general68...
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.
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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.
Survival of the fittest, bitch.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
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.
What is the autism rate among the non-vaccinated population? The overall autism rate in the USA is 1% plus afaik.
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).
Jedi mind trick: "These are not the placebos you are looking for..."
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.
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.
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?
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
sigh. just watch the documentary dude. start there.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
youtube videos are not documentaries, they're propaganda pieces
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.
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?