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."

Comments

There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[stevez67]

Stupidity and fear.

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupidity and fear.

Education and being skeptical.

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[ArcadeMan]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Bazman]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[houstonbofh]

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupidity and fear.

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

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Grishnakh]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Shortguy881]

Fact Check: Are you a chemical engineer?

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[xaotikdesigns]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[UnknowingFool]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[UnknowingFool]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[kwiecmmm]

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

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

No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

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

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[radio4fan]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[penandpaper]

A low percentage of people have adverse reactions to them

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[UnknowingFool]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Grishnakh]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

No holistic/philosopical objections here, just pure science.

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[xaotikdesigns]

There are still online schools, private schools, and home schooling. The child can still get an education.

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[uslurper]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Immerman]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[UnknowingFool]

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

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[CauseBy]

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

Obvious troll is obvious.

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[TangoMargarine]

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

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

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

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

Do you play the game?

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[penandpaper]

the whole medical field has lost the ability to diagnose

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Dragonslicer]

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[OzoneLad]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Grishnakh]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Whorhay]

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Whorhay]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[smellsofbikes]

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[smellsofbikes]

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Belial6]

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[puck01]

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[NeutronCowboy]

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[ceoyoyo]

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Immerman]

No.

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[Chalnoth]

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

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[mattack2]

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

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

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

Re:There is no vaccine for the worst diseases

[smellsofbikes]

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

freedom 2 b a moron

[airdrummer]

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.

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[operagost]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Anonymous Coward]

Often, home schooling is even prohibited.

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[jythie]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[morgauxo]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Millennium]

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Assmasher]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[ShanghaiBill]

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

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[pixelpusher220]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[pixelpusher220]

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

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

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

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Empiric]

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[plover]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Jason Levine]

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[drb_chimaera]

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[MBGMorden]

Sorry, but that's part of the compromise.

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[hierofalcon]

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

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

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Immerman]

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

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

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[CauseBy]

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

Is there any other reason parents homeschool their kids? That's the only one I've ever heard: "I want my children to be ignorant of the things you will teach them in school". Typically they don't even shy away from that reason.

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Loki_1929]

Why? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a stupid decision, but parents make stupid decisions all the time. Is every poor decision impacting the health of your child now child abuse? Mac and Cheese is a poor decision impacting the health of your child. Ever feed them that, abuser? Soda? Child abuse! Cotton candy? Child abuse! McDonalds? Child abuse! Ice cream? Child abuse! Failing to get them to the dentist on a perfect schedule? Child abuse! Dishes left in the sink a little too long or trash left in the trash can a little too long? Child abuse! Pizza party? Child abuse! Using [cleaning product that isn't specifically designed to be completely child-safe]? Child abuse!

You really, really want to wander down that slippery slope? Think before you speak, lest you find your own home visited by Child Protective Services.

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[geekmux]

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

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

Fraudulent, eh?

Tell that to the parent of a dead child.

Let's have an intelligent discussion about this. That would include admitting that bad shit can sometimes happen with medicine.

To sit here and generalize that we've never suffered even a single fatality due to a reaction to a vaccine is demonstrating a level of ignorance that even religion cannot attain.

Re:freedom 2 b a moron

[Loki_1929]

Some people can't get vaccinated because of medical reasons. Also vaccinations do not have a 100% effectiveness.

And sometimes the best of hammers will mangle a perfectly good nail. Yes, the tools we have are imperfect; no one is disputing that.

If too many people decide to not get vaccinated

Whoa whoa whoa, stop right there. The default state of a human body is unvaccinated. No one is removing a vaccine from themselves. No one is removing antibodies from themselves in an effort to make themselves or others more susceptible to disease. The default state is unvaccinated. It isn't about "if too many people decide not to", it's "if enough people decide to do it... positive things can happen". And yes, there's a huge difference. See the previous post.

then an outbreak could spread through all of those people and the ones where the vaccination didn't take as well as the people who could not get a vaccination. If the percentage of people who were successfully vaccinated is high enough then you will have individual cases here and there.

I completely understand that. However, you need to understand that disease is part of the human existence. Don't want to deal with disease? Stop being alive; that fixes the problem. Otherwise, accept the existence of risk and understand that your desire to minimize your risk and the risk of your loved ones does not entitle you or the government to strap a child to a gurney, jam needles in their arm, and pump them full of drugs (albeit very good and beneficial drugs).

Vaccines are a wonderful tool of modern medicine. The fact that that tool's effectiveness increases when more people make use of it does not entitle you or anyone else to force others to make use of that tool. You are not entitled to a risk-free or even a risk-reduced existence. The default state of a human being is naked, defenseless, and susceptible to all manner of diseases and predators. The fact that you're now safer than any other human being in the history of the planet ought to be enough. You have no right to perfect safety and you have no right to force others to help you get closer to perfect safety.

No

[Richard_at_work]

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...?

Re:No

[MetalliQaZ]

That would never happen. How could you pass that rule? If you did, how would you ever enforce that?

Better to simply specify that people must be vaccinated to attend school, get a government job, and receive public benefits.

Re:No

[Mr D from 63]

I was thinking similar. If you take the exemption and there are some cases of the target illnesses reported at a public school, all kids without vaccinations are required to stay home until the outbreak is considered to be over.

Re:No

[gstoddart]

I was thinking if you take the exemption and subsequently infect someone you have liability for medical expenses, or criminal liability in the case of death.

If your decision only affected you, run wild. That's your choice and your right.

If you infect someone else and make them seriously ill or cause death ... well, that's no longer just you affected by that damned decision, is it?

This isn't a decision which is made in an vacuum.

Re:No

[houstonbofh]

Of course not... Have a town crier walk in front of them 10 paces with a bell shouting "Unclean!"

Re:No

[houstonbofh]

This, and create a EULA for the parents to sign whereby they agree to pay for the health needs of those who get sick by proxy.

And? Exactly how much money do you think these people have? All you would get out of it was some herbal tea and an old VW van.

Re:No

[operagost]

Who's responsible if your child has a bad reaction to the vaccine and dies or is permanently disabled?

Re:No

[jeff4747]

Yes, such as violating this tenant by allowing the unvaccinated to infect those too young or too ill to receive the vaccine.

If this was a situation where only those refusing the vaccine could be harmed, I'd agree with you. But it isn't. The unvaccinated are killing other people by destroying herd immunity.

Your right to refuse a vaccine does not give you the right to harm others.

Re:No

[NeutronCowboy]

If what you do with your body starts to affect my body, you better believe that I'll request a say in what you do with your body.

Re:No

[JesseMcDonald]

Non-action can never count as causing harm. The villains in this story are the diseases, not the unvaccinated. It's great that you want to fight diseases, but if your particular method of fighting disease requires others to undergo a medical procedure, that has to be their choice. You need to persuade them to cooperate; they've done nothing to justify the use of force against them.

Of course, this is all tied up with the taxation and mandatory education requirements (which, needless to say, are immoral to start with regardless of the vaccination issue). By accepting tax subsidies and requiring attendance the public schools have forfeited any right they might have otherwise had to turn anyone away. Their mandate is to provide education, not enforce vaccination.

Tough call

[Vermonter]

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.

Re:Tough call

[Anonymous Coward]

The government already has a mechanism of forcing things into your body: federal prison.

FTFY.

Knowledge is the solution

[operagost]

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.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

A few children? We're talking deaths here. Fuck your illusion of personal freedom.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[Wycliffe]

I agree. I'm a big supporter of vaccines but one thing I find annoying is that it's almost impossible to find good
numbers for vaccines. Almost everyone knows the numbers for failure rates of birth control as it's pretty easy
to find a chart listing them and their percentages alongside the 85% chance of getting pregnant with no birth
control. Finding a chart like that for vaccines is next to impossible. Why isn't there a chart which shows all
the vaccines, their complication rate, the chance of complication if you catch it, the number of reported cases
in the previous year, what age the vaccine is recommended, etc... Why should we have to instinctively trust the
doctor when I know someone has all these numbers and could easily put them in an easy to read chart?

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

You do not have a personal freedom to infect others with Yellow Fever, Tuberculosis, Typhoid, or Cholera. Isolation of infectious or potentially infectious individuals has long been the duty of government pubic health programs. The fact that these and others have largely been controlled through vaccination programs and/or improved public sanitation (also a government program) has let people forget the dangers that exist. I am old enough to remember when public places like swimming pools and libraries were closed in the summer due to polio outbreaks (thank you Jonas Salk.) So, while you have a right to risk your children's lives by not vaccinating them, you do not have a right to risk my grandchildren's lives by sending them to public school.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[RatherBeAnonymous]

This is what modern westerners fail to understand. Without childhood immunizations we would be facing hundreds of thousands of childhood deaths each year in the US and Europe from preventable diseases. Our immunization programs have been so successful that modern parents don't know what it was like to loose siblings and classmates to measles or to see friends and relatives crippled by polio and have to be placed in an iron lung.

Yes, vaccines have problems. No, companies should not be sheltered from prosecution for producing dangerous medicines, but lets put everything in perspective. I'll gladly trade a few illnesses or deaths caused by vaccines for the mountain of dead caused by diseases.

http://www.unicef.org/immuniza...

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[Wycliffe]

But we know (or should know) alot of these numbers. We should know the number of cases of measles last year.
We should know the number of suspected complications from the measle shot. We should know the percentage
of people who caught the measle that were previously vaccinated. They constantly tell us the percentage of
car crash fatalities where someone wasn't wearing a seatbelt vs the ones where someone was but you don't
see and can't find numbers like that for vaccines.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[flink]

Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result.

You mean take responsibility by compensating (the very few) people who are legitimately harmed by a vaccine reaction: National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[kristianbrigman]

It is very difficult to find this information. However, it is (sort of) available... i don't know of an actual death rate from vaccines exactly. Even this is hard to find, but there is a federal program (the 'Vaccine Injury Compensation Program') which compensates victims who have been harmed by compulsory vaccinations, and a summary chart of claims, accepted claims, and payouts is here:

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecom...

I had found a different, more accessible document before, but can't really find it now. Similar information though. On the other hand, the statistics for the prevalence of diseases that have vaccines for them is much more available, at CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pu...

Influenza has the highest compensated total (932 in 8 years). Looking at DTaP might be a better comparison... ~75 million doses in 8 years with 105 compensated cases (including death, but other things too). Combined Diptheria/Tetanus/Pertussis together, the CDC chart only goes to 2011 (so missing a couple years) but it shows no D cases, ~150 or so T cases, and nearly 100,000 P cases over the 7 years in question, with total deaths in that time period: 0 for D, 9 for T, ~18 for P (and none in the last 4 years on the chart, so trend was definitely down).

Would help to have a trend line for the compensated cases too. In any case, the statistics show that as of ~2011, you had a better chance of not dying by not getting the vaccine, but the chance in either case was vanishingly small.

Of course, the issue here is a free rider syndrome - if everyone else gets the vaccine, I can get the benefits (reduced chance of catching a bad disease) while everyone else bears the risks (possible chance of side effects from the vaccine). But if enough people don't get the vaccine, then the numbers change quickly as more people catch the disease.

We vaccinated, but we waited until after age 2 to give their immune system time to build up. Seemed like the best balance.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[TubeSteak]

Government forcing medical procedures on anyone is really not something we want, especially since government won't take responsibility for the (admittedly unlikely) consequences of a bad result.

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

Under the NCVIA, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) was created [in 1986] to provide a federal no-fault system for compensating vaccine-related injuries or death by establishing a claim procedure involving the United States Court of Federal Claims and special masters.

Since 1988, the The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has been funded by an excise tax of 75 cents on every purchased dose of covered vaccine.

This regime was created because (later discredited) fears over the DPT vaccine led to lawsuits, which caused all but one DPT vaccine manufacturer to end production... and that final manufacturer was also threatening to halt production.

We need better education to counteract the Jenny McCarthys.

I'm not trying to compare you to Jenny McCarthy, but I hope you learned something new by reading about the NCVIA and NVICP.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[UltraOne]

I am a physician who also performs clinical research. You have a naive faith in the ability of the United States health care system to collected aggregated data like this. There are a few diseases and complications which are reportable to public heath services (these are state-level government agencies) and also some mandatory reporting that occurs to Federal agencies, but it is very limited. There are some voluntary reporting programs, for example the FDA Medwatch site allows reporting of drug complications, but only a tiny fraction of them get reported.

I don't know off the top of my head, but I suspect a few of the vaccine-preventable diseases are rare enough that they are reportable. Most of the other data (specifically any data on complications) is not something that anyone aggregates. See Estimating Seasonal Influenza-Associated Deaths in the United States: CDC Study Confirms Variability of Flu to see the trouble the CDC has getting something as simple as the number of people in the US who die from influenza.

Re:Knowledge is the solution

[westlake]

I agree. I'm a big supporter of vaccines but one thing I find annoying is that it's almost impossible to find good numbers for vaccines.

In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.

Three years later, Dr. Jonas Salk became a national hero when he developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine in 1955 with the support of the March of Dimes. In the two years before the vaccine was widely available, the average number of polio cases in the U.S. was more than 45,000. By 1962, that number had dropped to 910.

Polio History

Charts. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF IMMUNIZATIONS

Chart 1. Reported cases of H. influenzae type b, United States, 1991 - 1997

Chart 2. Hib meningitis in children less than 5 years old according to the National Bacterial Meningitis Reporting System, 1980 through 1991.

Chart 3. Reported cases of measles, United States, 1960-1997

Chart 4. Reported mumps cases, United States, 1968-1997

Chart 5. Reported pertussis cases, United States, 1922-1997

Chart 6. Reported poliomyelitis cases, United States, 1920-1997

Chart 7. Reported rubella cases, United States, 1966-1997

Religious is better than philosophical?

[PhilHibbs]

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?

Re:Religious is better than philosophical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's my Philosophical objection: if people can be exempt based on religious beliefs I can be exempt because I feel vaccines are bad.

Re:Simple solution

[MetalliQaZ]

We don't have that ability.

Re:Vaccines are totally safe

[MetalliQaZ]

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.

Re:Simple solution

[stanjo74]

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.

In Massachusetts...

[crow]

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.

Re:In Massachusetts...

[unimacs]

Except that often you need multiple doses and time for the immunizations to work. After an outbreak is too late.

Re:In Massachusetts...

[unimacs]

Are they excluded from hanging around with their friends, non school sponsored sports, or other activities?

Slashdotters, do your part!

[Rambo Tribble]

If we all got vaccinated, at least we'd have a measure of "nerd immunity".

Mississippi Is Doing Something Right?

[Talderas]

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.

Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right?

[hendrips]

Most people who object to vaccination are either 1) wealthy and well educated or 2) members of certain non-mainstream cults/religions. Let's just say that Mississippi is not particularly well known for having a high concentration of people in either of those groups.

Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right?

[internerdj]

Practically nothing, but denying a religious exemption in authoring the law bears the threat of an expensive battle over the constitutionality of the law and probably court ordered delays in implementation.

Re:Mississippi Is Doing Something Right?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

The irony with vaccination paranoia is that it's not the stereotypical rednecks that are objecting but the better-than-thou liberals that are pushing back. What part of Jenny McCarthy or Rob Schneider seems Mississippi redneck?

Re:Freedom of choice

[MetalliQaZ]

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.

Re:Vaccines are totally safe

[RatherBeAnonymous]

Here is a rebuttal article http://scienceblogs.com/insole...

Offer 'Em Ten Bucks

[CanHasDIY]

You'd be amazed what stupid people will agree to do for a tenner.

I can hear them now...

[Vermonter]

"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!"

Re:Personal inviolability

[MetalliQaZ]

So be it. But you can't come to school if you aren't willing to protect public health. That's the deal.

Re:Freedom of choice

[Falos]

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.

An entirely typical argument

[HBI]

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.

Re:An entirely typical argument

[silfen]

The only illusion here is your illusion that you have a choice.

By your reasoning, we might as well turn ourselves into a totalitarian superstate. After all, all the freedoms we have day-to-day are just an "illusion" anyway since under exceptional circumstances, they could be taken away.

Re:So how far are you willing to go?

[MetalliQaZ]

We're not talking about forced vaccination. You just have to be vaccinated to attend school.

Oh, the humanity!

[ArcadeMan]

Let's be clear here. What we're talking about is the extermination of whole species of pathogens.

Won't somebody think of the pathogens?

This message brought to your by PETP.

Re:Not the real problem

[MetalliQaZ]

Citation needed.

Didn't they learn from Texas?

[rs1n]

A recent outbreak in Texas (last year, in fact) should have given these folks a heads up! http://www.forbes.com/sites/em...

This is a Bad Idea (tm)

[photon317]

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.

Re:This is a Bad Idea (tm)

[Moof123]

Good point.

My wife got quite the little education when she bought some cough "medicine" for our toddler. She complained it didn't help and maybe that was a bad sign. So I get home and see she accidentally got some of that diluted by 10^12 crap, and educated her that she bought $8 of water in a tiny bottle.

The labeling is done to look just like all the real medicines, and unless you are familiar with the whole dilution notation and concept the label appears to indicate it actually has ingredients.

In the end the lesson is that these voodoo whack jobs are a major danger to more than just themselves. As such, they should be better regulated to protect us from their witchcraft.

Evolution

[mrflash818]

If those that do not get vaccinated die off, then those that get vaccinated, or have strong enough immunity, get to survive.

Evolution, correct?

stick to freedom. Treatmnts FAR more profitable

[raymorris]

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.

Re:Even if it affects a few vaccinated kids

[omnichad]

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.

No

[Pollux]

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.

Re:Vaccines are totally safe

[Jason Levine]

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.

Re:Still not buying it

[thaylin]

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.

Re:You have your own brick wall

[Bazman]

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

Re:Simple solution

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re:Freedom of choice

[jbmartin6]

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.

Re:you're all insane.

[MetalliQaZ]

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.

Re:Four Co-workers w/ Autistic Kids from MMR Vacci

[Millennium]

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.

Freedom!

[Bonzoli]

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.

Re:Here we go again...

[TubeSteak]

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).

Citation for German homeschooling ban

[tepples]

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.

Re:Still not buying it

[houstonbofh]

Well, I have not seen this is a while. A long and reasonably well written post where almost every sentence is factually wrong... Impressive.

Logically, if the vaccine really does cure the virus, then the only people affected by an outbreak would be the unvaccinated.

You really need a better understanding of how vaccines work. They do not cure shit. That is called a "cure." A vaccine increases resistance to a virus. This results in either not catching it, or having it pass more quickly. The amount of increase can vary with different people, and in very rare cases it does not increase resistance at all.

But that's clearly not the case.

Well, this statement is correct in it's assessment of your original statement.

So we can't really know that it works as intended.

Yes, we can and we do. On an individual level you can have a titer test to see if you have increased immunity. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline... On a global level, we can compare places with high rates of vaccination to low rates and see whooping cough explode in Michigan.

We may have evidence that it sometimes works, but it certainly isn't a slam dunk of a technological advancement (as so many here imply every time it comes up) -- and yet we hear calls to force it on others as if it IS a slam dunk.

It is not digital. It is not "Once in and never again." It causes an increase in immunity in the majority of the population. This results in either immunity or shorter and less sick times. That is known and proven. Also, herd immunity is known and proven, and is a "slam dunk."

What we also don't have is long-term data on the side effects -- only an arrogant display of superiority.

Yes we do. A couple hundred years, actually. The smallpox vaccine was created in 1796. Pertussis in 1927.

You people aren't using logic to support your position.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

You're using intimidation.

Well, the facts are intimidating, but it is not us making them facts.

What I see here is hardly a noble call for the betterment of society.

This is probably totally true. Perhaps you should look a little more.

What I see is an arrogant, selfish display of superiority, and an utter disrespect for the basic human right of free choice.

You really do find what you look for. If you try hard enough you can even believe that fury porn is normal.

Instead of demonizing the innocent, why not make an honest donation to the multi-billion dollar businesses that produce and promote these vaccines?

And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Or should I just stand on a chair and shout "Strawman! Strawman!"

Put your money where your arrogant mouth is.

I do. I pay for vaccines that are not covered by insurance.

Re:Here we go again...

[Tipa]

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.

Are acupuncture points related to referred pain?

[tepples]

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.

Re:Stay away from you? Why?

[jeffb (2.718)]

You don't understand what vaccination does. It reduces your chance of contracting a disease, but not (necessarily) to zero. Please Google "herd immunity".

Re:Parents Rights

[plover]

I know I'm feeding the troll, but vaccines aren't 100% effective. Little Johnny Pathogen could still be spewing out a virus he has no effective defense against.

Re:you're all insane.

[UnknowingFool]

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.

Your "data" doesn't prove vaccines are bad

[Overzeetop]

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.

Re:Big Whooping cough deal

[plover]

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.

One other 'philosophical' problem

[Dr. Manhattan]

Right now, religions - at least, some religions - get extra legal benefits that the non-religious don't. Government employees get extra time off for relgious holidays; the non-religious get nothing. Religion is family of metaphysical worldviews, and non-religious philosophies are another branch. Why do certain philosophies get extra privileges?

If a rule really is a good idea, then it should apply to everyone. If we can get by with some people not complying, then it doesn't need to be mandatory. Religion has nothing to do with it.

In terms of vaccines, we just need to arrange for consequences. Your kids not vaccinated, and can't demonstrate a medical reason why not? Fine. No public school for them, sorry. Quite probably other benefits are now off-limits, too.

Re:Fuck You

[Immerman]

Absolutely. We should re-introduce large predators to urban environments in order to cull the slow and stupid.

Arsenic is NOT added to the water supply! EVER

[PeterM from Berkeley]

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

Which begs the question...

[Pollux]

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?

The Government can force you to FIGHT and DIE

[PeterM from Berkeley]

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

Re: Placebos work

[ancientmyth]

Jedi mind trick: "These are not the placebos you are looking for..."