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Low Vaccination Rates At Silicon Valley Daycare Facilities
Vaccination rates across the U.S. don't neatly correlate with religiosity or wealth; Wired reports that one conspicuous pocket of low vaccination rates, according to California's state database of daycare records, is a place where you might not expect it: Silicon Valley — specifically, the daycare centers at some large tech companies.
A WIRED investigation shows that some children attending day care facilities affiliated with prominent Silicon Valley companies have not been completely vaccinated against preventable infectious diseases. At least, that’s according to a giant database from the California Department of Public Health, which tracks the vaccination rates at day care facilities and preschools in the state. We selected more than 20 large technology and health companies in the Bay Area and researched their day care offerings. Of 12 day care facilities affiliated with tech companies, six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates, according to the state’s data. ... And those six have a level of measles vaccination that does not provide the “herd immunity” critical to the spread of the disease. Now, this data has limitations—most critically, it might not be current. But it also suggests an incursion of anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking in one of the smartest regions on Earth.
Do not confuse average and median .
From the Wired article:
But Google has a simple explanation—a representative chalked it up to old data. “In 2013-2014, these two childcare facilities had immunization rates of 98 percent and 81 percent,” says a Google spokesperson, emphasizing that immunization is important to the company. “The reported numbers for the current year are lower simply because many parents have not yet provided updated immunization records. We’ve asked them all to do this, so we can update the figures.”
So it looks low right now only because the parents who have not yet updated their records are being counted as "unvaccinated".
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism ...
Was that the same court that convicted scientists for not predicting an earthquake? My great-grandfather left that place for a reason. Well, two, corruption and stupidity.
you think it's _good_ to carry out mass-vaccination of a species
Smallpox killed more people in the 20th century than every war combined, and is now completely eradicated because of mass vaccination (sometimes coerced). Remember: vaccines are unnatural, but so is a life expectancy of 80 years.
Thimerosal (thiomersal) is metabolised into ethylmercury, which is far less toxic than the methylmercury commonly found in e.g. tuna, and breaks down into safe inorganic mercury a lot quicker. This has been a source of confusion to laymen (and the Italian court), who have incorrectly compared the levels of ethylmercury from a vaccine dose against WHO health guidelines on methylmercury.
Many studies have been done on the actual toxicity of thimerosal, and the results still come up as "safe for use" at the doses involved. No link with autism has been found, despite many years of looking.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You do realize that "level playing field" and "equal opportunity" conflict with "minimal" government and "most local level", right?
No, there is no such conflict. Minimal is in the sense to achieve these goals. What reasonable libertarians and liberals disagree on is what constitutes a level playing field. A libertarian may lean more towards equal opportunity, a liberal more to equal outcomes. The later requires far more gov't involvement. A libertarian would also be less nanny-state'ish. Vax for measles, compulsory, Vax an infant for a STD, optional.
A lot of government programs are trying to help people in bad situations and give them opportunities, and very frequently local governments serve local prejudices.
Not really. The far more common situations is that Washington DC applies a one size fits all solution to problems that contain a high degree of local circumstances. Besides dollars sent to DC to address the situation coming back missing a large chunk of change, the DC money is also ineffectively used since it doesn't consider the local circumstances. Local dollars under local control could be far more effective at addressing the problem.
You are aware, I trust that the MMR-autism link was a fabrication of a con artist named Andrew Wakefield, who had his on MMR formulation that he wanted to put on the market, and so managed to get a fake research on the current MMR formulation put into the British Medical Journal. His fraud was completely exposed, his research demonstrated to be fake, and he was utterly discredited.
Science isn't determined in courts, no matter what a bunch of evil lawyers says.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
US Media Blackout Of Italian Vaccine Ruling
Poor dumbed down Americans will never know the truth.
Rimini: 2012 – Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism [zengardner.com]
On September 23, 2014, an Italian court in Milan award compensation to a boy for vaccine-induced autism. (See the Italian document here.) A childhood vaccine against six childhood diseases caused the boy’s permanent autism and brain damage.
While the Italian press has devoted considerable attention to this decision and its public health implications, the U.S. press has been silent.
Italy’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Well. yes we've already heard of this in the USA. It's old news.
You may be surprised to learn that the media in the USA is not compelled to print every piece of bullshit that comes up. If you had been awake during the last few decades you would have known that news commentators that get caught telling stories that are later proven to be false are fired without a second chance.
From 2013, here's an article from Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/em...
And another from 2013:
http://www.skepticalraptor.com...
It appears that the courts depended upon the testimony of a single doctor who has never published in a journal, but yet who claims to have a cure for autism.