Slashdot Mirror
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.
I'm not surprised by this. There's a particularly rabid strain of libertarianism that seems to hold anything related to authority in contempt, even when it's bound on sound science.
Since "the man" wants them to be vaccinated, libertarians automatically distrust vaccines.
Because these liberal morons are the ones that oppose vaccinations.
The probably have glutton free lunches there though.
Science denial is probably more strongly correlated with politics/emotions not intelligence level. The left and the right merely have different things they are in denial about, different things that touch on their politics and their emotions. And emotions lead people to stand by their beliefs regardless of rational thought and evidence, both on the left and the right.
"Of 12 day care facilities affiliated with tech companies, six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates, according to the state’s data."
So half of the sample is below average? Hmmm!
-- "Oh. This guy again."
six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates
Wouldn't that be statistically normal?
State laws provide guidelines for day care center vaccination requirements. Sometimes they are not equivalent to public school vaccination requirements; lawmakers aren't doctors, how many can recite the available vaccines by heart?
Of 12 day care facilities affiliated with tech companies, six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates
Isn't that exactly what you would expect? Most distributions are more or less symmetric around the average.
Poor dumbed down Americans will never know the truth.
US Media Blackout Of Italian Vaccine Ruling
Rimini: 2012 – Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism
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
Like the U.S., Italy has a national vaccine injury compensation program to give some financial support to those people who are injured by compulsory and recommended vaccinations. The Italian infant plaintiff received three doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Infanrix Hexa, a hexavalent vaccine administered in the first year of life. These doses occurred from March to October 2006. The vaccine is to protect children from polio, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, pertussis and Haemophilus influenza type B. In addition to these antigens, however, the vaccine then contained thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative, aluminum, an adjuvant, as well as other toxic ingredients. The child regressed into autism shortly after receiving the three doses.
When the parents presented their claim for compensation first to the Ministry of Health, as they were required to do, the Ministry rejected it. Therefore, the family sued the Ministry in a court of general jurisdiction, an option which does not exist in the same form in the U.S.
Court Decision: Mercury and Aluminum in Vaccine Caused Autism
Based on expert medical testimony, the court concluded that the child more likely than not suffered autism and brain damage because of the neurotoxic mercury, aluminum and his particular susceptibility from a genetic mutation. The Court also noted that Infanrix Hexa contained thimerosal, now banned in Italy because of its neurotoxicity, “in concentrations greatly exceeding the maximum recommended levels for infants weighing only a few kilograms.”
Presiding Judge Nicola Di Leo considered another piece of damning evidence: a 1271-page confidential GlaxoSmithKline report (now available on the Internet). This industry document provided ample evidence of adverse events from the vaccine, including five known cases of autism resulting from the vaccine’s administration during its clinical trials (see table at page 626, excerpt below).
Italian Government, Not Vaccine Maker, Pays for Vaccine Damages
As in many other developed countries, government, not industry, compensates families in the event of vaccine injury. Thus GSK’s apparent lack of concern for the vaccine’s adverse effects is notable and perhaps not surprising.
In the final assessment, the report states that:
“[t]he benefit/risk profile of Infanrix hexa continues to be favourable,” despite GSK’s acknowledgement that the vaccine causes side effects including “anaemia haemolytic autoimmune,thrombocytopenia, thrombocytopenic purpura, autoimmune thrombocytopenia, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, haemolytic anemia, cyanosis, injection site nodule, abcess and injection site abscess, Kawasaki’s disease, important neurological events (including encephalitis and encephalopathy), Henoch-Schonlein purpura, petechiae, purpura, haematochezia, allergic reactions (including anaphylactic and anaphylactoid reactions),” and death (see page 9).
The Milan decision is sober, informed and well-reasoned. The Ministry of Health has stated that it has appealed the Court’s decision, but that appeal will likely take several years, and its outcome is uncertain.
Rimini: 2012 – Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism
for a bunch of these kids to get chickenpox or pertussis and everyones tune will change on vaccinations.
I grew up with a grandmother who was a nurse during the 20's - 60's. She told me horror stories of what medicine was like before things like penicillin and vaccinations. People died from the simplest things, as they do still, but back then it was more dangerous. We take for granted that we live in a time with less disease than ever in human history.
People need to wake up.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
You mean HALF of a statistical sample rated BELOW AVERAGE?! That's it, I'm moving to Lake Wobegon.
The anti-vaxx movement has been almost entirely among liberals and environmentalist, who view Big Pharma and anything "unnatural" with deep suspicion. I've been highly amused at recent efforts to cast it as a conservative cause; there are some anti-vaxxers among the hard right, but the vast majority are on the left.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
We're not subject to the same rules as the little people.
half are in the bottom half ... shocking!
I think it's a bit of a different issue here. Notice these are pretty much all computer related firms. As we all know, many people in this field think anything can be fixed in the software.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Wouldn't that be the expected result, statistically? Half of all red-heads are below average in height...
"But it also suggests an incursion of anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking in one of the smartest regions on Earth."
ooor, it suggests that there are more intelligent people in one of the smartest regions on Earth, who have actually thought through the consequences of their decision. _maybe_ they see the harm caused by vaccinations. _maybe_ these people have thought, "gosh, y'know, giving my young child a massive simultaneous hit of diseases for their body to fight all at once isn't such a good idea, given that healthy humans never *ever* get more than one disease at a time because once activated the immune system goes into hyper-drive".
_maybe_ these people have had the thought, "y'know, humanity has survived up until this point, by fighting off disease and as a result each individual develops its own strong and healthy immune system, and the weaker ones don't survive. _maybe_ i am doing my child - and humanity - a favour by not following the herd".
you think it's _good_ to carry out mass-vaccination of a species?? how did you get so completely and utterly brainwashed that you have to claim it's "anti-science"?? f***k you you completely insane person - and stay the hell away from my family.
They're dogmatic. They spend their entire university career learning formulas and recipes (excuse me, algorithms) without questioning them the way physicists or philosophers do. They spend the time, and they know their science, but they don't know why what they know is right, they just know that what they know IS right. This is also why there is a far greater number of creationists among engineers than there is among any other STEM discipline.
And because they only learn the results, not the history and argumentation that led up to the result, they're not as well prepared to deal with the barrage of idiocy that is spewed by people like anti-vaxxers. When you have a lesser idea of why what you know is the truth, you have a lesser resistance against people who argue that what you think is the truth is not the truth.
This may be a controversial opinion here on slashdot, and I fully expect to be downvoted, but it is the truth nevertheless, borne out again and again in every study on the subject.
I'm not surprised by this. There's a particularly rabid strain of libertarianism that seems to hold anything related to authority in contempt, even when it's bound on sound science. Since "the man" wants them to be vaccinated, libertarians automatically distrust vaccines.
If you look at some of these enclaves of anti-vaxxers you will find that they are generally liberal enclaves, not libertarian enclaves.
Could a parent sue if their child who was legitimately unable to be vaccinated got the measels from a parents child who refused to vaccinate their child?
Of 12 day care facilities affiliated with tech companies, six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates, according to the state’s data.
In other words, half the day care facilities were below average, and half were above. Isn't that kinda/sort the DEFINITION of average?
Of 12 day care facilities affiliated with tech companies, six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates
As many have suggested, no duh.
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.
So that is legitimately worrying, if the anti-vax situation has gotten so bad that half the schools don't have herd immunity.
But it also suggests an incursion of anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking in one of the smartest regions on Earth.
It suggests the null-hypothesis, that one of the smartest regions on Earth is utterly typical in this respect.
I stole this Sig
Really? South Carolina Public Schools vaccination rate is 98.1%, but for Private Schools it is 96.02% For New York public schools are 99% and private schools are 88%. So you really expect me to believe that there is no correlation at all with being rich enough to afford private school, and poor enough to be stuck in public school?
Where would one find a large, concentrated population of the most selfish, inconsiderate, greedy, preening, risk-loving, egotistical, psychopaths on the continent?
Bingo!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
No vaccines means No Yippppeeeeee!
It's not about being smart or dumb, conservative or liberal. Far too many people they think having money is a far better immunity than vaccinations, and not just in Silicon Valley. Around the country the most affluent areas are the ones with the worst rates.
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
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
Like the U.S., Italy has a national vaccine injury compensation program to give some financial support to those people who are injured by compulsory and recommended vaccinations. The Italian infant plaintiff received three doses of GlaxoSmithKline’s Infanrix Hexa, a hexavalent vaccine administered in the first year of life. These doses occurred from March to October 2006. The vaccine is to protect children from polio, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, pertussis and Haemophilus influenza type B. In addition to these antigens, however, the vaccine then contained thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative, aluminum, an adjuvant, as well as other toxic ingredients. The child regressed into autism shortly after receiving the three doses.
When the parents presented their claim for compensation first to the Ministry of Health, as they were required to do, the Ministry rejected it. Therefore, the family sued the Ministry in a court of general jurisdiction, an option which does not exist in the same form in the U.S.
Court Decision: Mercury and Aluminum in Vaccine Caused Autism
Based on expert medical testimony, the court concluded that the child more likely than not suffered autism and brain damage because of the neurotoxic mercury, aluminum and his particular susceptibility from a genetic mutation. The Court also noted that Infanrix Hexa contained thimerosal, now banned in Italy because of its neurotoxicity, “in concentrations greatly exceeding the maximum recommended levels for infants weighing only a few kilograms.”
Presiding Judge Nicola Di Leo considered another piece of damning evidence: a 1271-page confidential GlaxoSmithKline report (now available on the Internet). This industry document provided ample evidence of adverse events from the vaccine, including five known cases of autism resulting from the vaccine’s administration during its clinical trials (see table at page 626, excerpt below).
Italian Government, Not Vaccine Maker, Pays for Vaccine Damages
As in many other developed countries, government, not industry, compensates families in the event of vaccine injury. Thus GSK’s apparent lack of concern for the vaccine’s adverse effects is notable and perhaps not surprising.
In the final assessment, the report states that:
“[t]he benefit/risk profile of Infanrix hexa continues to be favourable,” despite GSK’s acknowledgement that the vaccine causes side effects including “anaemia haemolytic autoimmune,thrombocytopenia, thrombocytopenic purpura, autoimmune thrombocytopenia, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, haemolytic anemia, cyanosis, injection site nodule, abcess and injection site abscess, Kawasaki’s disease, important neurological events (including encephalitis and encephalopathy), Henoch-Schonlein purpura, petechiae, purpura, haematochezia, allergic reactions (including anaphylactic and anaphylactoid reactions),” and death (see page 9).
The Milan decision is sober, informed and well-reasoned. The Ministry of Health has stated that it has appealed the Court’s decision, but that appeal will likely take several years, and its outcome is uncertain.
Rimini: 2012 – Italian Court Rules MMR Vaccine Caused Autism
Apparently, a person can be very smart and very stupid at the same time.
no, I don't have a sig
I absolutely 100% understand it and it is not 'anti science', it is anti herd.
AFAIC 'herd immunity' is an offensive term, I cannot even begin to fathom something more offensive than grouping of people together, thinking of people as of a 'herd'. Death is preferable to this level of groupthink. It is and it always has to remain a private/individual decision to vaccinate or not. As it says in TFA more than half of these day cares have below-average vaccination rates, so this means a large portion of the individuals decide against vaccination.
I must also say that I think vaccination is a calculated risk and I am not against it at all as a general concept. However to me, as an individual, the ability to refuse any kind of group ideology or group pressure is much more important than any and all health considerations combined.
You can't handle the truth.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Hush, you'll attract the hosts file guy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This drives a silver stake through the heart of the idea that vaccines cause autism. You would expect that in a place where autism is a required skill on resumes everyone would be vaccinated.
More lies from the fringe:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/08/09/court-rulings-dont-confirm-autism-vaccine-link/
And the tired chorus of "Both sides do it!" spreads like a dirge across the land...
The only women that will marry the loser geeks are batshit insane, and the geeks have made the perfectly valid mental calculation that they are more apt to pass on their genes if they have kids and don't vaccinate them than if they fail to have kids altogether.
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"?
“They’ll line up around the block.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com... There are schools in the wealthiest parts of Los Angeles where the vaccination rate is on a par with that of South Sudan – fashionable tinder boxes of measles waiting to go up. Pertussis (the far-less-fun-than-it-sounds “whooping cough”) is making a dramatic comeback.
You have people who worship elephants and you have people believing that women who drive cars want to be raped, and you have (now) generations of Americans raised on the notion that causality is optional.
What do you expect?
And the tired chorus of "Both sides do it!" spreads like a dirge across the land...
So you would prefer to deny and hide that fact? See, you "do it" too. :-)
Maybe they're relying on everyone else to have their children vaccinated. Their own children, of course, are exceptional.
Of 12 day care facilities affiliated with tech companies, six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates
Half are below average? That's to be expected, or it wouldn't be a very average average.
Indeed, sorry you got modded down for an insightful reply. Science denial in this specific case however, seems to be across the political spectrum: (http://www.vice.com/read/weird-politics-of-anti-vaxxers-203) - as opposed to the generally right wing tilt of denying climate change, evolution, etc.
The valley has all but lost the ability to produce better tools and products to improve the world. Instead it focuses almost entirely on BS to make money off the hard work of the previous generation without providing value to the end user in return.
The lemming-esk groupthink that permeates industry as people mindlessly jump from one bandwagon to another without any understanding of what they are doing would be amusing if the stench of hubris and entitlement were not so overpowering.
Only measure of intelligence that at all matters is what you actually accomplish and spreading measles is quite the accomplishment.
But it also suggests an incursion of anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking in one of the smartest regions on Earth.
"One of the smartest regions on Earth."
Oh, American Empire, please die already. You're full of exactly the same shit as all the ones that came before you.
Why not start with the millions of illegals crossing the border chalk full of them?
From what one person told me the other day, many of the people that have come over from parts of Europe, Russia, parts of Asia, South America, etc don't believe in vaccinations merely because they have been so brainwashed to not believe anything the government says even if it is related to health. And that was from one of the workers from a day-care place in town explaining their recent foot cause of the foot and mouth outbreak. Now if there was a state or federal law that mandated no child can be put into day care, pre-school, school or after school program without being vaccinated, then it would fix this problem.
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"?
Seriously... every kids should be vaccinated, with or without the approval of the parents. Not getting vaccinated is child abuse, you expose them to a variety of viruses and disease for your stupid believe that it cause autism... well guess what, it's unrelated. That one or two article you found on google that agrees with you means nothing when there's millions of other articles that prove the exact opposite on that matter, which you morons decided to ignore.
The doggy day care I bring my mutt to won't take her unless she is up to date on all her shots.
But a people day care does not have this same rule?
That's just crazy.
It's really more that the "sides" on this issue do not divide the same way as the sides you're used to thinking of the "sides" in other issues.
Science denial is probably more strongly correlated with politics/emotions not intelligence level. The left and the right merely have different things they are in denial about, different things that touch on their politics and their emotions. And emotions lead people to stand by their beliefs regardless of rational thought and evidence, both on the left and the right.
I disagree. Having spent a lifetime around pig headed engineers (including myself), this is my reasoning:
I think it has everything to do with intelligence, or, at least self perceived intelligence. The smarter someone thinks they are, the less likely they are to listen to others who they think are somehow less intelligent. They consider it a personal affront that someone else would tell them they're wrong about vaccines. They consider only the superiority of their own intellect when deciding that they will either accept or reject the established science. That kind of hubris is concentrated in certain professions, many of which are concentrated in Silicon Valley. Politics doesn't enter into it at all. This kind of self righteous thinking permeates the self declared intellectual elite in every party, including the independents who tend to be the most effete among them ("anyone who is dumb enough to let a party tell them how to think is inferior"). They have considered whatever they consider to be important in their own mind and have come to a conclusion that you dare not question.
It's not the science they doubt! It's the implementation!
Corruption in the FDA causes mistrust of Government health initiatives. Here take a look for your self. This is just the tip of the Iceberg.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/second-class-medicine-germans-unhappy-with-alternative-swine-flu-vaccine-for-politicians-a-656028.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg-52mHIjhs
I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here, you seem to be implying that either one of the "left" or "right" are against vaccines, but not the other...
Considering just the left alone, there have been lots of high profile actresses speaking out against it, and Beverly Hills is another area with low vaccination rates. Politically Hillary clinton years ago said we should question if vaccinations were needed.
Lets be clear that as in so many aspects of life, misunderstanding science of a matter is not the province of just the left or right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Having spent a lifetime around pig headed engineers (including myself), this is my reasoning: I think it has everything to do with intelligence, or, at least self perceived intelligence. The smarter someone thinks they are, the less likely they are to listen to others who they think are somehow less intelligent.
Sounds like every day politics not engineering. The far right and the far left both think those who disagree with them must be idiots, when the truth is both the far left and the far right are not nearly as smart as they believe themselves to be. Both want to be the nanny/supervisor, neither is qualified.
Go into any whole-foods in Silicon Valley, and you'll see plenty of herbal medicines that do nothing but empty people's wallets. Silicon Valley isn't some kind of pro-science paradise.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Children have a greater chance of getting stuck by lightning than catching measles.
Kinda makes sense that people who commonly do risk assessment would choose not to vaccinate.
Especially when the majority of polio cases in the united states are caused by vaccinations than any other sources combined.
PS:Iâ(TM)ve had both vaccinations.
The problem correlates with liberals and disease ridden immigrants, both of which are in abundant supply in Silicon Valley.
an ill wind that blows no good
You see that a lot in 3rd parties and among the independents. It's not something that's tied to any "side".
First: only allow vaccined kids into your kindergarden.
Second: if you feel altruistic, offer a second kindergarden for non vaccined kids only, but well, vaccined kids there would hurt no one.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That's not so smart.
It seems that people have forgotten the autism/thiomersal hysteria of a few years back -- just in time to deliver a generation of unvaccinated kiddos into our schools. Unfortunately, the "thiomersal-autism-link" was promoted loudly by people like the well-meaning, but misinformed Jenny McCarthy as panicked parents sought answers for the "autism outbreak". Autsim is heavily over-represented in families that have engineers as family members. See this article from Scientific American (paywall, sorry): http://www.scientificamerican.... The referenced UK survey showed that families with engineers in them can have between 2.5 to 8.6 *times* the statistical occurrence of autism in their children. Even though the whole thiomersal-autism link has been debunked, in the intervening time a lot of people have sadly opted out of vaccinating their kids -- better "safe-than-sorry" seemed the prevailing wisdom -- until science can make a ruling on it, right? After all, when was the last time a kid came down with measles? ...This against the backdrop of seeing kids with a life-long devastating condition like autism -- nearly every family I know in Silicon Valley knows one or more families that are stricken with it. I personally know over half a dozen, including my own son.
Unfortunately, the success of vaccinations seems to have been blunted everyone's memory of why we did it in the first place.
As parents, all of us try to make the best decisions based on the most current studies/data available, but the tragedy is that current prevailing wisdom failed us on this one.
--Ace
The woo-woo section in Whole Foods disgusts me, but they have the best butcher and fish departments around.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Science denial is probably more strongly correlated with politics/emotions not intelligence level. The left and the right merely have different things they are in denial about, different things that touch on their politics and their emotions. And emotions lead people to stand by their beliefs regardless of rational thought and evidence, both on the left and the right.
In my experience, there's science denial, and then there's the more likely phenomenon occurring here which is the belief that one's personal interpretation of the evidence is vastly superior to anyone else's. If an anti-vax article sounds reasonable to them, its far more likely to their thinking that everyone else who considers it rubbish is wrong, because their own understanding is far superior.
That's not exactly science denial, that's narcissism masquerading as science denial. And this general belief is, in my experience, extremely prevalent in the various technology industries, particularly IT.
Being a self-perceived-intelligent pig-headed engineer myself, I think you're missing a critical component in that description. I'm right, until proven otherwise. Show me a trustworthy test, show me trustworthy data, show me trustworthy studies, show me proof from a respectable authority that I'm wrong and I will happily change my mind and apologize to you for wasting your time in having to convince me.
One thing I've noticed about software engineers is that too many of them are lacking the critical statistics skills they need to function effectively. Perhaps it's because we tend to think in Boolean terms of true and false. Thus, "I have a 1:450,000,000 chance of winning the lottery" turns into "I have a chance of winning the lottery", which is a different wording that is remarkably easy to misinterpret as a "50:50" chance, even though both outcomes are statistically equal to false. They apply that same lack of understanding to any risk, including vaccination (a 1:3,000,000 chance of a serious adverse reaction becomes "a chance of a serious adverse reaction".)
In the case of vaccines, I was initially a bit skeptical when it came to vaccinating my son. But it was extraordinarily easy to convince myself that they're safe and effective, and that the one study showing a purported link to autism was completely fraudulent. It took about an hour of research that anyone with a browser and half a wit could do. And because it was so easy to learn the truth, I now hold all anti-vaxxers in that extra-special contempt I reserve for the willfully ignorant. In this case I consider them parties to attempted murder. They threaten society as a whole, either because they're too stupid to do the research or too dull to change their minds.
John
Interesting all the rise of issues after the influx of undocumented aliens.
Exactly. There seems to be this notion that if you're not left or right, you're a little bit of both and thus balanced. In reality, not left and not right is just another group that thinks the others are wrong.
sudo echo "127.0.0.1 your.post" >> /etc/host
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Like the fact that letting others take the small risk is actual a smart move from a totally amoral point of view? It is a prick of a move from the socialist point of view, but these people are not inclined that way are they.
The OP comes across as one of these left wingers that have no better argument that to imply one way or another that everyone that does not do as they want is somehow ignorant, retarded or deranged in some way.
I vaccinate my kids, but I am rational enough to see why some smart, selfish, people do not and I also support the view that enforced medical procedures are completely unethical.
Geeks have had access to the internet, meaning information, for the longest out of anyone in society. Most geeks are aware of the dangers of how vaccine science (which is sound) is misused (killing off "useless eaters")
News at 11.
Ah yes, Italian courts. The proving grounds of science.
You goddamn moron.
So your version of the other lizard tale, is that the other lizard is the lizard that doesn't play the 2 party lizard game.
Great.
"But it also suggests an incursion of anti-science, anti-vaccine thinking in one of the smartest regions on Earth."
Certainly one of the most talented regions. Maybe not one of the smartest. Definitely not the wisest.
Half of a population is below average, by the very definition of average. This isn't a story, it's a tautology.
As many people on Slashdot have probably noticed, there are more than a few geeks who are infected with Smartest Motherfucker in the Universe syndrome. Since they've gone through their lives generally being a good deal more intelligent than their peers, but with poor social skills, it can lead to an arrogance that they are smarter than basically anyone else, and that their knowledge is supreme not just in their field, but in all fields.
Well that then is ripe for anti-scientific shit like anti-vaxxer crap. They believe they are in on a secret that normal people are just too stupid to see, that they are smarter and better than those sheep doctors and so on and so forth. It feeds their ego on their intellect to believe they know better than the medical establishment.
So this surprises me not at all. SV has all the right elements to be a hotbed of this kind of shit.
Science denial is probably more strongly correlated with politics/emotions not intelligence level.
One common thread in science denial is post-modernism. The American Right is dominated by post-modernists at the moment, and the Left has been for decades.
By "post-modernists" I mean people who believe that objectivity is not just impossible but actually pernicious, that truth is a social construct, and that "different ways of knowing" are equally legitimate and culturally dependent.
This is in contrast to the scientific mindset that understands that while there is no view from nowhere there is also no view of nowhere, and works hard to see that place that exists independently of the knowing subject as clearly as possible. Pro-science people are Bayesians, so they know certainty is impossible (knowledge is uncertain; faith is certain, and also an epistemic error) and that Bayes' rule provides the only consistent way of updating our beliefs in the face of new evidence, so it doesn't matter what your ancestors or you pastor tells you, there is only one way of knowing.
I'd bet a lot of these "highly educated" anti-vaxxers are victims of post-modernism in this sense. It should be relatively easy to find out how well they know their Derrida, Laccan, Leotard and Foucoult compared to their more vaccination-friendly neighbours.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Smartest Motherfucker in the Universe Syndrome. You see it all the time. One great famous geek example was Hans Reiser. He was so sure he was just smarter than everyone that he could get away with murder. No way those dumb cops could know more about criminal justice than him...
Geeks seem to have it the most, probably a combination of above average intelligence, below average social skills, and a culture that makes intelligence the be-all, end-all of being "better". However you see it in other areas too. My sister is really bad. Don't you dare to tell her about something she thinks she knows about, she'll jump all over your shit for that. As such, she's a fairly regular fountain of bad ideas. Mom calls me at least once every couple months to ask about some harebrained shit my sister is up on that is bad for her/necessary for her.
You want someone who will rake people over the coals about vaccination, get someone who had to see the horrible epidemic that was polio prior vaccination.
Is it surprising that half of a sampled group is below an average? Presumably the other half is above? Why is this a story?
From the links provided above:
The risk of VAPP is not equal for all OPV doses in the vaccination series. The risk of VAPP is 7 to 21 times higher for the first dose than for any other dose in the OPV series. From 1980 through 1994, 303 million doses of OPV were distributed and 125 cases of VAPP were reported, for an overall risk of VAPP of one case per 2.4 million doses. Forty-nine paralytic cases were reported among immunocompetent recipients of OPV during this period. The overall risk to these recipients was one VAPP case per 6.2 million OPV doses. However, 40 (82%) of these 49 cases occurred following receipt of the first dose, making the risk of VAPP one case per 1.4 million first doses. The risk for all other doses was one per 27.2 million doses.
...
The last case of VAPP acquired in the United States was reported in 1999.
New cases per 100,000 population in 2011
Rubeola (measles) 0.06
That's 1 in 1.66 million for measles.
1 in 2.4 million for Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Polio - overall risk.
1 in 1.4 million for Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Polio - for first doses.
1 in 27.2 million for Vaccine-Associated Paralytic Polio - for all other doses.
Only thing is, that 1 in 1.66 million number for measles is for a single year, 2011.
Even the "worst" numbers for polio vaccine are from data FOR 14 YEARS. 1980 - 1994.
What are the numbers for that period for measles?
New cases per 100,000 population in 1980
Rubeola (measles) 5.96
New cases per 100,000 population in 1990
Rubeola (measles) 11.17
That's somewhere between 1 in 16778.52 and 1 in 8952.55 during a similar time period, vs. 1 in 1400000 to 1 in 27200000.
You can't really compare them for "new outbreaks" - AS THERE WERE NONE FOR POLIO SINCE 1999.
As for lightning strikes data...
That may be more relevant in the lottery discussion from the other day.
As those are both cases closer to pure mathematical chance, while measles and vaccines are preventable risks.
Though in reality those lightning strikes probably fail to match their average US numbers when comparing millions of people riding on subways and people climbing mountains.
I.e. You can significantly increase your chances to get hit by lightning, but not really for catching polio from a vaccine or for winning a jackpot.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So why is it that I can't send my child to preschool with a peanut butter sandwich, but yet I am expected to respect your decision to send your unvaccinated child to be with mine?
Considering that (in California at least), your child can do much without that yellow card listing all the immunizations they've had, and all the day care (or school) people do is look at it, see that it's up to date, and check the box.
Sure, *you* might have been asked to fill out some form with the data, but usually it's more like a passport or driver's license check: You have the card, you show it, done.
You, or your kid, will need to show that card, or a copy, multiple times: my college age kids have to show it. If you lose it (your house burns down), you trundle on down to the kid's doctor and they create a brand new one for you all up to date. When your kid goes to a new doctor, *they* ask for the card, copy all that info down and put it in your file (or photocopy/scan it), for just this sort of reason.
So unless you're buying your vaccines on the grey market, or you're making your own vaccines in the garage, and administering them to your child yourself, etc. I suspect you've got the "forms proving vaccinations".
Now, for YOUR vaccinations.. yes, you probably will have to go get the card or records from your aged mother.
(unless you didn't grow up in the U.S... Slashdot is world wide, after all, and processes and paperwork vary from place to place.)
I hope that some day that some fucking imbecile parent goes to prison for willfull and depraved negligence manslaughter.
As an adult who picked up whooping cough after herd immunnity was lost, I can state with certainty that I would rather have a broken leg, and that any parent that gamlbes on that with their children is abusing them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Maybe it has to do with the reality that the CDC's safety information is completely shit? That according to industry insiders, people out of the CDC. Not hard to find the info, if you wish to look.
That nobody can make a rational decision about risk, not even from the MMR package inserts, which list a lot of serious problems? Read the package insert, deal with reality.
Because the CDC defines 'vaccine safety' as 'less risk than before before current level of medical care?'. You can get that off their web site.
Because CDC and FDA are completely corrupt, great examples of regulatory capture? Because big pharma gives its execs the same bennies as the banksters do for people moving into gov?
And the Salem hypothesis is demonstrated once again.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's intelligence. Because if you do something stupid then it's stupid, no matter the reason. Yes it's depressing to know those highly paid programmers are the same dumb, barely evolved apes that are your neighbors and you. But there we are.
...when measles and polio start killing off their kids, at least the cycle will end - as their bloodlines will end.
One of the BIG REASONS that vaccine proponents want everyone (who can be) vaccinated is EXACTLY to protect the people who CANNOT be vaccinated, like your child, and those people for whom the shots simply didn't work. They want to protect people LIKE YOUR CHILD with herd immunity, which requires VERY HIGH vaccinations rates, especially so for extremely contagious diseases like measles.
No one advocates forcing vaccines on children who cannot take them for allergy reasons.
It's discussions like this that highlight we have a great need for evidence based---political assertions! Who cares if you believe this issue cleaves a little, or lot to liberals, conservatives, libertarians, etc. Can you back up your assertion with evidence?
Not always.
Consider for example a person infected with smallpox. The "enforced medical procedure" of quarantining the person is completely ethical. Same thing with someone infected with drug resistant tuberculosis. Or criminal insanity. Or pneumonic plague.
I consider it QUITE ethical to force medical treatment up to and including confinement on people ill with dangerous illnesses.
FURTHERMORE, it's QUITE ETHICAL to force people to vaccinate.
An analogy: the USA can conscript me (I'm a citizen) into military service. I can be made to go fight and die for the "common good" of the USA. Is that unethical? (Most in the US would say it is.)
So HOW IS IT UNETHICAL TO FORCE A US CITIZEN TO GET A SHOT TO PROTECT EVERYONE FROM THE SCOURGE OF DANGEROUS DISEASES? Remember, *I* can be made to go fight and die for the common good. You're telling me YOU or YOUR CHILD can't be forced to get a low risk shot?
Real living non-gmo/non-sprayed food, daily exercise that works up a good sweat, and a low stress lifestyle will keep people healthy.
Perhaps the reason the vax rates are low in intelligent areas of the country is because these folks can still read, comprehend, and understand that you don't poison the body to make it stronger. You poison it to make it weaker.... When you eat anything out of a box, you're poisoning your body...everything from your brain down to the circulation in your feet gets damaged every time you eat crap chemicals instead of real food. Throw common core into that mix and it's no wonder people agree 2 + 2 can possibly equal 5 as long as you argue your reasoning until the other guy gives up.
The average person has less than two eyes.
Out of a hundred people, how many do you think would come out above average on that metric?
These are the children of the people writing all that sloppy software....
You'd think these people would be smarter, guess not.
The theory of herd immunity has no scientific basis, but is an excellent political tool. Dr. A. W. Hedrich analysed Baltimore measles data month by month to come to a conclusion that at the end of every measles outbreak the number of kids under 15 that already had measles never went above 53% or below 32%. The vaccine industry misrepresented this research to claim when 55% of children are immune to measles then epidemics cannot develop. Since then the percentage necessary has increased to 75%, 95%, to now 98%. Meanwhile there have been numerous outbreaks in populations with 100% vacination rate. In real life herd immunity simply does not protect anyone. The virus has normal cycles of dormancy and virulence that cause outbreaks to continue regardless of vaccination rate.
I don't see why you think it has to do with politics. I would even say that in politics some take pride in being ignorant.
I've had similar experiences as the parent poster - a friend of mine is a fucking brilliant physicist and programmer but hasn't studied business at all. I have but because I'm an inferior programmer, he doesn't even believe me when I explain price discrimination and why companies engage in it (because it doesn't yield optimal products, only optimal prices). And he nevertheless asks me what "revenue" means. That is, I'm an ok dictionary but because he's a smarter programmer, he's convinced that he already understands everything better in business as well. Furthermore, I've had the same experience with a business guru friend of mine - he's also convinced that he understands all fields much better than I do just because he's better than me at business. Including programming even though he couldn't write hello world, if his life depended on it.
I disagree. Having spent a lifetime around pig headed engineers (including myself), this is my reasoning:
I think it has everything to do with intelligence, or, at least self perceived intelligence. The smarter someone thinks they are, the less likely they are to listen to others who they think are somehow less intelligent. They consider it a personal affront that someone else would tell them they're wrong about vaccines. They consider only the superiority of their own intellect when deciding that they will either accept or reject the established science. That kind of hubris is concentrated in certain professions, many of which are concentrated in Silicon Valley. Politics doesn't enter into it at all. This kind of self righteous thinking permeates the self declared intellectual elite in every party, including the independents who tend to be the most effete among them ("anyone who is dumb enough to let a party tell them how to think is inferior"). They have considered whatever they consider to be important in their own mind and have come to a conclusion that you dare not question.
Yes; it takes a long time to learn the difference between intelligence and experience, and when to delegate important decisions about your children to people who might not be as smart as you, or whom you don't know terribly well, who still have a lot more experience in an area.
It's also harder if you've had exposure to people in those fields. When looking for medical help, for example, at some point you usually have to make a decision on faith to trust someone's surgical skill even though you know that some people with great reputations really suck with a scalpel. Like trusting a bank's electronic security even though you know how frequently they do it really, really badly, only maybe someone's life is on the line. It's not because the faith in their skill is justified, it's just an appeal to authority that you hope works that hasn't been disproven.
Fundamentally appeals to authority (or at least experience) are inferior to meaningful data, but are superior in most cases to anecdotal data or in-head reasoning.
But there's also a filtering function--the trick is finding the person with both experience and practical skill. It's really hard to find a good high school guidance counselor, for example, and a really hard job to do well... Mmm...
All anti-vaxxers think they are smarter and more dedicated to the health of children than the generations of scientists who created and continue to enhance our vaccines. This is what their decision boils down to: they erroneously think they know better.
You don't see it in the Libertarian party. If someone there thinks they are right, it's because they are.
\sarcasm
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
It is my opinion that my facts are right where as your facts are wrong.
it happens.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
HOW IS THAT STATISTICALLY POSSIBLE??
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
You see that a lot in 3rd parties and among the independents. It's not something that's tied to any "side".
Yes, that was his point.
"...place where you might not expect it..."?
Why would you not expect it? Silicon valley is a bloated sow suckling the technorati on a steady stream of their own self evident superiority. You mean to tell these people they *don't* know what's best?
"...one of the smartest regions on earth..."?
FFS, your life's work is to write software that stalks people as they graze the internet and scoop up the data they periodically shit out, then turn that into advertising that you ram back down their throat in the hopes of selling them more diet pills and mortgage scams. If you can't see this, you're not that smart, are you?
"halfâ"have below-average vaccination rates," ... Really? Shocking!! /sarcasm
I think a prerequisite to being in politics is to assume you know better than anyone else how to run things. ("why is everyone in the country an idiot except for me?")
I'll say this: all this seems that in a world where most freedoms are being curtailed, this seems to be one issue over which people can still have some control. However, dumb and idiotic it might be. Now, I know that there are many kids who - for some medical/health issue - can't get some of the vaccinations. I'm OK with that. But people denying their kids the vaccinations that could save them from a lot of trouble, I feel that's simply stupid, and dumb beyond any conceivable sane limit.
I mean measles? Really? In all my life I have never met anyone who didn't get the vaccine for it. When I heard about how people don't allow their kids to have it, I just stood really dumbfounded. It's just simply one of those things you'd never have believed existed. These people really want to leave their kids vulnerable to all kinds of preventable diseases? I'm sorry, but to me, and to a lot of other people I discussed with about this, it just seems insane.
The U.S. is generally very protective regarding the safety of the country and of its citizens, so why not regarding the children? If we'd make a list of freedoms curtailed or stepped on in the last let's say 50 years, the freedom to unnecessarily endanger your kids should have been the first to go.
You can bash me all you want for this opinion, but I couldn't care less. Why? Because my kids will never get the measles.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Indeed, sorry you got modded down for an insightful reply. Science denial in this specific case however, seems to be across the political spectrum: (http://www.vice.com/read/weird-politics-of-anti-vaxxers-203) - as opposed to the generally right wing tilt of denying climate change, evolution, etc.
The psychology of it is also rather different, like with the anti-gluten movement it's a side effect of how we have been trained to trust/reat advertizing keywords
Vaccine is injecting bacteria/virus into you and since weve been told by soap commecial that all microorganisms are bad for you and nobody remember that were also dependent on them to stay alive the natural instinctive common sense view is to think that vaccines are dangerous.
Gluten is similar about 1% of the population have an mutation that means they cant digest it properly, so it have to be declared along with allergens on packaging, and since the health and gourmand food advertizing have told people that sub ingredients are scary and since gluten is a sub-ingredient of wheat the Instinctive common sense response for some people is that gluten must be dangerous. Despite the fact that it is just as natural as nuts or dairy, which is declared the same way.
Where as the question of believing vs rejecting in climate models and evolution is almost entirely about declaring sociopolitical loyalties.
You *have* to get them a peer group made up of real peers including people more intelligent than they are.
Starting in 1999. There was no corresponding drop in autism rates. That fact alone, all by itself, tells you all you really need to know on the subject.
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.
Maybe Silicon Valley isn't actually one of the smartest regions on Earth.
The report states that "6 out of 12 day care centers have below average vaccination rates", right?
So, if you take a random sample of _anything_, how many would you expect to be below the average for that particular measurement?
The news here isn't that high tech daycare centers have low vaccination rates, but that they don't have particularly high rates, i.e. they are totally average.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
six—that’s half—have below-average vaccination rates
Well fuck me. We're in trouble. Remind me what 'average' means again?
Daycare measles herd immunity is impossible. It's straight math.
#1 Can't give MMR below 12 months in age. Period. Exception: infants traveling internationally warrant the risk.
#2 Second dose is usually given 1 year after the first dose (at annual checkup), but at least 4 weeks after first dose, and prior to age 4
* immunity level 4 weeks after first dose: 74.3 % - 25.7% failure rate for single dose vaccination
* immunity level 4 weeks after second dose: 87.5% - 12.5% failure rate for two dose vaccination
#3 6% of individuals cannot be vaccinate
#4 Herd immunity threshold for measles: R0 of 12-18 = 83%-94% must be immune (not just vaccinated)
#5 12.5% + 6% = 18.5% ; 100% - 18.5% = 81.5% ; 81.5% 83% -- herd immunity is not possible
By all means, get your kid vaccinated for measles *WHEN THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH*.
If you are able to insist upon it, in fact, get the daycare workers to have an antibody titer to verify they are in fact immune, and revaccinate the shit out of them until they test positive for immunity before letting them around your kids.
Just don't do it because someone appeals to your social conscience about "herd immunity" for measles; they are relying on you being bad at math.
If the same person comes back and preaches herd immunity for Diptheria, Mumps, Polio, Rubella, or Smallpox -- *YES*, herd immunity for *those diseases* is possible.
PS: Pertussis (whooping cough) has the same problem as measles (R0 12-17, threshold 92%-94%).
More superstitious nonsense...
http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen.html
So presumably the children who "can't" have 'vaccines' because they are allergic are 'good', but the children who don't have 'vaccines' because their parents know 'vaccination' is a fraud, are 'bad'... and shouldn't be allowed near other children, right?
So it's the THOUGHTS of the un'vaccinated' children that make them 'good' or 'bad', correct?
There is no such thing as 'vaccination', and the 'vaccination' fraudsters are running scared, because people are wising up to their massive scam.
Science denial is probably more strongly correlated with politics/emotions not intelligence level.
It's really more of a STEM problem. It has to do with the type of education one has. If science was largely missing from your education, it's kind of obvious you wouldn't trust science, it wouldn't matter if you were intelligent or not, nor from the left or the right.
Normally, I would say that girls choosing to avoid sciences isn't a problem, it's actually their choice (for those choosing to do so). In this case however, I think it's important to have a much higher level of science literacy for everyone. It's important for the individual, but it's also very important for our modern society as a whole.
The only reason places like that exist, is because they make money, not science. You want science, there's NASA, ESA, MIT etc etc
The problem is, a few herbal medicines are good stuff. (Documented effects and all that - as well as plain vitamins from 'organic' sources.) But those who sell this stuff, tend to be superstitious and peddle all sorts of humbug as well. Caveat emptor!
The *more arrogant*, the less likely they are to listen to others who they think are somehow less intelligent.
Corrected that for you. Smart people realise that they don't know everything about everything, and outside of their own terrain other people are more qualified, even if these people are "less smart". It is not a sin to know you are smart.
Being good with computers does not automatically make you an expert in medicine, climate science, sexual politics or any number of other things.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I've heard it said that at the extremes, the left and the right are differentiated mostly by their choices in fashion and style, not by ideology. Political ideology often seems better described as a circular, not linear, scale.
The one time I sampled an Alex Jones show even he went through some mental gymnastics trying to explain his general support for Republicans despite agreeing with the far left on a bunch of issues.
I'm sure social scientists have some kind of way of identifying systems of beliefs based on clusters of belief which transcends the usual linear spectrum of ideology.
show me proof from a respectable authority
How do you deem an authority respectable? Otherwise you'll have to wade through an awful lot of data and tests to come to your own conclusions.
1. Children have to be over a certain age to get some of these vaccinations. I was not vaccinated against Mumps until I was 13.
2. The triple MMR is cheaper and only one event, separate vaccinations are more expensive and need three trips, therefore only available to private people who can take as many days off as they like. Not minimum wage workers.
3. Three vaccines really require some delay between the shots, so your child will take longer to finish all vaccinations. Increases the age until full coverage as did #1.
Only if the data is normally distributed. Vaccination rates in the US, however, aren't. Or shouldn't be, anyway. The median should be somewhere in the 90% range in what should be a highly skewed distribution.
Best Slashdot Co
Geeks are too shy to ask a smart girl out and too passive to oppose her decisions regarding their child's health.
I'm right, until proven otherwise. Show me a trustworthy test, show me trustworthy data, show me trustworthy studies, show me proof from a respectable authority that I'm wrong and I will happily change my mind and apologize to you for wasting your time in having to convince me.
The problem with that is that you are the one deciding who is trustworthy and reputable. For example, with climate change there have been some fake scandals about data being manipulated. Depending on who you consider reputable you might believe that or not, and thus consider the data to be trustworthy or not.
The basis on which you make this determination is your own investigation, which is probably biased by your pre-existing experience and views. For example, you would probably dismiss anything on Fox News out of hand, which is probably fine but what else could you be doing that isn't?
Just being an expert in one area isn't all that helpful and doesn't necessarily allow you to properly investigate and understand other areas.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
... Some data points will be above and some will be below. It's how averages work.
I think it's a bit of a different issue here. Notice these are pretty much all computer related firms. As we all know, many people in this field think anything can be fixed in the software.
Plus, they and their kids will soon be able to upload themselves into the Matrix following the Singularity, which is due any day soon, so there's no need to worry about trivia like physical diseases.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The far right and the far left both think those who disagree with them must be idiots
Deep down, everybody thinks those who disagree with them must be idiots.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
One thing I've noticed about software engineers is that too many of them are lacking the critical statistics skills they need to function effectively. Perhaps it's because we tend to think in Boolean terms of true and false. Thus, "I have a 1:450,000,000 chance of winning the lottery" turns into "I have a chance of winning the lottery", which is a different wording that is remarkably easy to misinterpret as a "50:50" chance
"I'm not an hilariously fucking stupid knobend, I just tend to think in Boolean terms of true and false".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm wondering if the families of H1-B workers are required to have to have measles vaccine before entering the US.
And how easily that paperwork can just be bribed to be rubberstamped before coming.
The American embassy was very thorough about my wife having all of hers before coming form China.
Did you type that while sniffing your farts?
I really hate the us them mentra. Who is them? All the other cretons that don't believe like you do?
So a bunch of wacko soccer moms decided that Thier precious little ( insert yuppie baby name here ) should not get vaccinated cause "it's there choice and the gov can't make me".
Thats fine. Insurance should not cover treatment if their kids get sick. Let them trade in thier BMW to pay for it. Not my problem your little brats are sick. So don't push my insurance premiums up!!
Also, kudos to pediatricians who are refusing to treat non imunized children to avoid spreading it further... Not thier problem either. Go get your little brats thier shots!!!!
Being a self-perceived-intelligent pig-headed engineer myself, I think you're missing a critical component in that description. I'm right, until proven otherwise. Show me a trustworthy test, show me trustworthy data, show me trustworthy studies, show me proof from a respectable authority that I'm wrong and I will happily change my mind and apologize to you for wasting your time in having to convince me.
Not everybody seems capable of determing what sources are trustworthy and what sources are not. Combine the same self-perceived-intelligence and pig-headded-ness with a distrust of "government" or "the man", and there you have it. At that point, the "mainstream" "trustworthy" sources are just a part of the conspiracy, so the only sources to be trusted are those on the fringe that are supressed and bringing you the real truth.
I have a good friend who is a very smart autodidact, but also a massive skeptic. You could probably put him in the "holocaust denier" camp because of this. I've gotten into arguments with him about it a couple times, and the sources that he always brings up are aryan nation affiliated internet forums or postings on these forums linking to sources elsewhere. The main contention is the number of Jewish holocaust deaths. Of course, the sources that I cite to counter his arguments are all part of the Isreali Jewish conspiracy.
Go into any whole-foods in Silicon Valley, and you'll see plenty of herbal medicines that do nothing but empty people's wallets. Silicon Valley isn't some kind of pro-science paradise.
I see the same thing where I live...I don't usually see many people shopping in that area though.
Half of a given group of daycare centers is below average! I wonder if the other half might be above average? And the group as a whole would line up pretty well with the average. News indeed!
Some might be straight out denying. Others see how the facts we are told about what is healthy have been wrong so many times we don't want to just believe any old crap being spread about by companies that make money from it. Eating fat will make you fat, eggs are bad for you, carbs are good, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is the best thing ever invented for your health. Take antibiotics for everything, we don't have any gut bacteria or anything that is important for our health, and antibiotic resistant strains are not a concern. Well all these decades of taking their advice has led people down the wrong path and masses of people are sick and fat because of it.
This measles scare is just that, a scare. 50 something cases this year, 650 cases last year. I didn't hear about them. Measles is not a bad disease, our parents got it as a routine thing during their childhood. Very few turn serious or deadly, especially when you have modern medical care such as antibiotics. I have heard recently even the MMR is found to be not that long lasting and they are probably going to ask people to get it a third time. Plus, each time you get a vaccine they are less and less effective. People who get the flu vaccine each year are going to be in trouble when they are elderly and really need the extra protection if that is true.
It's like the chicken pox vaccine, which in a couple of generations will be just as scary as measles is purported to be. So they get everyone taking a vaccine for it, which runs out so you have to keep getting it. Or you just get chicken pox and get better. Then when you are elderly you get the vaccine for shingles. So you either take a vaccine your whole life, or just get it when you are old and your immune system is weaker. I'll opt for less crap being injected into my body, thanks! Besides, not getting sickness just keeps your immune system weak and screwed up. Some people have been cured of auto-immune diseases by getting a tape worm. If your immune system doesn't learn what it should be fighting, it will start fighting everything, even stuff it should not be.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
It's only surprising if you think that all the anti "anti vax" can speak out when they are being hammered by tyrants. Just like voters who either keep quiet or vote against the loudmouths, you can't know the truth ahead of time or at all if you treat others with open contempt.
.I don't usually see many people shopping in that area though.
That's a good point....I don't tend to go their often to check, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Maybe the people at those companies are better educated in the subject and have come to a conclusion that differs.
Both sides in this, pro and anti, are so absolutist that it is pathetic. It is a medical intervention with serious consequences both ways. The crowd here on slashdot are particularly clueless. So BEFORE you reply and spew your opinion please take some time to educate yourself. I view vaccines as a great tool in the medical toolbox but it isn't the right tool for every job.
Describe the perfect target for a vaccine. Doesn't mutate in humans, doesn't have any other species it can go to and come back to us, no other effective treatment and hopefully the vaccine will still work once you are infected if you get the shot with a few days of infection. I'm describing smallpox. The perfect target for a vaccine and it worked. 3 million people are not getting killed by it annually. That is a good thing.
Describe the worst target for a vaccine. Mutates in humans, can live and mutate in other species, safer more effective treatments exist and once you have it you're sick. I'm describing influenza.
So here are some links. Take your time and check out why we'll never achieve herd immunity with the current measles vaccine, why people get measles when they are older. All these links are PhDs in infectious diseases and immunology so they aren't just some opinionated quacks. Neither are they anti-vax. They explain the pros and cons. It is not as cut and dried as either side make it out to be. We are giving up life long immunity and a mother's ability to protect the 0-1 age group with the current measles vaccine. That is not trivial. We have eradicated measles from USA/Canada and that is a good thing. All measles cases are imported so we obviously need quick and reliable tests at airports. Letting thousands of people walk across the southern border from third world countries also doesn't help.
- Cochrane Review - Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults-
- Dr Lisa Jackson's out of season influenza vaccine research
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/2/337.short
- Dr Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D. - Natural Immunity and Vaccination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h66beBrEpk
Go research what a scam the flu vaccine is, especially how the inhaler is spreading the flu(s!) rather than actually preventing it (in hopes of make the flu worse and selling more "vaccines" each succeeding year), and you'll begin to see that the pharmaceutical industry is primarily and industry, and thus not to be trusted out of hand.
That is the root of the issue, not the asinine arguments opponents wish that so-called anti-vaxxers had.
The problem with that is that you are the one deciding who is trustworthy and reputable.
And why is that a problem? Ultimately the data comes from somewhere, so the more I understand about the source, the better I understand the results. How many studies on climate change were funded by the NSF? The U.S. Army? NOAA? Some land grant university? A private university? Were they funded by Greenpeace? Were they funded by the American Coalition for Clean Coal? Follow the money. If the source of the study's funding comes from someone vested in the outcome, and those results don't fall in the same direction as the other studies, it's not particularly trustworthy.
Rather than belabor my methodology, consider the alternative and look at how the typical person evaluates a topic like climate change: they saw it on Fox News, they saw it in the Huffington Post, they saw it on MSNBC, or they heard it on NPR. Maybe they saw it on Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Or maybe they got it from their boss, or their preacher, or their social club. Maybe they heard it from their favorite politician, or a sports figure, or some random actress. Now look at who has a financial interest in how climate data is perceived by the public: oil, gas, and coal companies. Is it easier for them to manipulate the data, the studies, the politicians, or the media? Is there a reason they won't try to manipulate all of the above, when the difference could mean trillions of dollars over time?
How would you suggest I get better, more relevant, more trustworthy data than looking at the studies? I may put up a weather station and track temperatures over time, but that only tells me about weather, not climate. I'm not going to Antarctica to drill for ice cores myself, or dig up geological strata to look for evidence of palm fronds in the fossil record. And I'm certainly not going to have 100,000 children so I can track the efficacy of their vaccinations. I have to trust others, so I do what I can with what I can learn.
John
One thing I've noticed about software engineers is that too many of them are lacking the critical statistics skills they need to function effectively. Perhaps it's because we tend to think in Boolean terms of true and false. Thus, "I have a 1:450,000,000 chance of winning the lottery" turns into "I have a chance of winning the lottery", which is a different wording that is remarkably easy to misinterpret as a "50:50" chance, even though both outcomes are statistically equal to false. They apply that same lack of understanding to any risk, including vaccination (a 1:3,000,000 chance of a serious adverse reaction becomes "a chance of a serious adverse reaction".)
This says it all.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
They also make very expensive urine . . .
bazinga
This measles scare is just that, a scare. 50 something cases this year, 650 cases last year. I didn't hear about them. Measles is not a bad disease, our parents got it as a routine thing during their childhood. Very few turn serious or deadly, especially when you have modern medical care such as antibiotics.
According to the CDC, prior to mass vaccination in the 1960s the annual rate of measles infection was about half a million cases were reported in the US annually. Of those, just under ten percent required hospitalization, about a thousand had chronic disability and about five hundred died. That's per year.
Also, measles is caused by a virus, which means antibiotics have no effect on the infection. Treatment with antibiotics only occurs in cases with serious complications involving secondary bacterial infections, which by definition is not a minor case.
Plus, each time you get a vaccine they are less and less effective. People who get the flu vaccine each year are going to be in trouble when they are elderly and really need the extra protection if that is true.
That's a frighteningly wrong set of what I hesitate to call "information."
You know this reminds me a lot of STD's. AIDS and the really horrible ones more specifically. Some people walk around fucking whatever they want without even thinking of protection because "FUCK IT YOLO MY BODY". Iirc there have been some prosecutions against people who knowly spread AIDS to other people, you would think it would be possible to charge these Anti-Vaxers in a similar fashion.
The rate of measles infection was going down drastically before the vaccine was created. The antibiotics are for the secondary problems, not the measles. Better general health and healthcare will also have atbig impact on modern cases. Just because you aren't aware of the latest studies on the effectiveness of multiple vaccinations does not make it incorrect.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Bullshit.
The best fish market in any town is the one that does the most business. It is not whole foods. You will have to get up early to get really good fish.
CostCo is the place to go for meat. Most of what whole foods has is grass fed hipster crap. No prime to be found anywhere.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So your theory is whole foods doesn't know how to manage their shelf space?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Childhood measles had about a 1/1000 serious complication rate.
If you got it when you were older you were fucked.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Name one right wing post-modernist?
That's a purely left wing delusion. Sokal is a lefty who mocked post-modernism because it made his political philosophy look like a bunch of idiots.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The rate of measles infection was going down drastically before the vaccine was created. The antibiotics are for the secondary problems, not the measles. Better general health and healthcare will also have atbig impact on modern cases. Just because you aren't aware of the latest studies on the effectiveness of multiple vaccinations does not make it incorrect.
I am fully aware. You are almost certainly referencing the McLean study which showed a potential reduction in effectiveness due to repeated vaccination controlled for a single virus strain. However, that study reiterated previous studies which showed no statistically significant vaccination interference between consecutive years of vaccination. They suggested the potential for such interference over significantly longer timeframes such as five years but also explicitly stated that the data in their study could not draw that conclusion given many other possible explanations for their results.
Assuming ignorance from refutation is another characteristic of the phenomenon I characterized earlier. In either case, there are reasons for repeated vaccination due to the nature of how the vaccine is constituted that would override this result even if it was conclusive. Furthermore, the study did not suggest escalating resistance which would incur the risk of the vaccine eventually becoming ineffective. They suggested the potential for successive interference which would more reasonably mandate switching to longer vaccination schedules instead.
As to the rate of measles infection going down, public health improvements did reduce the rate of measles infection in the early part of the twentieth century, but only by incrementally small amounts due to the highly contagious nature of measles. Mandated vaccination in the 1960s dropped the infection rate almost immediately to very low levels. There was no recorded trend that would have reduced the rate to current levels prior to mass vaccination in the United States. That is not even remotely credibly in dispute. Given the mortality statistics, mass vaccination has saved literally tens of thousands of lives in the last fifty years, and eliminated hundreds of thousands of cases severe enough to require hospitalization.
When this measles thing started up in the news, I even thought it was time for MMR. But a little research and I find the stats they are touting all over the news are such misleadings that I feel they are lying about it. The death rate they give is for the world, where our country has nowhere near the problems with getting the disease.
So, if they are trying to mislead us that much, then I know it's for alternative reasons. Trying to cover for their horrible fuck-up with the flu vaccine, or they want to make even more money by telling us that it is going to need another booster to be truley efective. I'll save my limited number of injections for the truely serious.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Just because there is a large portion of educated people in Silicon Valley doing tech work, why do we consistently treat them as if they're intelligence gods or something? There are smart people in other parts of the world. And I would argue that Silicon Valley is just a bunch of wealthy tech nerds who will invest their money in stupid ideas just because they'll sell to the masses. The rest is just well-connected kids who are a leg-up from their peers in the rest of the world, complaining if they don't get a million dollar salary with their first startup.