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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.
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.
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."
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
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)
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.
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.
I prefer to keep the gluttons away from my lunches as well. It's hard to deal with gluten intolerance when they're eating all of my food.
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.
Hush, you'll attract the hosts file guy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Exactly. Anti-science brought on by a superiority complex, thinking that they are smarter than the scientists who have done huge amounts of research. I can see exactly why this type of thinking is predominate in an area like Silicon Valley. "Don't bother me with the research. I'm smart enough to know everything I need to know already."
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"?
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.
“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.
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.
Oh this is pretty much crap you know...
First, this opinion was brought to us by ONE (that's 1) published study that found a POSSIBLE but not confirmed link between the compounds with mercury that where used in *some* vaccines at the time. Since then three things have happened.
1. The published study has been found to be invalid due to errors in their facts and methods and has been recalled by the publisher and the authors have been discredited for their shoddy work.
2. Multiple studies have been done since that verifies that the original findings where incorrect and that there is in fact no link to vaccines that used mercury compounds and autism.
3. ALL modern vaccines have stopped using the compounds in called into question by the now discredited and disproven study decades ago.
There is NO LINK to autism from vaccines....They don't use the chemicals in question anymore, and even if they did the link was disproven.
Not to mention that we now KNOW what causes autism and it's NOT mercury exposure as a child.
So go grab your kids and take them to the pediatrician and get them vaccinated unless the doctor has a reason they shouldn't be.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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"?
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.
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.
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.
Did you mean to reply to yourself? Because you forgot the S in your own post.
Claiming that engineers just get "recipes" that they blindly follow is about as stupid an assertion as I've ever seen. Any working engineer knows that the recipes are just a starting point, or things start failing real quick. That's even more true of computer algorithms, where just plugging in "recipes" gets you no-where fast.
Hell, it's not even true of Chefs that use *actual* recipes, because it real life you need to alter what ingredients you use or baking time or cooking techniques to prepare something.
Engineers and computer programmers (and Chefs) have to do a lot more thinking and a lot less blind following than just about any other people on earth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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
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.
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
As a lawyer, I can tell you it is very possible under a negligence theory. In fact, there's a very recent Atlantic Monthly article on just this subject.
It's not one of the smartest places on Earth.
1. Most commercial software is designed fast, not well. Microsoft can't even manage to finish implementing the C++11 standard, as an example, to include simple comparison operations on containers. Silicon Valley is a software sweatshop that happens to have lots of money.
2. Most companies in Silicon Valley refuse to hire anybody who doesn't have at least a four year degree. Their definition of a competent programmer is somebody who doesn't spend their time programming and took on tens of thousands of dollars in debt to not learn how to do it.
3. Most self-motivated developers move to Silicon Valley only AFTER achieving success independently; if they move there at all.
Silicon Valley is a social game, as evidence by the fact that rather than encourage little girls to study programming, or hell, *all* kids for that matter, they have jumped on the SJW bandwagon with, "Let's hire fewer white males." Brainless group think.
The programmers I admire coincidentally all live in Sweden, Denmark, or Switzerland. I'm talking about the ones you'll see post actual genius solutions to problems rather than regurgitate undergrad Calculus or a preview copy of the standard.
Basically, Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of software. It's a shallow culture grasping at anything "New Age" that gives it identity, while many, many of its residents excessively masturbate their egos. It wouldn't exist still if we weren't so soon into the Information Era still, as those companies will inevitably seek out the abundant more affordable labor available via telecommute and save millions. It's only a matter of time until that place is the new Detroit.
Now, if the article said the same things about the region around Los Alamos National Laboratory, then I'd be shocked.
I'm sure this won't be a popular post, but that's just evidence to support it. Big egos can't handle criticism, and certainly can't handle being told they're not the best of the best. However, just because they scream the loudest that they're the best, that doesn't actually make it true.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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
To an outsider, Americans' use of terms like "left" is baffling. The sort of people who live in Beverly Hills are left wing only in the sense that they don't actually admire Hitler.
In rest-of -the-world terms I think you just mean "reasonably liberal on social questions".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing 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.
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.