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Gardasil Cleared of Anti-Vax Nonsense (slate.com)
New submitter Zane C. writes: A new study once again shows vaccines have no link with yet another batch of medical disorders. The vaccine in question is a relatively new HPV vaccine called Gardasil, mainly targeting preteens to reduce infection. Phil Plait has more on this, debunking anti-vax claims and explaining why you should receive the vaccine: "It’s another typical anti-vax call to arms due to a complete and gross misunderstanding of how reality works. To them, if something happens after something else, it was caused by that first thing. This is the classic post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. But the Universe doesn’t work that way. And this kind of bad thinking has consequences. In the U.S. alone, 79 million people are infected with HPV. That’s more than a quarter of the entire population. Fourteen million new cases crop up every year. Gardasil can substantially cut those numbers back—it’s working, and working well, in the U.S. and Australia—but not if the fearmongering falsehoods by anti-vaxxers get traction."
I loved working on my VAX systems - a great little healthcare OS.
If you take a former playmate's advice on vaccinations, maybe the herd could do without you.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Let's also not forget that HPV causes a number of different cancers - cervical, penile, throat, etc. This vaccine dramatically reduces your chances of HPV-caused cancer. The press most often focuses on cervical cancer when they talk about it, which is why the vaccine has been more targeted to women, but boys and men also get a direct benefit, as well as all the indirect benefits through herd immunity.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Believing that a vaccine is by nature safe. This article makes it out like it's ridiculous to believe that a vaccine could have serious negative side effects. It's not; being a vaccine doesn't make anything safe. Yes, the data show that Gardasil isn't the cause of the various things some suspected of it. But that wasn't a foregone conclusion.
In my experience, anti-vaxxers lean both left and right, often for different reasons. Basically, it all boils down to a distrust of the establishment, whether that's government, or scientists, or whatever. These aren't always the most politically active people, so their leanings are a bit less well defended, and I've found them to often espouse causes on both sides of the spectrum, sometimes on the same subject. For example, I find they're more likely to ask the government to get out of their own lives (right-wing on small-government) but to increase environmental regulation (left-wing on ecology), so when saying whether they're left or right, one must take a balance of all their views to see which way they lean predominantly (abortion, gay marriage, etc.).
Big pharma lobbied for legal immunity against any vaccine damage claims decades ago. Claiming they don't have time to fight lawsuits since they are too busy "saving the world". I'll start using vaccines when they are able to actually take responsibilities of their own products.
Then you need to prove the herd effect is very useful.
Not that you were batting anywhere close to a 1000, but this just totally ruins it. 1) You should have written that the herd effect needs to be proven to exist; it's obviously beneficial. 2) It has been proven, empirically, hundreds, if not thousands, of times. It does not need to be proven for each and every vaccine individually.
Note this up front: Vaccines are good for you. I have zero problems with vaccination as it is beneficial to humanity individually and overall.
Glad we can agree!
Now - about this article: Way the hell too much sensationalism, too much flamebait imputed, and IMHO way too much of this attitude: '...this study is right so I am right and therefore fuck you! Get right with us or else you are not worthy of life you troglodyte!' Seriously... but TFA and summary alike are indicative of what's wrong these days - too much sturm un drang, not enough persuasion.
Interestingly enough, Slate leans a bit to the left... and most anti-vaxxers lean very much to the left, so why was the bile necessary? You'd think that instead of turning it into a contest that hardens opinions (on both sides), that they'd try to at least be a little persuasive about it. ...or has science degraded into an echo-chamber shouting match these days?
Two things:
1) I like a good public discourse on many subjects, but vaccination is public health issue and treating these sides like equal positions has the potential to do more harm to the public health than good. The proven science of vaccinations is not of equal validity as the fear-based lies spun by anti-vaxxers, and our public discourse should reflect those truths. Sure there could be less insults and flamebaiting, but there's no need to give the anti-vaxxer position any more respect or fair treatment than we would give to any other patently false ideas, like flat-earth theory, cold fusion, phrenology, etc.
2) As for the political leanings of anti-vaxxers being liberal...that may be true in your area or experiences, but the ones I've encountered are usually conservative types (sometimes libertarian) who distrust the government, science, and anything that could be perceived as meddling in their lives.
No, at least not all of them.
Some people are immuno-comprimised. This would be people like infants, the elderly, children with diseases like leukaemia, adults undergoing cancer treatment, or people who have received life saving organ transplants and must take drugs that suppress their immune systems (for the rest of their lives). These people's lives depend on the rest of us doing the right thing and getting vaccinated so deadly diseases cannot take hold in the population and then find a path to the chronically ill.
I just think that it is amazing that we have developed a vaccine that can prevent a type of cancer! It's really unclear how many lives can be saved by gardisil because cervical cancer is kind of a secondary effect of long term HPV infection, but just think about it. In the future, what other cancers be preventable with a few shots in childhood? Prevention is such a better option than treatment. Both of my children have been vaccinated against HPV (male and female). We have a chance to strike a blow against a troublesome disease, HPV, and a secondary deadly disease, cervical cancer. This is truly like the fight against polio, or mercury exposure. It can make a much better life for future generations.