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Parents Who Don't Vaccinate Kids Tend To Be Affluent, Better Educated (go.com)

schwit1 quotes ABC News: Vaccines are universally backed by respected scientists and federal agencies, but that isn't enough to convince every parent to vaccinate their children. The decision to fly in the face of near universal scientific opinion doesn't come as a result of a lack of intellect, however, as experts who have studied vaccines and immunology acknowledge that many parents who don't vaccinate their children are well-educated. They also appear to be the victims of a widespread misinformation campaign, the experts said.

Daniel Salmon, who is the director of the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said that existing research suggests that there are some common attributes that many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children share. "They tend to be better educated. They tend to be white, and they tend to be higher income. They tend to have larger families and they tend to use complementary and alternative medicine like chiropractors and naturopaths," Salmon said.

Salman also says outbreaks typically start when an American returns from a visit to Europe, where there are much higher rates of measles than in the U.S. But lower vaccination rates help it spread.

One study in August reported Russian trolls "seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," though their campaign on Twitter failed to gain traction.

"I blame Amazon Prime," writes long-time Slashdot reader destinyland. "That 'misinformation' they're talking about is the pseudoscience documentary Vaxxed -- and Amazon is one of the top site's pushing it. The movie is not only free for all Prime members -- Amazon's actually featuring it on the front page showing free-with-Prime movies."

6 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. Re: show butthoal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Ok cut the nonsense. All the libtards think that getting vaccines means getting a particular batch of vaccines selected without question from a provider. All bullshit. Every school district and health organization has policies and recommendations and every vaccine is available in different ways from different companies itâ(TM)s and can be administered by different providers. I would ask that you idiots please stop talking about vaccines as though they were some monolithic thing that everybody gets from big brother. Do you get a smallpox vaccine? No, smallpox was eradicated. Do you get a chicken pox vaccine when you already had chicken pox? Probably not. The efficacy of having had chicken oox is better understood than the efficacy of the vaccine. Do you get your second dose of gardasil as a child? No, you get it later in life assuming you even want it or some guideline has not changed. There is literally no such thing as vaccination. There are vaccinations. Some people get some of them sometimes. Cue corrupt libtard arguments.

  2. Re:Study must be deeply flawed by iggymanz · · Score: 1, Informative

    not anti-vax at all

    there are known and proven cases around the world of harmful improperly prepared vaccine

    but you're quick to label people instead of using your mind

  3. Re:One-eyed among the blind. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    because there are some people that can't be vaccinated for various reasons and people who could be but choose not to put them at risk, kids who have certain disorders, newborns, women who are pregnant who may not be as well protected by their own childhood vaccinations because of changes in body chemistry, elderly people, etc, etc, etc

    to address what some anti-vaxxers try to rely on, yes there is a herd immunity, but we rely on it for those that legitimately can't be vaccinated and not just those that choose not to because they are morons, besides the fact that if we get enough morons, then the herd immunity disappears anyway

  4. Re:One-eyed among the blind. by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

    The anti-vaxx conspiracy theory is that Big Pharma have co-opted scientists.

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  5. Re: show butthoal by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Informative

    Do you get a smallpox vaccine? No, smallpox was eradicated.

    Unless you are working in labs that maintain samples of smallpox for research, this is probably true. That said, if a new outbreak ever occurs somehow (e.g. cross-species transmission), then being able to rapidly ramp up those immunizations could be pretty important.

    Do you get a chicken pox vaccine when you already had chicken pox? Probably not. The efficacy of having had chicken oox is better understood than the efficacy of the vaccine.

    Actually, that's untrue. People who have previously been infected by chickenpox need a vaccine booster later in life. The chickenpox virus is never completely eliminated from the human body, and as a result, it can resurface in the form of shingles, a painful and debilitating condition that affects a million people per year in the United States alone. Given that the chickenpox vaccine was not approved for use in the U.S. until 1995, exactly zero percent of the main at-risk age group (elderly) were vaccinated as a kid, which is to say that (approximately) all cases of shingles occur in people who had chickenpox, not the vaccine. But periodic booster vaccination can prevent it from occurring/recurring.

    Do you get your second dose of gardasil as a child? No, you get it later in life assuming you even want it or some guideline has not changed.

    Huh? Like all vaccines, protection lasts for a period of time.

    I would ask that you idiots please stop talking about vaccines as though they were some monolithic thing that everybody gets from big brother.

    Vaccines aren't all the same, but they are pretty darn similar except for the virus itself. They confer an immunity to a particular virus and similar viruses for a period of time. They must periodically be supplemented by a booster if continued immunity is required, and mutation of viruses can result in less or no protection (e.g. influenza). The only questions you need to ask are:

    • Am I at any real risk of exposure to that virus?

    That's it. There's really only a single factor to consider when deciding whether to be vaccinated. People who go to countries that have more viruses need more immunizations. People in the U.S. need fewer (but still more than none). And when groups of people refuse to get immunized, the herd immunity of the society they live in is reduced, and everyone is at greater risk of dying from what would otherwise be an entirely preventable disease.

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  6. Re:One-eyed among the blind. by q_e_t · · Score: 3, Informative

    In general the advice over the last 70 years with regards to diet, exercise and smoking has been pretty consistent. Where there are adjustments to the overall pretty consistent message it gets blown out of all proportion. Plus people tend to suggest that the message is black-and-white (give up butter) when the actual advice was to reduce saturated fat overall and replace with with monounsaturated vegetable fats, not margarine. Sometimes examples like noting that butter contains a lot of saturated fat is mentioned when people are asked for examples, and the actual advice seems to be lost by turning the nuanced advice into the headline 'Butter is now bad!'.

    In terms of exaggerated risk that is often due to the misunderstanding between risk, prevalence and lifetime risk. Clinicians probably don't help matters, but again it's mostly the media not understanding the science.