Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Thrive on Amazon (cnn.com)

Amid a growing measles outbreak in the United States, the role of powerful tech companies like YouTube and Facebook in spreading vaccine misinformation is under heavy scrutiny. But there is another massive platform offering spurious anti-vaccination content to people seeking information: Amazon, the world's largest online marketplace. CNN Business: And, asked about it, an Amazon spokesperson only pointed CNN Business to the company's content guidelines page, which says the following: "As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable. That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content, such as pornography or other inappropriate content." A recent search for "vaccine" on Amazon yielded a search page dominated by anti-vaccination content. Of the 18 books and movies listed on the search page, 15 contained anti-vaccination content. The first listing was a sponsored post -- that is, an ad for which Amazon was paid -- for the book "Vaccines on Trial: Truth and Consequences of Mandatory Shots" by Pierre St. Clair, which Amazon was also offering for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.

However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."

Comments

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem will solve itself, like smoking, or obesity or basically anything else along those lines.

Re:Who cares?

[JoshuaZ]

Actually smoking is a really good comparison because failure to vaccinate harms not just the individual who doesn't have a vaccine but people around them. Here immunity is important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not be pleased with the results in this case.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do Q Anon "conspiracy theories" thrive?

Brian Regan voice: "Tell us."

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unlike smoking and obesity. In those cases people usually live long enough to produce offspring. Which means that they can fulfil their evolutionary goal (if you can call it that) and pass down those genes, that may make them predisposed to smoking or not being able to keep their calorie intake in balance with physical exercise or other factors, to the next generation. Then there's another phenomenon that plays into this where 'stupid' usually breeds a lot quicker than 'smart'.

With a lack of vaccination however, which mostly affects the children of anti-vaxxers, this may actually solve itself over time.
Well, in theory. In practise the health care systems and doctors of most industrialized nations will still try and keep those people alive.

Re:Who cares?

[Killall -9 Bash]

Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.

If vaccines work as advertised, the only people anti-vaxers are POTENTIALLY hurting is themselves. The truth is that vaccines don't work, and they need a scapegoat.

Re:Who cares?

[MrNJ]

No.
If innocent children suffer or die because medical advice was not followed, the problem did not solve itself
Adults can decline care for themselves all they want, fine.
But withholding proven preventative care from children should be deemed reckless and punished accordingly.
Just like we punish parents who malnourish their children to death because of their (parents') crazy vegan beliefs.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being vaccinated does not 100% protect you from getting sick in every case. Stop perpetuating this stupid nirvana fallacy that you morons like so much.
Under ideal circumstances a vaccine makes you immune. More commonly it gives your immune system a boost, a head start against a disease which can protect you from severe symptoms that leave you mutilated or dead. By extension vaccination reduces the chance that disease spreads by minimizing the time frame in which a carrier is also a vector.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Measles is very contagious. Someone with measles coughs in a room, it could spread to other rooms of a building via the HVAC system and infect other people for hours. So, some anti-vaxxer moron brings their urchin to the pediatrician where there may be pregnant women, children with compromised immune systems and babies too young to be vaccinated and any of those people could get measles and potentially die.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.

If vaccines work as advertised, the only people anti-vaxers are POTENTIALLY hurting is themselves. The truth is that vaccines don't work, and they need a scapegoat.

Do you have any evidence that vaccinated people catching the diseases for which they were vaccinated is widespread? I doubt it, but it would be good to see it if you have it.
As for vaccinations being ineffective, how many people do you see with diseases like Polio and TB that used to be serious killers and/or cripplers? Personally, I haven't encountered (or really heard of) any people below about 60 (i.e. before vaccination became stable and widespread), but, again, if you have the data it would be good to see it.
Herd immunity is important for people who can't be vaccinated due to other medical issues, such as damaged immune systems. So it isn't true that the only people being hurt are anti-vaxxers and their own children.

Re:Who cares?

[Bigbutt]

Everything I've read and heard, the concern is that babies who can't be vaccinated and folks who have compromised immune systems are the ones being impacted by the anti-vaxxers. The most recent articles are the teenagers and young adults who have not been vaccinated are going behind their parents backs to get vaccinated. I've not read about any vaccinated people getting diseases from the non-vaccinated. Even a quick google search shows the same results. It's the folks who aren't vaccinated or who can't get vaccinated who are being impacted by the anti-vaxxers.

[John]

Re:Who cares?

[bev_tech_rob]

Actually smoking is a really good comparison because failure to vaccinate harms not just the individual who doesn't have a vaccine but people around them. Here immunity is important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity.

You meant "herd" immunity

Re:Who cares?

[shilly]

No, herd immunity is not just unvaccinated people getting protected, although it includes that category. And unvaccinated people are not just adults who have chosen not to vaccinate themselves despite being able to be vaccinated. People are unvaccinated because they are newborn babies, are immunocompromised eg are being treated for childhood cancers, are elderly, etc etc.

Did you really think your argument was even vaguely compelling? You sound like someone claiming a plane couldn't possibly fly because it weighs more than air -- just laughably naive and ignorant of the basic science.

Re:Who cares?

[LostMyAccount]

The category of "unvaccinated people" includes people with unusual medical conditions who can't be vaccinated or can't be vaccinated on the usual vaccination schedules, and people who have literally been vaccinated but for whom the vaccine didn't work for whatever the reason.

Herd immunity is meant to protect them.

IMHO, most of the anti-vaxxers fall into the category of people who think they're gaining some advantage by not vaccinating while also simultaneously believing their risk is close to zero because everyone else got vaccinated and they can rely on herd immunity.

It's really the same mindset as people who cheat on their taxes. They want the benefits of what the taxes pay for, they just don't want to pay for them.

I'd wager that if there was some kind of disease that had a combination of infection vectors, both environmental and person-to-person, anti-vaxxers would be a lot less willing to rely on herd immunity since they would be at risk even with perfect herd immunity.

Re:Who cares?

[Discgolferusa]

1. No, not everyone who gets the vaccine is immune, generally vaccines have around an 95% success rate.
2. No, not everyone who doesn't get a vaccine did it by choice. Some people with certain allergies can't have certain vaccines.

That's were herd immunity comes in, we are trying to protect THOSE people. By electing to not inoculate your children, you lower the effectiveness of herd immunity by skewing the coverage group in the wrong direction. Unfortunately though, your "choice" can endanger the lives of people around you and your children.

Non medical exemptions are dangerous to the population as a whole and should be banned.

Re:Who cares?

[EvilSS]

No vaccine is 100% effective, and none advertise that they are. Annually, about 20% of flu deaths in otherwise healthy children (so kids without other conditions that would make them particularly vulnerable) in the US are children who were properly vaccinated. Then there are people who cannot, for legitimate reasons, get vaccinated. So no, it's not just people who choose not to that are protected by herd immunity.

As for vaccines not working, when was the last time you heard about polio epidemics in western countries? Measles was all but eliminated in the US before the anti-vax movement. It's still early days but we are also already seeing positive results from HPV vaccination campaigns as well. Going back to my first statistic, around 80% of the deaths in healthy children from the flu each year is in non-vaccinated kids. 4 out of every 5.

It's a bold face lie to say vaccines do not work.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

just totally untrue, first there are people who legitimately can't get vaccinated for medical reasons, like newborns or people with immune disorders

second some people do indeed have their vaccinations lose effectiveness over time, particularly the elderly

so unvaccinated people are a danger to them as well

the assertions that vaccines don't work is just foolish on the face, obviously we can point to the prevalence of diseases both before and after vaccinations started for it. just as an example in the USA measles would strike up to 800,000 people per year before the vaccine and after it was introduced within a few years that fell to a fraction of the previous amount

finally, no one has ever claimed that any vaccine is 100% effective, there is no such thing as any medical treatment that is without fail 100% effective. The CDC rates the effectiveness of the 2 dose measles regimen as 95% effective

it boils down to two simple facts 1) loads of proof that there is positive effects for mass vaccination and 2) no evidence at all that mass vaccination causes any substantive harm

Re:Who cares?

[Excelcia]

The problem will solve itself

When my youngest son was two weeks old he developed whooping cough while on a trip to visit my parents. I remember him going from slight cough to blue lips in about an hour. I will never forget the desperate trip to the local hospital, the ambulance to the slightly larger regional hospital, and the air ambulance trip to the major center. We were lucky, my son is still with us and healthy today. But it was touch and go.

There is some question of how he contracted it, but still the most likely vector is from someone who was unvaccinated. The church I attended at the time was quite conservative and vaccination conspiracy theories were pretty popular then.

If vaccination conspiracy nuts only hurt themselves, I would tend to agree. But there are many diseases that you can't vaccinate for right away. Plus, remember, it's not the conspiracy nut who is the one hurt in any case. It's the conspiracy nut's innocent children. They don't deserve deadly diseases, or the knowledge that they passed on a lethal disease to an infant.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vaccines work 99% of the time. If there are very few sick people out there, the chance of a vaccinated person whose vaccination is not effective to get sick is low. If there are many sick people, their chance is higher.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is that vaccines don't work, and they need a scapegoat.

It's amazing that you can be this dumb, but still be alive and functioning.
I suppose if we wait long enough, you'll die from something preventable.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.

If vaccines work as advertised, the only people anti-vaxers are POTENTIALLY hurting is themselves. The truth is that vaccines don't work, and they need a scapegoat.

I'll go get some popcorn. Tell us all some more dumb shit, so that I can think less of my fellow man.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem will solve itself, like smoking, or obesity or basically anything else along those lines.

It's Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. The "by proxy" part means that they're using their kids and making the kids sick so that the adult anti-vaxxers can care for them. The problem is that innocent kids are dying because of adult stupidity.

Re:Who cares?

[bobbied]

THIS!

I've argued with the Anti-Vaxx militants, they are seriously long on opinion and very short on knowledge and caring about anybody including their own children.

Measles is a SERIOUS illness for babies not yet born or to young to be vaccinated. It may not be as serious as it used to be, when it killed 1 in 10K or so, but it can still kill. It still causes serious illness, high fevers, and sends kids to the hospital with frightening frequency. It is VERY easy to transmit and extremely hard to avoid exposure for the unvaccinated.

The problem here is that the Anti-Vaxx lobby have a whole host of "The MMR vaccine causes X" statements which are absolute hogwash. I've heard it causes autism, SIDS and all sorts of childhood illnesses. NONE of these theories are borne out in the scientific studies, none. Yet they keep pushing them, scaring the young impressionable parent who think they are doing right by their kids by refusing the vaccines in their religious like fervor.

The MMR vaccine is highly effective if administered as directed. It is also safe, compared to the alternative.

What's missing here is that most parents don't have any experience with any of these nasty childhood illnesses. The vaccines have been so very effective that nobody remembers what polio was or how unpleasant Measles really is for children. They have no idea what they are avoiding, so the minimal risks associated with the vaccine look huge in comparison.

I wonder if the whole anti-vaxx thing would die on the vine if some illness like Measles was running rampant, kids where routinely getting seriously ill, some where hospitalized and even a few died? I think it would and quick. The Anti-Vaxx Zealots would be relegated to the tin-foil hat conspiracy level and laughed at like the flat earth folks, because THAT's exactly what they really are.

Re:Who cares?

[jellomizer]

Actually the problem will not solve itself.
They are people people who are not vaccinated for legitimate health concerns from the vaccines, they can get sick from the normal healthy person who gets sick, because they were stupid.
Also with almost every health problem, we need to pay for other people getting ill, even in a Multi-payer health system.

Your insurance rates are high, because the insurance company needs to pay for the sick people (often from preventable illnesses). Those without Insurances, will often be unable to pay for the services, forcing Health care institutions to Eat the cost... That Cost will then go into the Fee Schedule and raise the cost of everything else.

Re:Who cares?

[Dragonslicer]

Annually, about 20% of flu deaths in otherwise healthy children (so kids without other conditions that would make them particularly vulnerable) in the US are children who were properly vaccinated.

This isn't quite the same issue. The more common reason that people get influenza after being vaccinated is that there is no single influenza virus. Each year, the flu shot includes the strains that medical professionals predict to be the most common, and it's very difficult to get that prediction correct.

So you have to also include the question of how many of those 20% died from an influenza strain that was part of the vaccine that year. It's almost certainly greater than zero since, as you said, no vaccine is guaranteed effective, but it's probably less than all of them.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pure unmitigated bullshit,

Re:Who cares?

[Opportunist]

Measles still has a mortality of 1 in 10k, with 1 in 1k suffering permanent severe effects. And unfortunately I'm not old enough to get vaccinated back when I was a kid, so I went through the whole MMR routine. I survived, as you can see. But I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. Even if there wasn't a fairly high chance of lasting effects, it's something you should protect your kids from if you can.

Do anti-vaxxers hate their kids that much that they want them to get sick?

Re:Who cares?

[puck01]

Physician here. Arguably, no intervention is health care is 100% effective.

It is maddening that anti-vaxxers say vaccines are not 100% effective so they are ineffective. It is flawed logic. Effective means it makes a difference when studied in a large group of people. Not effective means it has no effect on a large study group.

Many interventions in health care have numbers needed to treat (NNT) in the 10 or even 100 range to create one positive outcome. These are effective interventions. Vaccines are highly effective compared to most other interventions done in healthcare. Finding effective interventions in health care is hard.

On the other hand, antivaxxers and the like often push vitamins, herbs, adjustments, accupuncture and all sorts of other interventions that have no proven efficacy or even have been proven to have no efficacy (NNT is infinity!). There logic is literally backwards.

Re:Who cares?

[XXongo]

Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.

Wrong. There are babies who are too young to be vaccinated yet, and there are babies who for some reason such as having compromised immune systems can't be vaccinated.

These are the people at risk.

Re:Who cares?

[Nidi62]

Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.

If vaccines work as advertised, the only people anti-vaxers are POTENTIALLY hurting is themselves. The truth is that vaccines don't work, and they need a scapegoat.

Do you have any evidence that vaccinated people catching the diseases for which they were vaccinated is widespread? I doubt it, but it would be good to see it if you have it.

I believe with one of the latest measles outbreaks there were something like 50-150 people sickened, 2 of whom had been vaccinated while the rest were unvaccinated.

Re:Who cares?

[EvilSS]

The numbers are from the CDC and are for patients vaccinated for the strains that infected them.

Re:Who cares?

[EvilSS]

On the other hand, antivaxxers and the like often push vitamins, herbs, adjustments, accupuncture and all sorts of other interventions that have no proven efficacy or even have been proven to have no efficacy (NNT is infinity!). There logic is literally backwards.

This always gets me. They argue on the one had about the mulitbillion dollar pharma industry can't be trusted because they put profits above health, then suck up the completely unproven BS from the multibillion dollar supplement industry.

Re:Who cares?

[bobbied]

Measles still has a mortality of 1 in 10k, with 1 in 1k suffering permanent severe effects. And unfortunately I'm not old enough to get vaccinated back when I was a kid, so I went through the whole MMR routine. I survived, as you can see. But I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. Even if there wasn't a fairly high chance of lasting effects, it's something you should protect your kids from if you can.

Do anti-vaxxers hate their kids that much that they want them to get sick?

Well.... I'm going to be fair and say they are motivated to keep their kids from harm, but the Anti Vaxxers are woefully informed about the *actual* risks and are falling prey to the religious zealot like cult of anti-vaccines.

Most are woefully informed even about their own arguments and are caught up in the emotional content of all the sob story anecdotal evidence (both real and just imagined) about how some kid got the MMR vaccine and then got diagnosed with Autism or dies from SIDS. Where the stories may be sometimes true, the cause and effect relationship is NOT supported by actual scientific research. Where I feel for these parents, who believe their agreeing to getting their kid vaccinated caused such harm, and are swimming in both grief and guilt, I DON'T understand how they can be so resistant to the facts.

How the vile hucksters of the human race can prey on these hapless grieving parents defies my comprehension. I think those that push such garbage should be roundly condemned for the harm they are causing and I wish there was some way to make it illegal to make unfounded medical claims without some kind of recourse, either by authorities or by those who fall victim to their deception.

Re:Who cares?

[Opportunist]

Well, a dead kid sure is less work than an autistic kid, I can see their motivation...

Re:Who cares?

[Dragonslicer]

Thanks for clarifying that.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

extremists love to use the position of "if a solution is absolutely totally 110% perfect, then it's not worth doing at all"

Re:Who cares?

[CohibaVancouver]

Who cares? The problem will solve itself, like smoking, or obesity or basically anything else along those lines.

I care, Anonymous Coward, for two reasons -

1) Vaccinations don't work 100% - For them to work you need "herd immunity." While it's true my kids are fully vaccinated, it's possible that for whatever biochemical reason a particular vaccine they got didn't work. By having everyone around them also vaccinated, it means they're also protected. Ironically, this "herd immunity" is why up to recently, anti-vaxxers believed their kids don't need vaccines - Because everyone else around them is protected their kids were protected too. However, the reduced vaccination levels mean the herd immunity isn't working as well any more.

2) I don't want to kids to suffer. For the problem to "solve itself" as you describe, kids of stupid, ignorant parents will have to suffer with measles, mumps, chicken pox, and, god help us, polio and other diseases. Those kids will suffer, and maybe even die, or be crippled for fault of their own. As a parent of young children saying child-suffering is OK is unacceptable to me.

And it should be to you too.

Re:Who cares?

[liquid_schwartz]

Everything I've read and heard, the concern is that babies who can't be vaccinated and folks who have compromised immune systems are the ones being impacted by the anti-vaxxers. The most recent articles are the teenagers and young adults who have not been vaccinated are going behind their parents backs to get vaccinated. I've not read about any vaccinated people getting diseases from the non-vaccinated. Even a quick google search shows the same results. It's the folks who aren't vaccinated or who can't get vaccinated who are being impacted by the anti-vaxxers.

[John]

I guess that explains why it's such a topic for Hollywood

Re: Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize the measles outbreaks are coming from all the third-world illegals flooding through our porous borders, right?

The anti-vaxxers are a rounding error, a blip on the radar at this point. I am vaccinated, and I vaccinated my children. The science works, and herd immunity is absolutely a thing. But when you let hordes of diseased foreigners into your herd, tens of millions of them at a time, you've just fucked your herd immunity all to hell.

Answer the question: what's worse for herd immunity? Maybe a few hundred thousand unvaccinated people, probably in rural areas where there is little outside influence or millions of diseased, unvaccinated, undocumented people dropped right into the middle of our urban areas or city centers?

I don't expect a response.

Re:Who cares?

[jeff4747]

Vaccines are 95ish percent effective (varies by vaccine). And no, that isn't some big new discovery. We have always known that vaccines don't always work. Herd immunity protects the 5%ish where the vaccine just doesn't work.

As well as the immunocompromised and those too young to get the vaccine.

So no, antivaxxers are not just harming themselves....in fact they are usually vaccinated themselves so they're actually harming their children. In addition, there's a lot of other people put at risk when antivaxxers destroy herd immunity.

Re:Who cares?

[mesterha]

Going back to my first statistic, around 80% of the deaths in healthy children from the flu each year is in non-vaccinated kids. 4 out of every 5.

For this to be useful, you need to know what percentage of kids are vaccinated for the flu. According to the CDC 57.9% of children get vaccinated, so roughly half. This means that not getting the vaccine roughly increases the chance of death by a factor of 4. While this is essentially what you said, the number could be very different depending on the number of kids getting vaccinated.

Re:Who cares?

[rastos1]

If vaccines work as advertised, the only people anti-vaxers are POTENTIALLY hurting is themselves.

Who claimed that?! Except you?

Nobody sane says that vaccinated people are 100% immune.

Re:Who cares?

[pr0fessor]

I wonder if the whole anti-vaxx thing would die on the vine if some illness like Measles was running rampant, kids where routinely getting seriously ill, some where hospitalized and even a few died?

I doubt it the flu takes lives every year, more than gun violence and still less than 50% of people get vaccinated.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem will solve itself

When my youngest son was two weeks old he developed whooping cough while on a trip to visit my parents. I remember him going from slight cough to blue lips in about an hour. I will never forget the desperate trip to the local hospital, the ambulance to the slightly larger regional hospital, and the air ambulance trip to the major center. We were lucky, my son is still with us and healthy today. But it was touch and go.

There is some question of how he contracted it, but still the most likely vector is from someone who was unvaccinated. The church I attended at the time was quite conservative and vaccination conspiracy theories were pretty popular then.

If vaccination conspiracy nuts only hurt themselves, I would tend to agree. But there are many diseases that you can't vaccinate for right away. Plus, remember, it's not the conspiracy nut who is the one hurt in any case. It's the conspiracy nut's innocent children. They don't deserve deadly diseases, or the knowledge that they passed on a lethal disease to an infant.

I'm glad your son is well, but why the hell were you traveling with a 2 week old infant? You shouldn't be traveling with a newborn until they're 2 months old at the very least.

Re: Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Math bit.

You don't need the other CDC figure. If 20% of deaths are from vaccinated kids, by (100%-x%) one can infer that (the other) 80% of deaths are from unvaccinated kids.

If I have a 100 fruit as a mix of apples and bananas and no other fruit, and you know I have 20 bananas, I must have 80 apples.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny you mention that, because the antivax movement was in remission until the flu shot started getting pushed. If the medical establishment wants people to trust what it tells them, it should probably stop presenting the flu vaccine (which as you've mentioned, has a 20% chance of failing to prevent infections of the strains it includes) as the same level of immunization as, say, the MMR vaccine which had almost eliminated measles from the developed world until Jenny McCarthy opened her stupid fucking mouth.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you doing driving around your 2 week old son? You nuts?

Re: Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another trash post by a trash contributor.

Re: Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Non vaccination definitely creates problems. Look at the illegals crossing the border bringing back issues we havent seen in years.

People keep trying to take us back to Latin America's bad habits.

Re: Who cares?

[mesterha]

Hypothetically, if 20% of the deaths are from vaccinated kids and only 1% of the kids are vaccinated then don't take the vaccination because it is increasing the risk of death from the flu. In terms of fruit, if 20 apples are rotten and 80 bananas are rotten, you might assume that bananas are more likely to be rotten. But if I started with 20 apples and 10000 bananas you'd be wrong. The apples are 100% rotten/dead while the bananas are 0.8% rotten. This is probably based on Bayes Rule.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Annually, about 20% of flu deaths in otherwise healthy children (so kids without other conditions that would make them particularly vulnerable) in the US are children who were properly vaccinated.

Nobody's talking about flu vaccines when they say "anti-vaccination".

They're talking about measles and other things, the ones you need a shot for every ten years.

Please don't conflate flu shots with the actually necessary vaccinations.

Re:Who cares?

[Excelcia]

why the hell were you traveling with a 2 week old infant? You shouldn't be traveling with a newborn until they're 2 months old at the very least

Different people, parents and pediatricians alike, have different opinions when and how far and by what means it is safe to travel with an infant. A certain amount of travel will be required from day one (well, two or three) for anyone who is not walking distance from a hospital. What about people who live a three hour drive from a hospital? Do you suggest everyone in those circumstances has to rent a room in the hospital's locale for two months? Now, in this particular case, with pertussis incubating in him, it was decidedly unsafe to travel. I had no way of knowing that, though, and stand by my decision to take him to see his grandparents. I am of the opinion that, in general, infants are more robust than you seem to give them credit for.

That being said, just as a sanity check, I did some research just now on what the prevailing opinion is of health-care providers and parents alike with respect to when it's safe to travel with an infant. The prevailing opinion that I can see is that a moderate road trip after an infant's two-week checkup is perfectly safe, and not uncommon. I see no significant difference between putting him to bed at night in his crib or in his car seat. He slept the whole way.

I suspect if you are a parent then you are likely a parent of one. First-time parents are always over-protective. There's nothing wrong with that, per se. The problem is in today's society where more and more parents have only one child, many parents are not growing out of their over-protectiveness and there is less institutional knowledge being passed on by those who have had two or three or more.

We can't wrap up our child in cellophane until after they have been immunized against everything. Which is why it's so important for as much of the public as a whole to get immunized.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the measles outbreak in highly liberal areas, where everyone is educated and smart like you, and not in the "dumb states that dont matter"?

Because it has nothing to do with anti-vaxxers and everything to do with importing a bunch of disease riddled third worlders into your sanctuary cities.

Who is going to make sure that the undocumented migrant who mows your lawn has had his shots? Nobody, that would violate his "human rights".
  Your rules are only enforced for white men, after all.

Re:Who cares?

[Agent0013]

Unless it also helps spread the disease. You do know that you are contagious to others after getting a whooping cough vaccine, right?

Re:Who cares?

[Agent0013]

Measles is a SERIOUS illness for babies not yet born or to young to be vaccinated.

And chicken pox is just as deadly, right?

And Rotavirus, and Varicella, which is as bad as getting a cold.

Or tetanus, which you can get after getting infected anyway.

Or Hepatitis B, which is a sexually transmitted disease, for children!

And don't forget the Mumps part of MMR has been less than half as effective as they told you it was.

I wonder if the whole anti-vaxx thing would die on the vine if some illness like Measles was running rampant, kids where routinely getting seriously ill, some where hospitalized and even a few died?

Or, I wonder if we would find out that Measles wasn't really as dangerous as we are told. Everyone I know who was old enough to have lived when Measles was a problem says they never knew anyone who died. So you are out of school a couple of weeks with some rashes then it is over. Like Chicken Pox was when I was a kid. But now we are all told how dangerous it is to not be vaccinated for Chicken Pox. Never mind that if you get Shingles as an adult, the fix is the same as if you had been getting the vaccines every 10 years for life. So start now and take it over and over and over, or just wait and take it when needed.

It all sounds like people trying to push an unneeded medical product for more profit.

Re:Who cares?

[Agent0013]

Right, but some of your flu vaccines that you want to push have had effects that would be opposite of desired. Getting a vaccine should never make you more likely to get a flu of another strain. But that has happened. Until you understand how and why, perhaps you should not be pushing experiments onto unsuspecting people and not letting them have a choice in the matter.

Re:Who cares?

[Agent0013]

Now that your son has lifetime immunity for Whooping cough, he still has to get the unnecessary vaccine and risk the harm associated with it every time a booster is needed. That makes total sense to me.

Re:Who cares?

[bobbied]

Ah, so you are falling for the AntiVaxx dogma eh?

Truth be told here, vaccines have saved millions of lives and carry very low risk when properly and appropriately administered. This is FACT. It is not debatable in any meaningful scientific way. I suggest that you drop the Anti-Vaxx dogma for a bit and take each of your objections in turn and get the facts about the question. ALL the facts, not just what the AntiVaxx dogma gives you.

Look, I've been down this rabbit hole a number of times with multiple folks who sound just like you. Making boasts about facts that are not based in usable evidence. The official numbers say 1 in 10,000 who get the measles die from it. This number is consistent with the 122,000 deaths a year from the illness world wide (mostly in poor, unvaccinated populations). The measles vaccine was introduced in 1963 and is a component in the MMR vaccine, usually given in two doses.and since 1963 the instances of the illness in the USA went from about 700,000/year to almost none, saving about 70 lives a year in the USA alone.

Few people who are parents to day remember the time when the vaccine existed, and unless you are about 70 or older, of course you don't know of anybody who's had the measles. You can thank the vaccine for that. But kids die from this every day, maybe not in the USA, but they are still dying needlessly.

Now.. Before we go down the "it's a conspiracy for big pharma profits" rabbit hole, I suggest you whoa up a bit. I'm not going to debate the cost issues in our medical practice in the USA with you. But I will point out that the MMR vaccine is available on the cheap from most county and state health departments if you are unable (or just unwilling) to pay your doctor for it. Also, I'm going to point out that the MMR vaccine is really THREE vaccines in one, combined in 1974 to reduce costs and increase convenience for the kiddos (who now get one jab, instead of three). Somehow, this doesn't look like a way to make money to me. So how does your theory go again?

Yea, I know, you are not impressed.. So, I'm going to just say, you need to get the actual facts here and stop with the half truths and opinions of the anti-vax dogma pushers... But I'm afraid my asking you to do some actual fact finding work will fall on deaf ears.

Re:Who cares?

[Excelcia]

If I had wanted to, I could have withheld him from getting pertussis vaccines. I didn't, though. Getting a disease is not necessarily a lifetime immunity. Also, the acellular pertussis vaccine which has been distributed since about 1982 has exceedingly low risk. Since pertussis is typically mixed with diphtheria and tetanus, it would have complicated his vaccine regimen.

There is a higher risk of a random staph aureus spore in the air land on the needle tip in the few seconds it's exposed to the air and him getting flesh eating disease from the needle itself than there is a complication from the pertussis vaccine itself.

Not sure where your cynicism about vaccine risks comes from.

A great leader once banned books and it was great

[Anonymous Coward]

His name was Hitler and he knew what was right and what was wrong.

.

The right to be wrong

[lgw]

There's hardly a freedom more important than the right to be wrong. The right to hold, discuss, and publish ideas that more people think are downright stupid and dangerous is the core right in a free society. After all, saying and doing what everyone in society thinks is correct needs little protection.

If people want to separate fools from their money on Amazon, that's their clear right. The nice thing is: if a clear bestseller emerges, education can then be focused on debunking that specific work, and have a very broad reach compared to a million stupid misconceptions across the internet.

Re:The right to be wrong

[greythax]

Does that freedom include being able to genitally mutilate your daughter, because you believe it will prevent her from adultery later in life? No, of course not. You are free to think what you want, but when your delusion causes you to harm your child, a line has been crossed. Anti-vax conspiracy is not simply idle. The health of children is at stake.

Re:The right to be wrong

[stevegee58]

And what about the genital mutilation of your son?

Re:The right to be wrong

[MadCat221]

What if the right to be wrong affects others detrimentally? "Don't tread on me!" says the Gadsden Flag. The trodden upon in this case are those who can't be vaccinated, and to a lesser extent those who have vaxxed since vaccinations are not a perfect shield in a similar manner to seatbelts against crash injury. They are emphatically not the Pro-Pestilencers, as they cry to be.

The freedom to recklessly swing one's fists about ends at another's nose.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Sir_Eptishous]

If ever there was a slippery slope, you are on it.
lgw is absolutely correct here, and your "save the children" rationale doesn't work.

The free marketplace of ideas is what makes the US a "somewhat" free society.
The more people like you chip away the ability to share and discuss ideas, the closer we get to an autocratic/authoritarian state.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And people are free to write a book about it. Whats your point? Amazon is free to sell anything they want.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, does the evidence exist that vaccine is completely safe and carry no underlying problem?

Is it even possible to get a straightforward answer about something medical these days? There is so much money in the industry and so many hands in so many pockets.

On top of that there are plenty of examples of experts saying "this is safe" and people finding out that is a lie, or an unknown.

The worst case scenario, and probably the smallest portion of people, would be conspiracy theorists talking about government intervention. Thst being said there IS precedent for this as well.

It's silly to vilify people over this, when everything they fear has roots in reality.

Your best weapon is some form of direct proof or evidence countering all their fears.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Whataboutism is a weak as hell argument.

Re:The right to be wrong

[jythie]

Another example I think back to is when Amazon removed that high profile book on how to groom children. Granted that activity is clearly and explicitly illegal so the case is a bit simpler, but both are an example of freedom of adults to purchase media instructing them on how to harm children, and thus it is not a simple case of 'freedom of adults to do bad things'.

Re:The right to be wrong

[jythie]

Which is kind the point of the Gadsden Flag and why people wave it.... people not wanting the state stopping them from treading on others.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

spotted the heeb

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, some people believe that the best way to live is naturally, without so much modern medical intervention. The state obligating parents to inject their children is criminal. Children are the property of their parents. If not, then parents cannot be liable for their children's behavior. The state wants its cake, and eat it too. We can tell you what to do with your kids, and then you are responsible for them after. What the hell kind of mind fuck is that?

Re:The right to be wrong

[greylion3]

The health of children is at stake.

355 children in Sweden who got the H1N1 vaccine (Pandemrix), have since been diagnosed with narcolepsy.
(the number may be higher now)
This has been judged to be a direct result of the vaccine.
Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.

Sweden had to formulate a special law to give each up to 10 million SEK (1.1 million USD or so) in restitution.

There's a reason why some people are against vaccines.

Re:The right to be wrong

[shilly]

And we are free to show our disdain for Amazon, and the people making money, and the fuckers who shill for them with spurious arguments. And we are free to apply pressure to Amazon to try to dissuade it from allowing those books on its store. And it's free to choose to stock or not stock as it sees fit, taking into account the ethics of promoting lies, providing an open marketplace, the money it will make or lose by its choices, and the risk of regulation if it fails to take action.

So what's your point? Are you saying we shouldn't criticise Amazon's decision? Why would anyone shut up in the face of a big corporation facilitating harm in this way? We should speak up, and speak freely.

Re:The right to be wrong

[shilly]

Additionally, does the evidence exist that vaccine is completely safe and carry no underlying problem?

You're not familiar with how science works, are you? Or medicine. Or, indeed, life, which offers us no risk-free choices.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And I suppose wandering the earth unvaccinated is risk-free?

Whatever, doesn't matter - it risks others so enjoy living in the hills since you can't "force people" to let you into their banks, offices, stores, schools, libraries, grocers, laundromats, nightclubs, whatever

Re:The right to be wrong

[Megol]

There's a reason why some people are against vaccines.

Yes. They are idiots. You don't mention the people that died from the disease this vaccine protected against, you don't mention that a very low percentage of those vaccinated were diagnosed with narcolepsy.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Kohath]

Agreed. Anti-vaxers are wrong, but book burning isn't the answer.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The living naturally argument is awfully arbitrary here.
Consider how those people acquired these anti-vaxxer books in the first place.
They bought it from a mega corporation that uses the unnatural internet, that relies on unnatural electronics, that are produced with highly energy inefficient methods and contain highly toxic elements.
And they probably found it by using an internet search engine from another mega corporation or through a social group hosted by another mega corporation.
Let's be frank.
All people are driven by emotion to some degree, some more than others.
And fear is a very basic and strong emotion that can make people do the most irrational things while they firmly believe they're just doing the best thing for themselves and everyone else.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Whataboutism is a weak as hell argument.

Whoosh.

That wasn't whataboutism. That was a call for people to realize that male circumcision is as bad as female circumcision.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

A reason as dumb as people being afraid of Muslim immigrants blowing them up in suicide bombings.
Yes, there are some cases where this is true. But if you put those cases into perspective with all the moderate Muslims that aren't violent, your chance to win the lottery are higher than getting harmed by a Muslim. And most of us know that lotteries are basically a tax on people who don't understand probability theory.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Dragonslicer]

Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.

Would they be better off if they were dead?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, there are deliberate Muslim conspiracies to destroy western society, and Islam has conquered the northern half of Africa and much of southeastern asia. Anti-Vax, however, is just straight up horseshit.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Nidi62]

The health of children is at stake.

355 children in Sweden who got the H1N1 vaccine (Pandemrix), have since been diagnosed with narcolepsy. (the number may be higher now) This has been judged to be a direct result of the vaccine. Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.

Sweden had to formulate a special law to give each up to 10 million SEK (1.1 million USD or so) in restitution.

There's a reason why some people are against vaccines.

The US has had the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) since 1988. So far, out of 3,454,305,356 vaccinations, there have been 4,153. That's 1.2 per 1 million vaccinations. Surprisingly, tetanus vaccines have the highest incidence rate of compensation. To win compensation, the claimant must present a biological theory of harm, demonstrate a logical sequence of events connecting the vaccine to the injury, and establish an appropriate time frame in which injury occurred.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Opportunist]

If the "marketplace of ideas" ends up at "teach the controversy" where people demand that bullshit is taught at schools as if it had scientific merit, I guess it's time to flip some tables in that marketplace.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So the next step is to evaluate that risk and see if it and possible consequences are non-trivial. People might want to know how that's going instead of blindly relying on the priests of the temple of Syrinx to instruct them. Hence, a discussion in the marketplace of ideas.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If people want to separate fools from their money on Amazon, that's their clear right.

No, it's not a right at all. Amazon can decide what to sell and not sell. They don't have to sell crap like anti-vaxer books.

Though quite honestly, I think I'd be uncomfortable if Amazon started making decisions about what books are "correct" and which ones aren't. That kind of nonsense has no end, and it's never as simple as banning anti-vaxxer books and calling it a day. Amazon sells the racist book The Turner Diaries (through its sellers, not directly). I'm also not sure which pornographic content they ban, since they also seem to sell Playboy and Hustler. So it's not like Amazon is really being all that selective in book content.

It's not as if other booksellers don't sell the same crap. I was in B&N a few months ago and it was chalk-full of bullshit medical books about the latest thing you shouldn't eat, or whatever it is that you SHOULD eat that's going to make you live forever. What's special about the BS anti-vaxxer books?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You can think and say what you want.

Acting on your thoughts and words are another kettle of fish.

Re:The right to be wrong

[EvilSS]

There is always a risk with any medical intervention, but with the vast majority of vaccines, it's often much lower than the risk of injury from the disease you are vaccinating against. Let's take this case. Pandemrix was given to about 30 million people in Europe in 2009. Of those, around 1,300 developed narcolepsy. And yes, there is a real link between the vaccine and those people getting the disorder. This was a new vaccine created to address the H1N1 strain that year and only used in the European market. It was discovered that the vaccine (probably due to a new adjunct used to stimulate the immune system) caused some people to form antibodies that could bind to neurotransmitter receptor sites in the brain that affect our wakefulness. So around 0.004% of those who received it had this reaction.

That same year in Europe, there were around 500,000 confirmed H1N1 infections, and about 2,900 deaths, or 0.6% of those infected. Two orders of magnitude higher than the rate of vaccine induced narcolepsy.

So yes, incidence like this will happen, it's unfortunate and everything that can be done should be done to prevent it. However, medicine is never going to be an exact science, things will go wrong along the way. People need to weigh the relative risks though.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

citation needed

Re:The right to be wrong

[alvinrod]

Perhaps this is a bit trollish, but just to illustrate how difficult the core issue is, does that freedom also include being able to abort your unborn daughter or son?

They're all fundamentally arguments that test the freedoms of a parent concerning the health and welfare of their child and the extent to which a state can interfere in those decisions. I think the interesting part is that you'll have people who have contradictory answers: e.g., it's morally wrong to abort, circumcision should be up to the parents, but every kid has to be vaccinated. Sure we can try to understand the reasoning, or recognize the rationale given to explain those reasons (e.g., abortion deals with a fetus that has no rights as a person) but I've always found it interesting how inconsistent people tend to be when it comes down to how much or little the government can interfere in the life of its citizens.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Opportunist]

So you actually found a case where a vaccine triggered an autoimmune reaction. Well, provided that at the same time that the antibodies exist in the body there's also a severe infection going on that makes the blood-brain barrier permeable for the antibodies, of course. This might also explain the fairly low number of people affected compared to the number vaccinated.

Vaccines are no silver bullets. Yes, they can have side effects. Which is the reason why I decided against a vaccination against H1N1. It's a matter of probability. Especially with new vaccines, which is the case with pretty much all flu vaccines since they get "reinvented" every year due to the high mutation rate of the influenza virus.

MMR is a completely different beast. Here you're dealing with infections that have a 1 in 1000 chance to cause a permanent negative effect a near-certainty to get infected if you as much as walk through an area that an infected person used within the last hours (like, say, pretty much any medical facility) and a 1:1m incidence rate of serious vaccine side effects, which are mostly allergic reactions to one of the components, i.e. in people who should not have gotten vaccinated but didn't know. Luckily, there's usually a doctor around that can take care of the problem...

Re: The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The more people like you and IGW blow smoke into our faces with your false pretensions of defending freedom by denying the right to denounce and oppose the sharing of false and harmful ideas, the more you cause injury to our free and open society.

You will destroy us as you try to grease the slope of growth with your dangerous lubrication of noxious poisons that encourage lies and deceptions to be coddled and treasured as if they weren't despicable venomous snakes that need to be expelled.

Really, you are the one purporting to a moral superiority, but you can't even realize what you're actually crying because you have your head stuck up your own butt. Sorry, but your own ideals have consequences, negative ones.

PS, the worst horrors in America have originated from the spread of false ideas. Like the anti-vaccine crew. You should learn from history. Oh wait, you gleefully silence that truth.

Same reason you apologize for the "conscience" of cake bakers and marriage deniers.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

There is letter of the law and spirit of the law you fail to take into account. There is a reason for free speech, and undertaking activities that undermine others free speech is walking out on the slippery slope. You may be free to apply pressure, but it may not be advisable because it goes to far out on the slope. Amazon and any other big company is free to do what it wants, up and until it creates something big enough to be consider the commons. If you buy a bunch of buildings in the middle of a city and transform them into a park and then encourage people to act and treat it like a park, you risk being considered a common space. I'm curious if this has ever been tested at the level of the Supreme Court. If you want to weaponize every aspect of life, you'll find Target's back peddling instructive. Companies that engage with political topics are playing with fire. Far better to draw the line at the illegal and not engage with anything else. Providing an open marketplace is a concept that argues against your point. Making money should make companies very leery of engaging in anything political (beyond lobbying to affect laws that impact them). Risk of regulation is threatening to impose a restriction on a constitutional right, and will go down in flames easily. There is a big difference between being a piece of infrastructure that is content neutral and actively facilitating harm. Amazon is not responsible for what anyone believes, nor is the author of a book against vaccines. The person responsible is the parent choosing not to have their child vaccinated. At the end of the day, we are individually responsible for the actions we take as a result of who and what we choose to believe.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I do agree that there needs to be some serious talks about mutilating the penises of baby boys. But it's certainly not as bad as FGM.

While circumcision performed by untrained people can turn out pretty nasty, the act in itself does have some health benefits.
Well at least for those filthy people who don't know about hygiene or don't have the means but still like to fuck like rabbits without using condoms, which applies to places like Africa.
In the industrialized and more educated parts of the world where we do have the means it's superfluous and done for superstitious reasons.

FGM on the other hand has little other rationale than some superstitions like that babies who touch the clitoris during birth will die as a result.
It doesn't make sense in our industrialized world and it also makes no sense in places like Africa.

Re:The right to be wrong

[lgw]

Can you distinguish between alking about a thing and doing a thing? Try hard.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Opportunist]

There is nothing risk-free that you can put into your body that could remotely be considered medicine. You could develop a rash from the topical cream you apply. There are also different vaccines with different histories and hence different levels of risk. In general, you will run a higher risk of side effects, especially unknown side effects, if you use a vaccine that has only been developed recently, which is the case with flu vaccines since they have to be redone annually. The influenza virus mutates at an insane rate and the lead time for vaccines is almost a year, so what you get as a vaccine is often just still able to deal with the flu that you might get this year.

This is why any horror stories you usually get to hear about vaccines deal with flu shots of some sort. They run on a very tight schedule to still be effective when they finally arrive.

The fear most people have is not rooted in reality but ignorance. Which is understandable, the topic is far from easy to grasp and to tell "safe" vaccines from those that you should only get if you have a really good reason.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Chris Mattern]

This has been judged to be a direct result of the vaccine.

The use of the weasel passive voice is typical, and damning. "Judged" by whom?

Re:The right to be wrong

[lgw]

I don't think it's simpler at all. Would you ban books on safe cracking? What if it's a slightly-fictionalized account. What about OJ's book? Obviously, you'd have to give the government to power to decide what speech is legal. How much freedom do you surrender to the government in order to not be confronted with something disturbing?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the anti-vaxxer.

How fucking stupid are you, if you're standing up for the "rights" of people to be so violently stupid that they pose a public health risk?
If these people want to go sequester themselves and their kids somewhere, never having contact with the outside world ever again, then they can be as stupid as they want about not vaccinating their kids, but if they expect to mingle with the rest of us then they have to get them vaccinated so they're not disease vectors.
It shouldn't even be a question. In 2019 there's NO REASON why measles, polio, whooping cough, or anything else on that list should even exist, let alone there being an "epidemic". If these parents are so stupid as to refuse to get the shots for their kids then they should be FORCED TO, plain and simple. "Stupid" is not a Constitutional right.

Re:The right to be wrong

[ShanghaiBill]

Does that freedom include being able to genitally mutilate your daughter

No. But it does include the freedom to talk, write, and read about the subject.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Rick Schumann]

"Living naturally"
Ah, I see. So you've somehow managed to 'evolve' the ability to have your completely natural biological brain connect to the Internet without a computer, from your lean-to shelter out in the woods somewhere, to post your comment? I'd say 'you should write a book about that' but books are unnatural so you won't do that will you?
Also you're likely not much older than, say, 20, because without any immunizations or medical intervention of any kind, even the simplest of illnesses would have killed you by now.
Even if that never happens, be sure to live as fully as you can, because living outdoors 24/7, surviving on what you can forrage and eat raw, you won't live much past 30. No, no, you're not allowed to cook anything, because using fire is 'not natural', you have to eat everything raw, that's what's 'natural'.
You're not allowed to use soap either, so enjoy splashing your dirty smelly body in a local stream. Don't mind those parasites and worms, they're 100% 'natural'.
No toilet paper either, so enjoy wiping your ass with foliage. Don't mind the parasites, bugs and bacteria you'll get in your ass from that, they're likewise 100% natural, so that's a good thing, right?

You dumb shits who blather on about 'natural' need to walk the walk if you're going to talk the talk. Otherwise get with the program.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Rick Schumann]

Ah I see so we're supposed to have millions (or TENS OF MILLIONS) die of a gods-be-damned flu epidemic, because 0.0000051% of the worlds' population had a bad reaction to the vaccine against it? Great plan. Oh and by the way seems to me it's their genetic makeup that caused that reaction and them getting the flu and surviving it would just as likely have caused them to become narcoleptic anyway. Oh and also [Citation Needed] for the science behind that obviously civil court ruling, where by the way you don't even need a unanimous verdict from a jury you just need a simple majority.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Just from the numbers, thats not a great argument, europe had ~734 million in 2009, so lets say 700 million that didn't get vaccinated. Of those 2900 died. so a 0.000414285% chance of death. 1300 of 30 million is 0.004333333%. So you are 10x more likely to develop narcolepsy from the vaccine than to die from the thing you took the vaccine for. If they forced everyone in EU to take that vaccine you'd be talking 30k narcolepsy cases. to prevent 1.3k deaths. Of course there's lies damn lies and statistics to account for. Most vaccines don't have these kind of effects and instead provide complete immunity for an entire population. You'd have to have more information about how bad the narcolepsy was for those effected, and what non-fatal damage was also done by the vaccinated for illness itself. Sure 500k got it and 2.9k died, but how many were also permanently harmed?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

> People need to weigh the relative risks though.

how can they do that if they aren't allowed access to the information, or are shamed by the recreational outrage mob for even asking questions?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Guybrush_T]

Here is what I found about this incident : https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesaf... , also the EU-wide analysis https://ecdc.europa.eu/sites/p...

I could not find clear conclusions.

Also the fact that Sweden settled with 10M SEK per individual is a terrible idea since it makes people think they admit the vaccine is at fault, where in fact they just don't want to waste their time battling a PR disaster.

Re:The right to be wrong

[jythie]

Well, for starters, I said it wasn't simpler. But secondly, we are not talking about government censorship here, but private platforms deciding what they will and will not carry.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.

Would they be better off if they were dead?

Well its eating into big pharma's profits so no. They don't like the competition.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe vacccinations pay off ... but I oppose having that view legally and literally pushed into everyone's veins.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said! The First Amendment is a sacred thing,

Re: The right to be wrong

[greythax]

That's a very simple argument. One anybody should be able to understand. Until they start to think about the limitations we've already put on free speech. You cannot for instance claim that your drug cure something that it has not been able to prove it cures. You are not allowed to pretend you are a doctor and offer up medical advice for someone under those auspices. I acknowledge the loopholes for herbal medicine which frankly should not exist, but I think it is evident that the issue is not quite so cut-and-dry as you would have me believe.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring a straw man argument to this discussion, why don't you!

Re:The right to be wrong

[CrimsonAvenger]

Does that freedom include being able to genitally mutilate your daughter

No, but you're free to genitally mutilate YOURSELF, if that makes you happy.

Note the key difference: doing unto others starts to infringe on THEIR Rights. Doing unto yourself is noone's business but your's....

Re: The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, burning is wrong. Recycling is better.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait! Burn the books!
Please please please burn the books!
Burn multiple copies of the books, especially the one that will be released next week entitled "This Book Is about horrible vaccines and this wasn't a title I just made up to see books, honest".

Don't read it or anything, just buy lots of copies and burn them all. Matches included in the cover!

Re:The right to be wrong

[Gilgaron]

Philosophically, the vaccine injury funds are supposed to be easy to get money out of to encourage vaccination. You don't want to drain the fund on flippant stuff, but if it is hard to tell better to pay out and keep people getting vaccinated than have a scare and have lots of people getting preventable illness.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Gilgaron]

It is not easy or cheap to qualify and validate a vaccine. The documentation requirements alone require that you don't need to "take anyone's word for it", all of the study materials will be in archive for decades.

Re:The right to be wrong

[jeff4747]

Your analysis has a flaw. You forgot about herd immunity.

All those people who did get vaccinated reduced the number of infections in the unvaccinated, which then reduced the total number of people who died from infection.

You'd need to calculate how many would have died if no one got the vaccine in order to remove herd immunity. And the result of that is going to be extremely close to the mortality rate of those who were actually infected.

Re:The right to be wrong

[jeff4747]

That information is available on the FDA's web site. And the CDC's web site. it's also published in several scientific journals.

It is not some secret information only kept by the high priests.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Hiding anti-vax shit won't increase vaccination rates, it will probably decrease them as it will prove one of their arguments right: That powerful people are trying to silence them.

Let stupid shout in the public square. The louder stupid shouts the more obvious it becomes. When stupid preaches in hushed tones in corners of the square that's when it builds up.

This isn't about freedom. This is about the best way to handle wrong ideas. And that's to let them out, and let them be discussed freely.

Re: The right to be wrong

[lgw]

You cannot for instance claim that your drug cure something that it has not been able to prove it cures

Yes. Yes you can. That's free speech. What you can't do is sell the drug based on fraudulent information (or be financially tied to the seller). That's a restriction of business, not on speech.

You are not allowed to pretend you are a doctor and offer up medical advice for someone under those auspices.

Chiropractors.

But, more seriously, you're talking about fraud again. You're totally free to offer medical advice as long as it's clear you're not a doctor, so that's it's not mistaken for professional advice.

I see very few places where legal restrictions on speech per se make sense. Really, only when the speech presents a clear and immediate danger, such as organizing a lynch mob or provoking a protest to turn violent. The courts have kept that restriction very narrow.

Re:The right to be wrong

[lgw]

Not that much difference between government and mega-corporations these days, if you haven't noticed. Rights are rights. They need protecting from any overwhelming power.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, the evidence that these books are the cause of anything is specious at best. CDC numbers show no decline in child vaccination rates for measles, nor is there an upward trend in the number or severity of outbreaks. So what does anyone hope to accomplish with censorship?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"Your best weapon is some form of direct proof or evidence countering all their fears."

You've never tried to show a liberal why they're wrong about something, have you? For them, there is NO proof, or evidence, there's only their "feelings".

Re:The right to be wrong

[lgw]

Perhaps this is a bit trollish, but just to illustrate how difficult the core issue is, does that freedom also include being able to abort your unborn daughter or son?

Unborn daughter? Oh, we've gone past that now. Virginia has started the debate on how long after birth you can kill off inconvenient kids.

(e.g., abortion deals with a fetus that has no rights as a person)

It seems like we're going to dispense with that convenient formulation of the issue in the years to come.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the right to be wrong affects others detrimentally?

That's the whole problem, but it is probably exactly the opposite of what you think it is.

We live in a complex, interconnected world, where almost every action taken affects others, at times adversely. Drive you car today? Some Inuit lost a smidgen of his ability to live the way he's chosen.

People need to stop saying "hey, so long as it doesn't affect me..." because that's an unworkable moral code. We need to start having grown-up conversations about these things What you do affects others. What they do affects you. Get over it.

The question is: given this, where does freedom of speech fall?

(Spoiler: GP is right. Freedom of speech has always existed in situations where it could affect people. There is no reason to give up our rights just because the Internet was invented. Nothing has changed. If Martin Luther could publish unpopular tracts 500 years ago, what progress have we made if unpopular works become de facto censored because there is no way to distribute them?)

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You're equating fundamentally different things. Someone else's decision to have an abortion has zero impact on me or my family. The same cannot be said for people who fail to vaccinate themselves and their children - they put everyone in the community at risk. The community should have the right to insist that, say, children going to public schools be vaccinated, just as the community should have the right to enforce speed limits on public roads.

Re:The right to be wrong

[lgw]

Not a very solid foundation. Everything you do affects others. If your rights stop at having any effect on other people, clearly you could be compelled to work your whole life, as you can't deny others the benefit of your productivity. No mutilating yourself in a way that affects work performance!

IMO, you have to start with "we must accept minor harm from others in the name of freedom". That makes it a lot less clear when it comes to forcing vaccinations. It's more of a "preventing tragedy of the commons" issue, and those are always thorny.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And what if the official party censors are wrong? Advancements in civilization only come about when discussion is allowed. You don't move forward and improve if only one viewpoint is allowed. Science fails to exist if you only allow one theory. Once you start deciding what can and can't be said, you stall society. That means you have to allow the bad so that the good can also be nurtured and thrive.

Censorship is never the answer. Bad ideas will die on their own. They are not a threat. The only reason to censor is if those in power are afraid of other ideas weakening their power. Those that really care about progress want open debate. It might mean taking some wrong turns here and there, but ultimately, humanity has proven that we learn and correct course.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're suggesting is far worse. You're suggesting mob rule and censoring. While anti-vax looks like a bad idea, where will this mob mentality of shutting down speech end? Having the moral police deciding what's allowed and not does not end well. It ends up like Nazi Germany with book burnings.

It's funny you say "speak up freely" when what you're demanding is to take freedom away.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what Jesus would do, and beat a nigga wit a stick while he was at it!

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already happening.
I used to know a couple of teachers (I've moved away) who both said that education has changed for the worse in the last 30 years. It's not the kids fault - it's the way classrooms, schools, indeed the whole education system is run. Further to this, There is an arrogance to be found in all areas of science - as if "we have the answers" - a kind of ivory tower. Vaccinations being one of them - but hear me out -
Whilst there is definitely positive and provable results from vaccinating, - the down side is that for some, there are some very bad side effects. I'll use a personal example; a couple of years ago, I was bitten by a dog, and went to hospital thinking I might need a stitch. I ended up with some injection, a booster of some kind covering multiple diseases. What happened within 2 weeks, nearly hospitalised me, and I really thought I could die, when I was waking up in the middle of the night, caughing to the point of not being able to breathe - I had whooping caugh, which was exactly what the vaccine was supposed to prevent. It was not a weakened version - I had this as a child, and it was not a good reminder. But the point here, is that I feel there was more harm than good. If I were another man, it might have killed me.
Further to this, there are some people who react to badly to some adjuvents found in vaccines, that it causes an auto-imune disease, as they're then on medication the rest of their lives, because of their reaction to vaccines. What ever happened to the "first do no harm" that is the doctor's oath?

Granted, I recongise that it is a very small number of people this happens to - but now you're playing an ethics game, which isn't as straight forward as "burn the anti-vaccers!". It comes with risks, and people need to be aware of the risks. If more people were aware, and didn't just blindly allow a doctor or nurse to inject anything into them, we might find some different responses from your average Joe.

So, in summing up, I always say anecdotally, that there's 3 sides to ever story: his side, her side, and then there's the truth.
In the case of selling mis-information, I find Amazon not guilty. What's one man's truth, is another man's lies. read widely, and listen to many opinions. Look for research, and you'll likely find conflicting results. More research? That's the exciting thing - it points to truth being more about concensus opinion. Which brings us back to education! We need critical thinkers, not parrots to repeat what's written in the books and on the internet unquestioningly. Not following the crowd, but leading it in new directions. Bringing their own ideas and findings to the table, where open debate and consideration should form a healthy opinion.
Rant over!

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Speed limits are there to protect us all, and can't be considered harmful.
Vaccinations on the other hand is a very big subject, which is not a settled science. We can't guarantee that 100% of people convey immunity from what they are being vaccinated for, and we can't guarantee that 100% of people will experience NO harmful side effects either temporarily, or permanently.

Yet conversely, we believe that every child has a right to an education, yet you'd deny them. On what grounds? If they brought a disease to school, your kinds will already be immune - so what's the problem? If you argue that those children should never have the disease, because their parents should have been more responsible, and had their kids vaccinated, I can understand your point of view, but you're missing the point of a parent being free to choose (informed) what is best or right for their children.

Get rid of themirosol (mercury) and don't use Squalene... These are a couple of the anrguements I've heard from anti-vaccers. I argue that in small doses, it acts as intended, as an adjuvent. They counter that given the number of shots a kid needs before school, and you're a cocktail detrimental to their children's health. I can't confirm or deny this point. Therefore, I accept their choice in this argument as their choice, and not a blindly following the crowds, but doing what they genuinely believe to be right.

Re:The right to be wrong

[ilsaloving]

The problem is that the line blurs when you being wrong becomes a direct threat to me.

There is an epidemic of ignorance, and that epidemic is now directly responsible for deaths.

As far as I'm concerned, for every measles/polio/etc related death in a community, all the anti-vaxxers in that area should be charged with accessories to murder.

Re:The right to be wrong

[ilsaloving]

How is it a slippery slope? Anti vaxxers are wrong. Period. Not only are they wrong, but their wrongness is directly and explicitly causing death. Murder, because they made the choice to not vaccinate despite the overwhelmingly clear dangers.

There isn't even a middle ground to this, like you have with gun control debate. This is not a partisian issue. This is not a "lets hear both sides" issue. They are not "fighting the good fight" standing up for the downtrodden from an overreaching big brother government. This is a bunch of people who are categorically and objectively wrong in every concievable way, and their actions are directly responsible for the murder of others.

The only slippery slope here is the continued coddling of the willfully ignorant at the expense of human life.

If this is acceptable, then those parents who were charge for letting their child die because they used a faith healer, should be released because they only did as their conscience dictated.

Maybe the gun nuts are right and we should remove all restrictions and let anyone get a gun who wants one, because we clearly don't value human life even the slightest tiniest bit.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes, the world would be better off if they were dead along with about 5 billion more people. Disease was one of the factors keeping our population in check.

Our obsession with "saving lives" has lead to massive overpopulation. It is clearly documented that we thrive at the detriment of the environment. We have become so good at overfishing, overhunting, deforestation, and polluting the environment that some day soon there will be nothing left to harvest.

When that day happens, we will experience the great collapse. A good majority of us will starve off and much of the Earth will become uninhabitable. That will be our reward for refusing to coexist with nature.

Don't get me wrong. I am not against vaccines. Mathematically, even if a certain percent of the population is confirmed to be injured by vaccines, overall they are a great benefit to humanity. The real issue is overpopulation.

Re:The right to be wrong

[thegarbz]

Man if only they didn't get that vaccine they could have died from a preventable disease and be all the better for it!

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

There's hardly a freedom more important than the right to be wrong

Let's test your theory. We'll let you be wrong in any way you wish to be, but we're going to deny you the right to breathe oxygen.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironic; to a warning about authoritarian rule, you respond with newspeak.
Most of them intend to save their (kids') lives, not kill them, which I believe makes it absolutely not murder.

You are convinced they are wrong, so are they about us.
What if roles were reversed, I would find it deeply troubling if I couldn't seek/share information about substances getting injected into my kids' bloodstream, bypassing all natural barriers. It would only increase my distrust/hostility.

I've heard some ideas about how the market can solve it.
Want to go to this school/daycare/playground/sportsteam? Great! Here are our rules: Vaccination.
Then the anti-vaxers are still free to do as they please and start their own school etc.
Then, when many of them start to die, maybe they can start opening their eyes.
Yeah, not a very popular idea I suppose.

And, the fact that people value human freedom means they value human life. If life was worthless, why bother protecting its freedom?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Can'tNot]

The grandparent, Igw, is saying that people need to have the right to have and discuss strange or incorrect ideas. The parent, greythax, is saying that we need to distinguish between thinking the wrong thought and taking the wrong action. You have missed this point.

Re:The right to be wrong

[ndykman]

Nobody in this country has the right to demand other party sell anything, so no, separating fools from money on Amazon isn't a right, not even close.

There are many freedoms more important the right to be wrong. The right to life and liberty, for one. Being an idiot, lower on the list.

Finally, plenty of countries manage very well even without the First Amendment. I wouldn't say America would be one of the countries, We are young, brash and tend to forget history too easily. In many countries, 300 years is just one step on a much, much longer history. Maybe when we are 500 years of age, we'll be more okay with saying being so stupid as to actively threaten the lives of others isn't a right, Maybe we will be a just tiny bit more focused on the life, liberty and happiness for *all*, versus being obsessed with every tiny or useless of individual liberties with little or no thought to their actual costs.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh but not all 700,000,000 in europe got vaccinated...

Re: The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, ok you convinced me. I would not want to deprive someone of an education just because they expose my kids to life-threatening illness. In the spirit of compromise, I offer this solution: a parallel school system for unvaccinated children. I trust you will see nothing wrong with putting 30 unvaccinated children in the same classroom day after day.

Re: The right to be wrong

[astrofurter]

+1 Sane

Re: The right to be wrong

[astrofurter]

Forced-vax nazis sure are arrogantly self-righteous.

Re: The right to be wrong

[astrofurter]

Forced-vax nazis sure do like arguing over strawmen.

Re: The right to be wrong

[astrofurter]

Forced-vax nazis sure are dismissive of the documented harm of the policies they advocate.

Re:The right to be wrong

[shilly]

So tell me, what's the difference between my applying pressure on Amazon to not publish these books, and your applying pressure to me not to speak up about Amazon? Why should I bow to your attempts to censor me?

Re:The right to be wrong

[shilly]

Companies that engage with political topics are playing with fire. Far better to draw the line at the illegal and not engage with anything else.

Well, that's your opinion. But Amazon, and just about every other company I can think of, disagrees. They all have terms of service that forbid users from engaging in a whole bunch of activity that's perfectly legal.

Amazon says this, for example: "Visitors may post reviews, comments and other content ... as long as the content is not illegal, obscene, abusive, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, infringing of intellectual property rights, or otherwise injurious to third parties or objectionable and does not consist of or contain software viruses, political campaigning, commercial solicitation, chain letters, mass mailings or any form of "spam"." In other words, Amazon does not permit perfectly legal content that is obscene, abusive, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, infringing of IP rights etc etc. Note that they have a particularly broad statement in there: content that is "otherwise objectionable", a bar which they are clearly keeping for themselves to be able to take down anything they don't like. They do all that because they consider it in their interests to have these terms of service. So instead of complaining to me about slippery slopes, how about complaining to Amazon that they stop "playing with fire" and redraw the "line"?

Re:The right to be wrong

[shilly]

Thank goodness you've suggested risk evaluating medical interventions. JAMA will be so relieved you've cracked the problem of what they should publish.

Re: The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Mooooooooooo!

Re: The right to be wrong

[astrofurter]

Forced-vax nazis sure do have little regard for freedom of speech.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

4,153 accepted claims and how many rejected due to the requirements that you just listed?

To win compensation, the claimant must present a biological theory of harm, demonstrate a logical sequence of events connecting the vaccine to the injury, and establish an appropriate time frame in which injury occurred.

Re:The right to be wrong

[dave420]

And in the mean-time just accept the unnecessary deaths?

If free speech is important, you are admitting it has power. If something has power the thought of constraining it isn't so bizarre, is it? Society has realised that everythign which can be dangerous to society needs to be limited in some fashion.

Re: The right to be wrong

[dave420]

And you are incapable of forming an argument. Now what?

Re: The right to be wrong

[ilsaloving]

Look in any mirrors lately?

Re:The right to be wrong

[david_thornley]

:1,$ s/liberal/Trump follower/g

Re: The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up idiot.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Obfuscant]

The problem is that the line blurs when you being wrong becomes a direct threat to me.

John Smith buying a book from Amazon that talks about dangers of vaccination is not a direct threat to you.

There is an epidemic of ignorance, and that epidemic is now directly responsible for deaths.

So the disease isn't killing people, it's people who read books you don't agree with that are killing people.

As far as I'm concerned, for every measles/polio/etc related death in a community, all the anti-vaxxers in that area should be charged with accessories to murder.

You might have a stronger argument calling for the death penalty for any parent that allows their sick child to infect someone else, instead of trying to get people whose child isn't sick convicted of some crime. It would be wrong-headed to do that, but you'd have a stronger argument at least.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The neighbouring countries that didn't vaccinate had zero deaths among children.

The vaccine in question was a failure, it offered very little (if any) statistical effect.

You can't compare it in any way to a well tested vaccine like the one against measles. It's entirely possible to very much against untested vaccines against rather mild diseases while still being very much for vaccines against measles and polio.

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

No they didn't. Some countries chose to not vaccinate or only vaccinate "risk groups" and some didn't offer it large scale at all. When compared it looks like there were no herd immunity. Probably because the efficiency of the vaccine was too low to offer any substantial benefits.

Re:The right to be wrong

[ilsaloving]

And there's where the problem lies. Because these books don't *directly* cause death, everything is hunky dory. The authors and publishers of these books bear zero responsibility in that they, at best, mislead people into making decisions that have disastrous consequences.

Of course, the people who buys these books, and make the choice to no vaccinate their children also bear no responsibility because they were simply misguided based on incorrect information.

Clearly this entire situation is no ones fault, everyone is blameless, and all the people whose family memebers are mamed or killed as a result of this collective gross negligence have no other recourse but to shrug their shoulders and say, "Oh gee, my newborn child is dead now. Oh well. What a pity. Nothing for it, I guess."

But you're right. I need to stop caring about this stuff. I mean, these people clearly deserve to die, otherwise why would this have been allowed to happen?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't "book burning", it is the answer in a free marketplace of ideas. If their idea is so great, they can start their own Amazon company for distributing their filth. They would just have to change the name. Maybe "Amazon Trypanosomiasis", keeping in line with their love of disease transmission.

Re:The right to be wrong

[millennial]

The only reason that these quacks publish videos on Amazon instead of making them freely available is because they want to profit off of their quackery. Nobody is censoring anyone by making you pay to see hear their speech. In fact, publishing it in a paid medium versus for free on a website is *restricting* your access to their speech.

Re:The right to be wrong

[millennial]

Children are not the "property" of anyone. They're the *responsibility* of their parents. And the community at large has a legitimate interest in protecting them if their parents make awful choices, such as abusing them or refusing to provide them real medical attention.

Re: The right to be wrong

[millennial]

Rather than whine like an idiot about straw men while straw-manning your opponent, why not actually respond to what they said?

Re: The right to be wrong

[astrofurter]

I'm not going to dignify the arguments of a forced-vax nazi by responding directly.

What was it our internet tough guy friends used to say from the safety of their moms' basements? "If you see a nazi, punch a nazi!"

Re: The right to be wrong

[millennial]

fOrCeD-vAx NaZi Tryhard dope.

Re: The right to be wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the wit! What a stinging riposte!

Re:The right to be wrong

[Agent0013]

The numbers you give are a form of circular reasoning. They keep the numbers low on purpose to make it look like vaccines are safe. It isn't hard to deny people's claims by making the requisites too onerous. If harm does not appear within hours it will usually be denied as from a vaccine. So saying low numbers is proof of safety is wrong. They are low because harm is almost never admitted to. It is like how the FISA court never denies a warrant. Does that mean they are doing their job or are they just rubber stamping everything. We have records of how the effectiveness of vaccines are not what we are told, so we know they are already lying to us. What makes you think the rate of harm is so true?

Re:The right to be wrong

[Agent0013]

Your belief in herd immunity when all real world tests have shown it to be a failed theory are interesting. Look at China, where as close to 100% vaccination rates as humanly possible are achieved. With herd immunity being an actual, real thing, rather than a theory that may be true, you would see some effect.

Ignorance is strength

[ditangquan]

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Welcome to our brave new world where it is 'common sense' to ban everything that doesn't fall in the 'consensus'. I'm waiting for the day when the internet archive gets 'purged' of subversive and 'bad' content. For the people.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

That day has come and gone, the internet is a handful of jewish run companies who will work together to de-platform, refuse hosting, refuse domain registration, etc.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[XXongo]

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Welcome to our brave new world where it is 'common sense' to ban everything that doesn't fall in the 'consensus'.

The word "ban" is nowhere in the article.

Your argument seems to be that any discussion whatsoever of what is sold by Amazon can have no purpose other than resulting in a call for banning books. Therefore, even if banning books is not mentioned at all, you will react as if it was a proposal to ban books.

By attempting to shut down discussion of something that you think might lead maybe to somebody expressing an opinion you don't like... you are the example of what you criticize.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet here you are, freely whining about Jews on the internet. I'd keep an eye on the door, if I were you -- I've seen the list and you're definitely on it. And while you're at it, keep your hands on your little winkie, where they'll do less harm than on a keyboard.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

[x] Criticism
[_] Ban

Pick onowai too late.

Hope you're not suggesting the criticism should be purged. Pretty sure people are allowed to yell "immoral" about Amazon's open support.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Prien715]

Should a Christian book store be forced to carry Christopher Hitchens or Salman Rushdie books?

Amazon is free to stock and promote what Amazon wants to stock and promote -- the same as any other business. The first amendment protects against government interference in speech -- and it's what Orwell warned us about -- not the ability of a sovereign merchant to choose the products they sell.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Opportunist]

Ignorance is strength ...

Is it me or is it highly ironic to read this statement here? From someone defending idiots digging themselves deeper into their "but I wanna believe this bullshit" bubble.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Rick Schumann]

The so-called 'religious right' has been selling 'science is of the Devil' for a long time now, because 'knowledge is power' and The Few that hold positions of power within mainstream religion are no different than anyone else who has power: they don't want to give it up, and having people be knowledgeable makes them harder to maintain control over. I wouldn't at all be surprised if mainstream religion has something to do with the anti-vax 'movement'.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! No one is saying that the government should stop Amazon from selling those books. If Amazon should decide to stop selling those books because they contain false information, that is NOT censorship. No one is forcing them to stop selling those books.

I do believe that children should have to be vaccinated before they can attend a public school, unless there is an opinion by two licensed physicians that the vaccination would harm the child. Anyone's right to not have their children vaccinated ends when it interferes with my right to not have serious and/or deadly diseases spread in my community!

Re: Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sovereign" merchant? Clearly you have no clue what that term means.

Re:Ignorance is strength

[Anonymous Coward]

this is exactly the place I would expect someone to quote 1984?!?

They should make a law...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should make a law to require all medical books be approved by one of Bayer, GSK or Pfizer. Then people will know they're getting the unbiased truth.

Re:They should make a law...

[Reiyuki]

They should make a law to require all medical books be approved by one of Bayer, GSK or Pfizer. Then people will know they're getting the unbiased truth.

Science is no more immune from monetary corruption than any other industry. Asbestos, Cigarettes, and Glysophate are just a few modern examples of this.

Of course, pointing this out will often result in one being called an 'anti-vaxxer'. I am not. I just have a healthy skepticism for any scientific studies funded by industry insiders.

https://www.foodnavigator.com/...

Re:They should make a law...

[Opportunist]

Sadly, skepticism has turned into "The (insert random boogeyman here) say A, so I rather believe B without reason because it MUST be true!"

Re:They should make a law...

[Anonymous Coward]

Being sceptical is a good thing and healthy. It's the default position that everyone should take on anything.
However, scepticism about a specific thing can only last so long.
In most cases at some point your questions ought to be satisfied and you can either say that things are one way, another, or still unknown.
But if your questions were answered and you keep moving the goal posts by asking for 'higher' evidence just in order to remain sceptical, then you're no longer action rational, you're venturing into the territory of denial.

Re:They should make a law...

[ilsaloving]

You are right to be skeptical about specific studies, since this is very much an issue, and there is definitely a problem.

But vaccinations have such an overwhelming amount of evidence in their favour, from so many disparate sources, that you cannot put it into the same category.

Denying the efficacy of vaccinations is as ridiculous as denying gravity, or evolution, or Bernoulli's principal. That's how solid the evidence is. Hell, before people even understood germ theory, they would perform blood transfusions because they noticed that people who recovered from certain illnesses wouldn't get sick from other illnesses. (Needless to say, results were a tad... mixed...)

Re: They should make a law...

[Anonymous Coward]

Big pharma shills be shillin'!

Mercury is a planet

[Anonymous Coward]

NOT a medicine.

Book burnings first...

[stevegee58]

...then re-education camps.

Re: Book burnings first...

[Anonymous Coward]

We're dealing with Nazis here, not Communists. No reeducation. Instead, expect the ovens.

general public referendums in order?

[Anonymous Coward]

we're connected? just not to each other? or the 'grand total'?

So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[TigerPlish]

When their kids start dying, maybe they'll get a Clue. "buh buh buh you TOLD me vax are bad! You TOLD me my precious would develop immunities towards all these diseases!"

If not, then their genes are retired from the pool. Win.

Sounds cruel and cold, but this is natural selection. Weed out the crackpot conspiracists.

The scary part is their walking timebomb offspring will affect others. That's what truly makes the antivaxxers dangerous.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[jedidiah]

Sure. Let's shred our civil liberties "for the children".

This whole narrative is shameless spin demonizing tools that allow individuals freedom to exercise free will.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The scary part is their walking timebomb offspring will affect others."

LOL - which "others" will their "walking timebomb offspring" "affect"? (I take it you mean "infect".)
If 'vaccines' work, then nobody else is going to be infected, are they... You cretin.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[TigerPlish]

Sure. Let's shred our civil liberties "for the children".

Re-read what I said. I'm advocating for them not to be slienced.

They will silence themselves when their offspring starts dying from preventable, avoidable diseases.

Clear this time?

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait until they implement their plan to sterilize everyone with vaccines. MY kids will be reproducing like rabbits and yours will be barren. Sounds cruel and cold, but this is natural selection.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everybody can be vaccinated. For example, children usually get the measles (and mumps and rubella) vaccine between 9 and 15 months of age. Younger children are protected by "herd immunity": If a large enough percentage of the people are vaccinated, infections can't spread and the risk that the few unvaccinated individuals are infected is very low. Anti-vaccination propaganda kills people. People who would have lived are dead because people reject science.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[TigerPlish]

Anti-vaccination propaganda kills people. People who would have lived are dead because people reject science.

And that, right there, will do what book-bannings will never do - pit the majority of the world against a relatively smaller number of crackpots -- and the thieves who take their money.

It's about the money, not about the kids. Antivaxxer authors and the stores that sell them want to make money, and will do anything to that end -- same as any other business.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The scary part is their walking timebomb offspring will affect others."

LOL - which "others" will their "walking timebomb offspring" "affect"? (I take it you mean "infect".)
If 'vaccines' work, then nobody else is going to be infected, are they... You cretin.

Babies can't always receive every vaccine. Some vaccines don't help the elderly or transplant recipients (on immune suppressants) because their immune systems don't produce enough antibodies from the dead viruses.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Dragonslicer]

When their kids start dying, maybe they'll get a Clue.

And when your kid that can't be vaccinated dies, you'll just shrug your shoulders and hope they got a Clue?

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Opportunist]

If they could only off their own spawn that way, I'd say let them.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Opportunist]

Rest assured that they will suddenly start demanding that you save their little precious. If they'd just die quietly, I wouldn't complain so much.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[TigerPlish]

And when your kid that can't be vaccinated dies, you'll just shrug your shoulders and hope they got a Clue?

Wait, you're putting a hypothetical that I have a child that can't be vaccinated against X, and the kid dies from X, would that make me shrug my shoulders and hope they (the antivaxxers) got a Clue?

I may actually do a bit more than just shrug my shoulders, I would be distraught, angry, I imagine. Really pissed off. I would want them (the antivaxxers) to wake the fuck up and realize that their retardation is killing others (which is the argument I'm making, in case it escaped your notice)

Would I go after amazon for selling such tripe? Probably not. They're free to sell what people write.

Would I sue the persons writing the best-selling books on the subject? Yeah, I probably would. While they're free to write what they want, Actions have Consequences. They're free to write it, I'm free to sue them into oblivion for it.

But that wouldn't return the dead kid to life. And you know it.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Opportunist]

Dead kids can't fuck.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[jeff4747]

Unfortunately, this isn't a choice that only affects them or their children. For example, some people want the vaccine, but are allergic to part of it. Or are immunocompromised. Or have made the horrible decision to be too young for the vaccine.

You should not get to decide to harm others without those others having a say in your decision.

Re:So what.. let them spout their ignorace.

[Anonymous Coward]

"LOL - which "others" will their "walking timebomb offspring" "affect"? (I take it you mean "infect".)"

I see vocabulary is not your strong suit.

Believe me, if someone gets infected, they are definitely going to be affected by it, so his word usage is correct.

And medicine also is obviously not your strong suit. NO vaccine is 100% effective. But vaccinations create whgat is known as "herd immunity", and that prevents most people from getting infected.

Assumption

[greylion3]

Author of TFA assumes all vaccinations are 100% safe.
This is not the case.

It's always worth it to look at what the possible side effects are, and decide whether it's an acceptable risk (for you or your child).

Also, I will certainly never get a vaccine shot with aluminium or mercury in it.

Re:Assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not worth it to look because the question is the same for everybody and has already been answered by specialists. Likewise, it's not worth it to decide the result of 1000 + 1000 using pebbles because you're just an ordinary person and you're likely to get it wrong and obtain 1998 even if well-intentioned.

Re:Assumption

[shilly]

Author of TFA assumes all vaccinations are 100% safe.

Exciting claim! Just do us all a little favour and quote any specific sentence you care to from TFA that backs up your contention, if you don't mind. Because it would be quite disingenuous, wouldn't it, to make a claim that the author believed something spurious and absurd like "100% safe" without having some actual specific evidence to show that was the case. It would, in fact, be a risible strawman, wouldn't it?

Re:Assumption

[Megol]

No medication is 100% safe. Nothing that changes anything can be 100% safe. If you want safe go for homeopathy which if properly prepared is 100% safe - but it of course doesn't do shit.

You get more mercury from food in a week than from a vaccine injection. I guess you'll stop eating too?

Re:Assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

the point here isn't the safety of the vaccine. the point is having the right to talk about/exchange ideas on the safety of a vaccine.
"just take it and dont ask questions, and never talk about it!" doesn't sit right with people that actually... u know... think.

Re:Assumption

[greylion3]

and what food might that be? (I don't eat seafood or meat or eggs)

Re:Assumption

[religionofpeas]

we measured the total mercury concentration in vegetables and grain crops collected from farms located near two coal-fired power plants. We found that 79% of vegetable samples and 67% of grain samples exceeded the PTWI’s food safety standards

https://www.nature.com/article...

Arsenic in rice is also very common.

Re:Assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

I will admit that claim is an assumption of mine, but one I feel very safe about.

That said, I definitely could've put that differently, such as "the author seems to assume it's all disinformation and therefore wrong".
Which also isn't the case.

Re:Assumption

[jeff4747]

I will admit that claim is an assumption of mine, but one I feel very safe about.

You really shouldn't feel safe about it. We've known vaccines are not 100% safe since vaccines were invented. If you're interested in the injury rate for any specific vaccine, that information is on the FDA and CDC web sites.

Vaccines will injure about one person in every 1.2M doses. The injury is usually an allergic reaction, which is easily countered in the small number of those reactions that turn out to be life threatening.

The diseases being vaccinated against cause something on the order of 1 death in every 1000 infections. You'll note that 1 in 1000 is quite a bit higher than 1 in 1,200,000. And death is a lot harder to counter than a severe allergic reaction.

Re:Assumption

[david_thornley]

Good news! People who think and want to dig into the matter can do so. There's plenty of information available on CDC and NIH websites, to start with. Lots of people could access scientific papers through university libraries, or find more stuff on-line. The 21st Century is a great time for those who like to check up on things.

Censorship is always used by the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

Great inspirational leaders are censored. Take MLK for example, or Mandella, or Ghandi.

Oppressive dictators always use censorship. Take for example, Stalin, XI, Putin, Maderro.

I am always surprised that people in the tech industry are so keen to censor unpopular beliefs. I think it appeals to their ego to belive that they are so correct about something that they have the right to take away a person's human right of free speech. I mean, think about how special and correct you must be to feel that you are entitled to the power to silence another person.

Re:Censorship is always used by the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be a more impressive follower of these great leaders if you hadn't fucked up the spelling of two out of three of them. You also fucked up the spelling of one of the four oppressors. If you can't get these basics right, why on earth would you think anyone's going to put credence in your stupid opinion?

Re:Censorship is always used by the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

>censorship
-1 off topic

Or were you worried that criticism of Amazon's open support will be censored? People are allowed to criticize. How special one must be if they feel entitled to silence critical news.

Re: Censorship is always used by the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the forced-vaxxers posting here are paid shills for Big Pharma.

Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban...]

[XXongo]

Wow, it's amazing how fast slashdotters jump from a post saying "Amazon is a major source of anti-vaccine propaganda" to "they want to ban books! Hitler banned books! They're Hitler!"

You managed to Godwin the discussion by post number two. Chill a little, dude.

Stop it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The united States is literally based on the freedom to choose your own adventure.

How have people forgotten this? To decide for other people is tyranny.

It's not about vaccines, it's about choice and freedom. You might want to ask why people choose to seek out anti vaccination information, and how you can combat that benevolently. If this can logicality and empirically be proven wrong then it should be no hard task to convert people.

Re:Stop it.

[Anonymous Coward]

When someone has decided not to vaccinate, they are in affect doing this >> "To decide for other people is tyranny." for those who can't vaccinate due to medical issues.

Re:Stop it.

[Opportunist]

The USA is based on the freedom to be as stupid as you want to be, then sue someone for your own stupidity and hope that you find 12 dimwits too stupid to weasel out of jury duty to think "that could have been me!"

That's the new American dream, people!

Free Market

[moehoward]

So, why complain? To me, if there is free or cheap content, then get it, read it, and post online reviews. If you read it and object, then post a negative review and shame them out of the market. Be honest about it. At least read it and post an honest review. That is how the market works. Why is the headline here trying to blame Amazon? To me, this is a great opportunity to let the review/free-market work.

Re:A great leader once banned books and it was gre

[magarity]

His name was Hitler and he knew what was right and what was wrong.

.

He was a Johnny-come-lately imitator to book banning politicians. That list starts in the mid 1500's about a year after moveable type was invented.

Re:Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're amazed, you must be new to the internet.
Without wanting to jinx things, I predict that Trump and maybe Jew references will show up sooner or later as well.

Anti-vax sells!

[Allasard]

How many people write and buy pro-vaccination books?
How many people love to write a conspiracy-laden book about evil corporations and doctors, and promise enlightenment by not following that path?

My guess is the latter.

Is that really Amazon's fault that there are more Anti-Vax books than Pro-Vax? My guess is any brick-and-mortar book store would contain the same.

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[jbmartin6]

Good point, there is not much to say in support of vaccinations. They've worked for so long, how much content can you cram into a book saying "they still work"? I suppose a history of some sort.

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[moehoward]

I want to agree with you. But, I just realized (having just posted a review of one of the books) that Amazon has a policy of taking up to 3 days to review and then allow a review to be shown. So, Amazon's incentive is to have 5 star reviews in order to sell books. I suppose that I need to rescind my above comment regarding the free market. Amazon will promote this conspiracy crap because it sells books. I think I need a hot bath and a shot of, well, not shots.

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[Anonymous Coward]

One doctor did a study on the history of the Polio vaccine:

http://www.thinktwice.com/Polio.pdf

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[cascadingstylesheet]

How many people write and buy pro-vaccination books? How many people love to write a conspiracy-laden book about evil corporations and doctors, and promise enlightenment by not following that path?

My guess is the latter.

Is that really Amazon's fault that there are more Anti-Vax books than Pro-Vax? My guess is any brick-and-mortar book store would contain the same.

This is true about a lot of things.

Anti-anti-depressants sells, for example. How many people write pro-anti-depressant (popular) books? It's much more exciting to think there's a grand conspiracy.

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[Herkum01]

This,

More than anything else, these conspiracy theorists want to believe that they are special. Only THEY have access to some secret knowledge or insight into something that other people don't. That is why people want to believe in a conspiracy, life would be just too hard for them if they accepted the fact that they just don't know what is going on.

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[GonzoPhysicist]

>How many people write and buy pro-vaccination books?

Just about everyone that writes or reads Medical and History books. It's still the default stance for the vast majority of people.
To put it another way; How many people write and buy pro-breathing books?

Re:Anti-vax sells!

[thegarbz]

How many people write and buy pro-vaccination books?

Lots of people. But the difference is in the name those are given: "Peer reviewed articles"

How dare people question you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't one of you explain what medical qualifications Jenner had, when he 'discovered' 'vaccination'?

Oh wait - he had none. And medical science didn't exist at that time either. So-called 'doctors' were all snake oil salesmen, and of course they jumped on the chance of injecting pus into people and being paid a fortune for it (since everybody was FORCED to have 'vaccinations').

Jenner was a clear and obvious fraud:

http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen1.html

Pray tell - how exactly does a 'vaccine' work? We are told that a person's body produces antibodies to the 'inactive' virus that is present in a so-called 'vaccine', and that apparently if the REAL virus infects the same person, they already have antibodies to it, and thus are 'immune'. So their body can produce antibodies to an 'inactive' virus, but somehow can't produce antibodies to a REAL virus, unless it has already produced antibodies to the 'inactive' virus? How did their body produce antibodies to the 'inactive' virus in the first place? And why wouldn't their body have been able to produce antibodies to the REAL virus in the first place, prior to 'vaccination'?

Oh, wait... I've just proved that the entire thing is a ludicrous scam.
The entire reason this CENSORSHIP attempt is going on all over the lamestream media is because people have found out, via the internet, what a scam so-called 'vaccines' are, and that they don't work.

When I was a child, everybody had measles and mumps - everybody. In fact, measles were so commonplace that they are mentioned in numerous television comedy programmes of the 1960s and 1970s. If the measles was so 'deadly' then why did nobody's parents worry in the slightest when their young children caught it?

Re:How dare people question you!

[Megol]

You just proved you are an idiot. Yes the body can produce antibodies to the REAL virus however with a much weaker response, the vaccine allow the immune system to learn how to identify the REAL virus before being infected. This is something you should have learned in school however I guess you are home-schooled?

Re:How dare people question you!

[Opportunist]

Say, did people also have polio? Or smallpox?

Re:How dare people question you!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am amazed at the depth of your ignorance and the brazenness with which you parade it around. The simple answer is that it takes some time for your body to produce antibodies, in which time the live virus would become established in your body. By using a vaccine, your body already have antibodies prepared when the live virus is encountered, and can start fighting it immediately. This would be astoundingly simple to discover for yourself, if you were so inclined to do independent thought and research. This knowledge is commonly distributed in elementary school- maybe you missed that lesson due to being out sick with measles or some other easily preventable disease?

Re: How dare people question you!

[astrofurter]

You realize that most vaccine-choice advocates are not actually "anti-vax", a term of disparagement coined by Big Pharma PR flacks, don't you? Rather vaccine-choicers are concerned about _unnecessary and excessive_ vaccination. Very few indeed are against vaccination for truly dangerous diseases like polio. However very many people do think it is unwise to get injected with little-understood Pharma products just to avoid potential minor inconveniences like flu or measles.

Keyword: iatrogenic
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: How dare people question you!

[Opportunist]

I'm against unnecessary and excessive vaccination. For example I would never get a malaria shot in Sweden if I don't plan to leave the country.

Vaccination and the question whether to do it is a matter of probabilities. How likely is it to contract the disease, how severe and likely are the consequences of the disease, how severe and likely are the consequences of the vaccine. And with MRR, probability is heavily on the "get it the fuck NOW" side.

after the rude reawakenings big flash

[Anonymous Coward]

the new libraries will not only contain all real books but all real history too? cease fire stand down.. truth+mercy=justice

Assumption... is wrong.

[XXongo]

...Also, I will certainly never get a vaccine shot with aluminium or mercury in it.

They stopped using Thimerosal in pediatric vaccines in 2000.

If you want to avoid mercury exposure, don't eat fish.

Re:Assumption... is wrong.

[greylion3]

Check again.

Thiomersal was used in Pandemrix.

Also, I don't eat fish.

Re:Assumption... is wrong.

[jeff4747]

Thiomersal was used in Pandemrix.

Check again. Pandemrix isn't a pediatric vaccine.

Re:Assumption... is wrong.

[XXongo]

They stopped using Thimerosal in pediatric vaccines in 2000.

Check again. Thiomersal was used in Pandemrix.

Never approved in the U.S..

If you want to avoid mercury exposure, don't eat fish.

Also, I don't eat fish.

Too bad for you. Turns out eating fish is healthy.
https://universityhealthnews.com/daily/nutrition/benefits-of-eating-fish/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/11-health-benefits-of-fish#section5

Re:Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the comparison is completely appropriate. The outrage mob must never be catered to.

I don't believe for one second that msmash gives a flying fuck about anybodys children.

He/she/it/xir, and people like him/her/xir/shim/shit are in it for the power trip.

false argument.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah these outbreaks have nothing to do with the massive unchecked immigration from the 3rd world. Or people being allowed to come in even when they are known to be sick. Let all ignore the fact most of these diseases where completely eradicated from the west for decades. It's totally these isolated and small in number antivaxers thats causing polio to come back.
That's what the TV man tells me so it must be.

Re:false argument.

[Megol]

Yeah these outbreaks have nothing to do with the massive unchecked immigration from the 3rd world.

Exactly. Finally an AC that isn't a shit-slinging moron! /s

Re:false argument.

[Opportunist]

Really? People fled TO the Ukraine.

Where did they come from? Elbonia?

Re:false argument.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the moron liberal that knows he is wrong, so wrong he can't come up with ANY argument against liberalism failing again.

Between letting illegal violently attack US citizens 49,000 times a year
To supporting killing live babies and calling it abortion
To supporting KKK members as VA Gov
To supporting serial rapists like Lt. Gov of VA or Bill Clinton
To being upset Trump is attempting to prevent nuclear war with N Korea, and having more success than Obama had

Its getting difficult to find any liberal policies that the common man agrees with. They even told us we shouldn't be allowed to fly on airplanes legally, but you can bet they think they should be allowed to. Liberals, oppressing people for decades.

Re:false argument.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's difficult being a simple mind in a complicated world, isn't it? You present an argument supporting vaccination, then claim the anti-vaccination movement has no fault. The presence of infected foreigners would indicate more reason to get vaccinated. If vaccines don't work, why would you worry about the unvaccinated immigrants? It seems both groups play a role- without the ant-vaxxers, any infection from immigrants would have nowhere to go (except other foreigners and those who can't get vaccines). This is ignoring other diseases which are otherwise found in the environment and commonly vaccinated against.

Re: false argument.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, Trump having success with North Korea?

Is that what you believe? He literally panders to a homicidal dictator and achieves nothing but a publicity stunt with no real achievements and you take that as a victory?

Why? Did you think North Korea was ever anything but a grandstanding little noisemaker with no importance in the greater scheme of world politics?

Jenner was a fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.whale.to/v/hadwen1.html

"In his article "The Fraud of Vaccination," published last week in Truth, Dr. Hadwen made some remarks not altogether complimentary to the discoverer of time reputed prophylactic against smallpox. These remarks led one reader to denounce both Dr. Hadwen and myself— Dr. Hadwen for libelling one of the greatest benefactors of humanity, and myself for propagating the libel. Dr. Hadwen is well able to take care of himself. For my own part, not wishing to do any injustice to the name and fame of the late Dr. Jenner, I asked Dr. Hadwen what he had against him, and he replied by sending me a pamphlet he has written on the subject. This I have compared with the account of Jenner’s life given in the Dictionary of National Biography, and the result is so illuminating that I will now give the salient facts as briefly as possible."

"To begin with, it is clear that Jenner never possessed anything that would be recognised to-day as a medical qualification. At the age of 16 he was apprenticed to a country surgeon and apothecary, and at 21 he was sent for two years as a pupil to Dr. John Hunter, of London, who undoubtedly was the most eminent surgeon of his day, and, like Jenner himself, a keen naturalist. At 23 Jenner returned to his native village and started to practise as surgeon and apothecary. Here he remained for 17 years, just a plain unqualified country surgeon and apothecary, unknown to the world at large, but keeping up a correspondence with Hunter on a variety of natural history subjects. At the end of this period he made his first bid for fame. In 1787 he sent a paper on "The Natural History of the Cuckoo" to the Royal Society, and, as a result, with Hunter’s influence, he was elected F.R.S. The paper contained a number of commonplace facts and some others, which Jenner stated to be from his own observation. The latter turned out to be purely imaginary, Jenner having accepted the report of a youthful nephew on the incidents he described. The coveted fellowship, therefore, appears to have been obtained by something very nearly approaching fraud. Three years later he applied to St. Andrew’s University for an M.D., and as St. Andrew’s in those days was no more squeamish about granting degrees than some of the so-called American Universities are to-day, so long as the fees are forthcoming, Jenner became Dr. Jenner for the modest outlay of £15. Later on in life, after several applications, he was also granted an M.D. by the University of Oxford, though this was not until after his discovery had been generally adopted."

"As for the discovery itself, it appears to have been founded upon what Dr. Hadwen calls a "superstition among the dairymaids of Gloucestershire that a person who had suffered from cowpox would never have smallpox." I hardly think anyone would to-day regard this as more than superstition. Smallpox was then one of time commonest, most dreaded diseases in all ranks of society, and it was already the custom to inoculate people with it in order that they should get the disease under the most favourable circumstances. Jenner appears to have bethought himself of testing the Dairymaid’s superstition, and with this object he inoculated a boy named James Phipps with lymph from a vesicle on the hand of a dairymaid suffering from cowpox in May, 1796. In July of the same year he inoculated the same boy with smallpox by what Dr. Hadwen calls the "bogus Suttonian method," which "afforded no evidence as to protection." Yet it was upon the strength of this solitary experiment that Jenner had launched his discovery upon the world, claiming that cowpox was a prophylactic against smallpox, while to give some sort of scientific colour to the claim he labeled cowpox with the name "Variolae Vaccinae" (smallpox of the cow)."

"On the later developments and time exploitation of vaccination there is no need to dwell at any length. Jenner obtained both cash and credit. He received £30,000 in grants from Parliament for his wonderful

Re:Jenner was a fraud

[XXongo]

You might check these "facts" with reliable sources. It's correct that medical training in the 1760s was less rigorous than it is today, but nevertheless, yes, he did get a M.D. at St. Andrews, interned in surgery, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society long before doing the smallpox research he's famous for.

Oh, and his 1788 paper on the Cuckoo is now widely regarded as being the first study of the remarkable life cycle of the bird.

try: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:A great leader once banned books and it was gre

[Anonymous Coward]

[_] Openly support antivax
[_] Ban antivax

False dichotomy. Options between these do exist.

Do you have right to charge for False Information?

[mykepredko]

While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children, I have a problem from people deliberately being paid for distributing false information to push a viewpoint.

If people believe so vehemently that vaccination is wrong and want to express their viewpoint fine, but unless they have verifiable, peer-reviewed, replicated information, then they should not be allowed to profit financially from it.

Not Theories!

[Murdoch5]

A theory has a meaning in science and society, and there is no such thing as a anti-vaccination theory, because no evidence has been presented to agree with the hypothesis that vaccinates cause things such as Autism.

Re:Not Theories!

[mamba-mamba]

Some people believe that corporations have infiltrated CDC and the AAP to create guaranteed demand for vaccines which would otherwise be unprofitable. Some people believe that any public health benefit is beside the point, and profit is the only thing that matters to the CDC and AAP. Even if there are elements of truth to that, it still represents a conspiracy theory, does it not? It is not all just about autism, you know. There are even more elaborate conspiracy theories, surrounding vaccines. But I don't even want to mention them.

Re:Not Theories!

[Murdoch5]

It's a conspiracy, not a theory, you can't just append theory to anything you want. A theory is defined as:

1) A coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.

2) A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.

3) Mathematics . a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.

If conspiracies want to be promoted to theories, they need fulfill the the definition of theory. A theory is not something pulled of the air, and asserted without fact or evidence, which is how it's used when it's appended to conspiracy. If a conspiracy get promoted to theory, it isn't a conspiracy, so you can't even have a conspiracy theory, it's nonsensical statement.

Re:Not Theories!

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't true. The US government pays out settlements to between 500 and 2500 people each year that have "life changing" reactions to vaccines. This is just for overwhelmingly provable cases. The CDC's own statistics show that some years the people who get hurt by vacancies are more common and severe than the diseases they were trying to prevent.

There are logical reasons to take the risks of vaccines but claiming there is no evidence that they cause anything is just going to make the anti-vax crowd more sure that pro-vax are brainwashed.

Re:Not Theories!

[Anubis IV]

That isn't true. The US government pays out settlements to between 500 and 2500 people each year that have "life changing" reactions to vaccines. This is just for overwhelmingly provable cases. The CDC's own statistics show that some years the people who get hurt by vacancies are more common and severe than the diseases they were trying to prevent.

Sheesh. Lying with statistics much? In fact, having now looked over the numbers, I'll say that you're just outright lying.

If you go back to the actual numbers, straight from the horse's mouth, you'll see on page 3 that over the 12-year period from 2006-01-01 to 2017-12-31, the US administered 3,454,269,356 vaccines. Resulting from those 3.4 billion vaccines, only 4,172 people were compensated due to harm, which—at just 348/year on average—falls well short of even the lower end of the range you were trying to assert. So what is the actual number of settlements per year? Page 7 shows us that the worst year on record had merely 697, not 2500, while the best year had just 9, not 500.

To ground all of this in terms that we may be more familiar with, that's an incidence rate of just 1.2 per 1 million vaccines administered in the US, or a meager 0.00012% chance that you'll experience a "life changing" reaction in response to a vaccine. All of which is to say, while vaccines are not 100% safe (aside: so far as I know, there's no such thing as a 100% safe medical intervention, which makes me question why anti-vaxxers bother with doctors at all), they are literally within a rounding error of 100% safe according to the metric you happened to choose to try and use against them.

As for "the CDC's own statistics", care to link these statistics you've supposedly seen? Because so far as I can find (and I've looked quite a bit), the CDC doesn't break out the statistics you claimed you've seen. Instead, they point the public to "The Health and Medicine Division (HMD) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine[, ...] an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public". The HMD's numbers also happen to be what get used in the HRSA report I linked earlier. So, go back and look at those numbers from a few paragraphs back. There were 3.4 billion vaccines administered over that 12-year period. That's about 288 million per year. Since you're saying more than half the people had adverse effects in some years, you're claiming that the incidence rate topped out somewhere north of 144 million instances of adverse effects in a single year, or, put differently, that there was at least one year on record where a number of incidents roughly equal to half the population of the US resulted in adverse effects...and somehow we didn't all start rioting over it.

Actually, there's a possibility that's true, though if it is, it's likely because the far-and-away most common adverse effect monitored by the CDC—with "up to 8 out of 10" patients suffering from it—is that they became "fussy or irritable" after the shot was administered. Mind you, this is a shot typically given to infants, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that they cry after being given a shot, and yet that's logged as an adverse effect counting towards your statistics. No one cares about that. Nor do we generally care that the next closest effects are that 1 in 3 people experience a mild fever or see some redness at the injection spot within a few days of the vaccine. And once we get past the handful of common adverse effects like those, none of which are serious, the odds drop off rapidly, with things like anaphylaxis or worse coming in at 1 i

Hardly Thriving

[CanadianMacFan]

There's 15 results for anti-vaccination when you search for vaccination. While it's the majority of the search results I don't think one could call 15 results out of the millions of books Amazon carries to be thriving.

The only thing that I might object to is if Amazon lets sponsored posts link to objectionable content such as anti-vaccination books.

Vaccines have serious side effects in some people

[Anonymous Coward]

Vaccines do cause serious side effects in some people. I think its good that this is talked and written about. I am glad Amazon is selling this material so people may better educate themselves on both sides of the argument.

Re: A great leader once banned books and it was gr

[Anonymous Coward]

The list starts with the burning of the Library at Alexandria.

This will be settled by lawsuits in by 2030

[davidwr]

Some kid who got vaccinated but didn't get immunity will die.

They will find out their kid got it from some kind in school who wasn't vaccinated.

It will come out that the kid's parents were influenced by anti-vaccination groups.

When this happens in the USA, the lawsuits will fly.

Eventually, the courts will say the anti-vaccination groups are not responsible in this particular case, but there will be enough legal uncertaintly about future cases that corporate beheamoths will give them the heave-ho to protect their own bottom line.

The courts will also find the other kids' parents negligent, which will scare most parents into vaccinating their kids, either to avoid being sued or because they don't want to feel guilty if their own kid's friend dies of something they caught from their kid.

People forget the past without vaccines

[Anonymous Coward]

Incredibly the people who are against vaccines are incredibly stupid to forget how many lives they have saved. Sure nobody wants a child to die or get disabled from a vaccine. But we cannot repeat the past when we can help the many with vaccines. Nothing is perfect, but to go backwards because of a very low rate of problems with vaccines is incredibly dumb.

Children pay for their parents mistakes....

[Anonymous Coward]

Or else we just don't have individual freedom. Pick one.

Re:Do you have right to charge for False Informati

[drinkypoo]

While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children

Like to bring back ancient Greek man-boy love? Or to sell off their daughters at tween ages?

Let us not pretend that parents always have their children's best interests in mind.

Free Speech

[mysidia]

Books are important for Free Speech. And its important that booksellers don't generally censor content.

If people are suggesting Amazon stifle anti-vacc publications, then they are suggesting something Very Dangerous,
because next time it may be censoring political speech people disagree with -- for example Anti-Trump or Pro-Trump books.

If you want to mitigate the problem of Anti-vacc publications in search results, then maybe write some Pro-Vaccine books.

It seems the anti-vacc people are VIGILANT and active, and most of the Pro-vacc people are Lazy and inactive or do little, Despite
the systemic risk
The Pro-Vacc people need to become aware that anti-vacc people are a danger to them, because
people who aren't vaccinated get diseases, and the effective rate of vaccines is not 100%, AND those diseases once they're spreading
more can evolve/mutate such that the vaccine is no longer effective, so everyone has reasons to fear from results of people believing the Anti-Vacc movement folks.

The Pro-Vaccers simply need to get organized and start writing some books AND countering every move by anti-vaccers

Re:Free Speech

[EvilSS]

I agree with this. Speech, however stupid, should not be suppressed. But the thing I do worry about is not the books, but the algorithms Amazon may be using to suggest them to people. In particular, is their software pushing these books to people who are not specifically looking for them, but may have browsing and buying habits that suggest they may be influenced by them? For example if a new parent starts buying baby things, and looking for books on child health, do these books get suggested? That, I would have a problem with.

Re:Free Speech

[mysidia]

For example if a new parent starts buying baby things, and looking for books on child health, do these books get suggested?

Its entirely possible. If it doesn't happen today, then it could happen tomorrow.
Perhaps one way people can have their say is that pro-vaccers could borrow the content from another source, such as a library,
or borrow or buy a used copy from someone who already owns the book
(To avoid purchasing on Amazon and contributing to boosting sales of product), and then write Helpful 1-star Reviews on Amazon that
eloquently detail issues with the books.

Amazon's recommendations engine is based on statistical techniques that are in general called "Machine Learning".

In general, their goal is to make the recommendations that maximize Amazon's revenue, in other words: they try to predict
which categories of items the shopper would be most likely to purchase, and from there... there's some kind of priority based on
the price of the item and Amazon's expected revenue from selling that item, so as to prefer recommendations that make more $$$ for Amazon.

However, they can make changes to the system at any time, and learning algorithms vary their behavior over time as well.

CDC disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

CDC claims some vaccines have issues. I'm sure its peer reviewed, and at least one of the cases listed is pretty well known by people willing to listen to other opinions.

To double down on your "I know everything" opinions.
Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate.
CA and OR have the lowest, specifically San Francisco.
So your liberal "we are smarter than everyone else" people are the real anti-vax people, while the deepest red state areas are not.

who says its all false

[Anonymous Coward]

I am seeing the "problem of anti-vax information" everywhere lately. and how people are trying to stamp out this line of thinking. Isn't this dangerous? Looks like we are trying to make the thought police and kill free speech/free exchange of ideas.

Someone deemed this information false, therefore no one must ever mention this topic again! Sure sounds like propaganda and anti-scientific behavior to me!
Fact is, getting a vaccine means you are injecting yourself with things. The effects both good and bad should be weighed and presented. but instead, we are just going to scream "vaccines are good! herd immunity! if you disagree you're anti-science!" and destroy any attempts for anyone else to speak on the subject.

This is beyond a slippery slope. this is dangerous censorship of ideas.

Re:who says its all false

[Pikoro]

When nearly every single doctor on the planet says that vaccines help more than harm, by orders of magnitude, then the opinions of a vocal minority should not hold nearly the weight of that given by the people whose job it is to know such things. Sure, research both sides, but don't expect a mom's 15 minute search on the internet to be "equal and fair" to what is being presented by a licensed medical professional.

Re:who says its all false

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is your forum: present scientifically supported information that indicates vaccines are bad. We'll wait over here, patiently. Please don't bother repeating unsupported opinions or made-up pseudo-science, that's what started this problem in the first place.

Re:who says its all false

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron. Doctors do LESS research than motivated moms. Doctors get paid by insurance companies to do what they are told to do.
If you don't vaccinate, you lose money, and sometimes even your license to practice. Doctors have ZERO motivation to get to the
truth. You're such a tool.

Re:who says its all false

[cascadingstylesheet]

When nearly every single doctor on the planet says that vaccines help more than harm, by orders of magnitude, then the opinions of a vocal minority should not hold nearly the weight of that given by the people whose job it is to know such things. Sure, research both sides, but don't expect a mom's 15 minute search on the internet to be "equal and fair" to what is being presented by a licensed medical professional.

The problem with is Amazon trying to be the truth police.

Will they try to police the accuracy of all books that touch on medical topics? Other scientific topics? Historical topics? Current events?

If not, why not? What expectations should we have of them?

Isn't it maybe better to just encourage people to take things with a grain of salt, and let Amazon just be a bookstore?

Re:who says its all false

[Pikoro]

You do realize, of course, that the USA is not the entire world and that other countries have doctors who are not owned by the pharma companies. Besides, if you think that doctors don't do any research and only vaccinate people because they're "told" to, you're the moron.

Re:Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban..

[Opportunist]

Hitler didn't invent book burnings. He just made a spectacle out of it.

Religions all over the world have done so far, far longer than any nationalism existed.

If you don't like it go write your own book

[mamba-mamba]

If you don't like what you read in a book, then go write your own book, or create an organization to promulgate your correct thinking point of view. Sometimes I think people want to give up a thousand years of hard-won individual freedoms just because they are more worried about social justice or correct thinking about vaccines than they are about basic individual freedom.

Re:Do you have right to charge for False Informati

[religionofpeas]

While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children,

Like genital mutilation ?

Burn the books, burn the books!!!

[ripvlan]

You are absolutely correct. I think there are two semi-conflicting powers at play here. One is opinion and the other is education. An author writes a book/blog/article and offers his/her opinion and attempts to share their beliefs.

But the other (and maybe I've miscategorized it) is teaching the unwashed masses. It's one thing to show up to a rally and listen to the voices of people sharing. In this world though an Algorithm starts sharing content with you - possibly misrepresenting the level of truthfulness / believably of a particular subject. There's no human for you to judge ("gosh that person sounds unhinged").

Sure, some people don't want to vaccinate on religious (or other like) grounds. And they can write about it, share their ideals. But for some far out wacky ideas - conspiracies that even the conspiracy leaders call wacko -- the algorithm will start providing you unbalanced info about. Such that the "ignorant" will be unable to discern a trust level. "Gee - Youtube showed me 100 videos on this topic, it must be true"

The earth is flat. How many others don't vaccinate, not due to shared beliefs, but rather misinformation shared with them while traveling down the Google-Algorithm rabbit hole?

But we can't be burning books to stomp out ideas we don't like.

Why is this on Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this crap on Slashdot? What the h**l does this have to do with IT??

Re:A great leader once banned books and it was gre

[Rick Schumann]

Hey idiot, if you're going to post sarcasm on that level then you need to add the tag to the end:

this will end badly

[cascadingstylesheet]

All this censorship is not a good way to go.

Yes, with the vaccination stuff, I think the goal is good. That's not the point. Free speech protection isn't needed for the viewpoints that all the "right" people think are good.

The day will come when the ascendant viewpoint is not something that you think is right or good. And it will be you who isn't going to be allowed to say anything against it. But by then, it will be too late.

Re:this will end badly

[ilsaloving]

I agree. We should strike all libel laws from the books. We should get rid of that "shouting "Fire!" in a movie theatre" law. We should also remove any laws involving incitement or entrapment too.

Hell, lets flood the market with "How to murder and get away with it" books, cause, well, why not?

Freedom of Speech is sacrosanct, and under no circumstances should people be required to be responsible for what they say, what they do, or what they incite others to do.

Re: this will end badly

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Pharma shills sure are contemptuous of free speech.

Mercury Preservatives are Good for You

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake American news NEVER talks about Thimerosal .. or Building 7.

The scariest thing

[Alyks]

Is that this article was written. It feels like there's a vague implication of "they need to stop."

Wrong headline

[Sumus Semper Una]

I think a more accurate headline would have been "Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Remain Popular and Lucrative - Amazon Marketplace Reflects This". And, for that matter, it's not limited to anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. Societies have always had problems with people who are all too willing to believe what they want to believe regardless of evidence to the contrary, and others willing to exploit those people for money.

When your mirror shows you something that upsets you, the correct solution is not to try to bend the mirror.

Re:Wrong headline

[pigwin32]

Societies have always had problems with people who are all too willing to believe what they want to believe regardless of evidence to the contrary, and others willing to exploit those people for money.

When your mirror shows you something that upsets you, the correct solution is not to try to bend the mirror.

This applies equally to those in favour of vaccination and it might be worth considering the difference in scale of those organisations making hay out of the increasing number of vaccinations on the schedule versus those making money from selling their books.

Re:Wrong headline

[david_thornley]

It might be even more worth considering to look at the actual data, or at least the massive amount that's publicly available.

Extremely scary

[cfalcon]

Notice how the implication in these things is that these companies must *police truth*. This is a book store that has made itself a huge force in the bookselling market- so much so that it moved on to pretty much any other physical object you may wish to buy.

And now it is being called on to ascertain that certain political movements are banned? I'm sure they'll start with the wrong ones, but you'd be a fool to think they'll end there too.

Re:Extremely scary

[Areyoukiddingme]

And now it is being called on to ascertain that certain political movements are banned?

Anti-vaxxers are not a political movement. They're a fuckwit movement. A bunch of people being willfully stupid in the same way does not constitute a political movement.

I'm sure they'll start with the wrong ones, but you'd be a fool to think they'll end there too.

Quite possibly.

Re:Extremely scary

[ilsaloving]

If you think that the vaciination/anti-vax thing is a political one, you're part of the problem.

There is nothing political about this. Anti-vaxxers are inciting others to effectively commit, at best, involuntary manslaughter.

If books can be banned by the religious right just cause they don't "like" it, then we can damn well ban books that directly result in people being murdered and maimed.

Re: A great leader once banned books and it was g

[Anonymous Coward]

Another great contribution form Islam, the religion of peace, to world culture!

Let people CHOOSE

[Anonymous Coward]

1) The world is over populated, stupid and ignorant people have the most children. Why are be so obsessed with saving all the children? It doesn't make up for their parents unless you adopt their children. If you really think children are so important why aren't you actually doing something more than blowing hot air?

2) Corporations have a history of sociopaths; and documented in healthcare. You'd think 30 years of stalling science on tobacco would have made enough of a point. Not trusting every product pushed by your doctor who can't keep up with all the changes let alone the scope the health industry covers.

3) If the vaccinations actually WORK then you shouldn't worry about being around somebody who has the disease.

Seat belts

[thegreatbob]

Same class of folk who believe that the harm that can arise from not wearing their seat belt is limited to themselves.

check out their adult toys, they have bestiality o

[Anonymous Coward]

So yeah I was checking out Amazon adult toys and a deer penis came up. They also had child size sex dolls. NOT COOL AMAZON!

I got it!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had to get measles (1950s), then you should have to get the measles. :þ Measles was contracted by most children when I was a child and it wasn't any big deal for anyone, as I remember. We all got the mumps also.

Source [Re: Who cares?]

[XXongo]

You do realize the measles outbreaks are coming from all the third-world illegals flooding through our porous borders, right?

The actual evidence shows not.

Source of the measles is primarily U.S. travelers who visit other countries and bring measles home:

Most notably, from Israel, where a significant Orthodox population does not believe in vaccinations; but also from France (the 2011 outbreak) and from the Philippines (the 2014 outbreak).
https://www.contagionlive.com/news/travel-associated-measles-outbreaks-on-the-rise-in-us
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html

Re:Source [Re: Who cares?]

[Anonymous Coward]

How can there be evidence of something that is undocumented and, therefore, don't show up in any real research of any kind?

But I digress. If anything, you're proving my point. Or, in your mind, is it somehow worse to travel to a third-world country (or Israel, but I repeat myself) and catch diseases from being around a bunch of sick people rather than having the sick diseased third-worlders being deposited by our own government into the middle of our cities?!

Re: A great leader once banned books and it was g

[XXongo]

He [Hitler] was a Johnny-come-lately imitator to book banning politicians. That list starts in the mid 1500's about a year after moveable type was invented.

The list starts with the burning of the Library at Alexandria.

Another great contribution form Islam, the religion of peace, to world culture!

Quite a feat, really, since the burning of the library of Alexandria occurred at the Siege of Alexandria in 48 BC, about six hundred years before Muhammad was born.

Re: A great leader once banned books and it was

[Anonymous Coward]

The library of Alexandria was destroyed by Christians over 200 years prior to Islam. The accounts claiming that the Caliph Omar were from a Christian Bishop well known for manufacturing accounts of supposed Muslim atrocities with no factual basis.

Public Perception of Measles pre/post vaccine

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a tiny video that shows you public perception of measles pre and post vaccine.

Pre-vaccine, measles is an inconvenience. Post-vaccine, measles is the end of the world !!!

https://www.brighteon.com/5822338436001

Can you say propaganda children?

Burn them

[Anonymous Coward]

we should go and pull all of these books out of Amazon's warehouses and burn them!

Re:Burn them

[DickBreath]

Anti-Vaccination books would rate very low on the Trump Book Flamability index.

Climate Change books would score a much higher flammability rating.

Eighteen?

[TJHook3r]

There are only 18 results for the word 'vaccine'?

Jenner [Re:How dare people question you!]

[XXongo]

Why don't one of you explain what medical qualifications Jenner had, when he 'discovered' 'vaccination'? Oh wait - he had none.

Huh? Edward Jenner earned his M.D. from University of St Andrews in 1792 and did his internship in surgery and anatomy at St George's, University of London. He had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his work in zoology in 1788, eight years before his famous work on the Smallpox inoculation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner

Books now?

[AHuxley]

What is it with censorship and the ability of people to find and publish information?
The internet gets all kinds of calls to ban information, links?
Now its books on topics?
Whats next?
German history, politics, art, news and culture?
Would Spain like to see books about Catalonia removed?
France like to remove books that have jokes about French politicians?
China like books and computer games from Taiwan the real China removed? No books on the Tiananmen Papers?
What other health topics get removed?
Books on pollution?
Books about escaping a religion, faith, cult? The history of a faith, religion, cult?
What other books on health care and the history of medicine need to be removed?
DRM?
Crypto?
Spiritual books?
Books on lock picking?
Meme art books?
Math books?
How many books by George Orwell should be banned?
Book on faith?
Books with ghosts and witchcraft?
Defamation of leaders, politicians, mil history, heroes, space flight? Books on the security services and whistleblowers? No books on the CIA, NSA by whistleblowers?
The UK have a lot of books about the IRA it wants not found?
The USA has a freedom to publish and the freedom to find a book, read it and write a review.
People then have the right to read that review and buy the same book, comment on it and buy more books by the same author and publisher.
On any topic they are interested in.

Time for a better way to publish books on demand and sell book online. Paper and electronic editions.
Let people find the books they want, support the authors and publishers they want to support.
Make reading great again.

There's no post-birth abortions you liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgina is doing no such thing. That is some bible thumper bullshit made up to get everyone screaming for jesus. You are a liar.

Re: A great leader once banned books and it was

[Anonymous Coward]

No it wasn't. The Library of Alexandria was burned by Mormons. Joseph set sail and hurt his back, then got injured in a fight with 300 guys and scarred. He then worked with Xerxes and Eva Greene to burn those books to prevent good children from being swayed by the witchcraft glorified by Harry Potter and Subway.

The whole reason he had to sail was to avoid the raping, thieving, drug pushing Mexicans that Obama let in by failing to build a taller wall.

You libtards are so stupid sometimes.
#MAGA

Do any of you realize how a vaccine works?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a vaccine works, and you end up with the disease that the vaccine prevents, that's because YOU aren't vaccinated.

If you are vaccinated and you end up with the disease that the vaccine is supposed to prevent, you have received a defective vaccine.

So if there's a measles outbreak, either a lot of people were not vaccinated, or the vaccine they received was defective (and they should be able to enter a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer), or both. It is EXTREMELY rare to be able to contract measles two times in your lifetime. The way a vaccine works is that a killed or partially destroyed culture of the measles virus is injected into your system to produce an immune response. If it doesn't do this, and you get measles anyhow, it's a DEFECTIVE VACCINE, and doesn't work.

It's as simple as that.

This is why smallpox no longer exists except in a few cryogenic freezers - it was an effective vaccine.

The anti-vaxxers have a point, like it or not. If a vaccine is not preventing the disease it supposedly immunizes against, it's defective and can do you no good to get it. At best, it's a placebo you're paying for.

a vaccine can kill you

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like walking across a street can kill you

I ask myself every day...

[Blinkin1200]

Is someone thinking today is the day to thaw the polio virus and ready it for distribution?

Re: Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban.

[astrofurter]

Dude... the number of forced-vax nazis on this thread who espouse literal-Nazi policies makes it an apt comparison.

And all this violently angry butthurt is over... measles? Measles! I had measles as a kid. Every kid I knew got the measles. It was a _mildly annoying_ ailment. Not in the same ballpark as polio - not even in the same league.

Yet here we are with nazi assholes positively screaming for the iron boot of the state to stomp on anyone who doesn't want to get pumped full of pharma industry products. 'Cuz measles. For real, 'cuz measles?

Here's a theory: maybe the brains of forced-vax nazis were addled by the crazy chemicals in all those unnecessary vaccines they enjoy taking.

Re: Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban.

[Anonymous Coward]

The long anti-semitic screeds we sometimes see on Slashdot are shitposted by Google's PR firm. The idea is to discredit the forum and dissuade further discussion.

Since this story is not about Google, no one is going to crapflood the comments with anti-semitic copypasta.

Vaccination is just like genocide!

[XXongo]

Dude... the number of forced-vax nazis on this thread who espouse literal-Nazi policies makes it an apt comparison.

Godwin's law. Hitler!! They're like Hitler!!

bullshit.

If you want to do a Hitler comparison, they are the reverse-Hitler. Hitler was "we are going to kill all of you, men, women, and children alike". The pro vaccination people are "we are going to save your childrens' lives, even if you don't care."

And all this violently angry butthurt is over... measles? Measles! I had measles as a kid. Every kid I knew got the measles. It was a _mildly annoying_ ailment. Not in the same ballpark as polio - not even in the same league.

Read this one: https://io9.gizmodo.com/read-r...

Re:Vaccination is just like genocide!

[millennial]

Yeah, the dude you responded to is just trolling. Nearly all of his comments contain the phrase "forced-vax Nazis."

Re:Do you have right to charge for False Informati

[drainbramage]

Yes, you do have [the] right to charge for False Information.
It is sold and pushed down your throat every minute of every day via the radio, TV, intertubes, and print media.
For instance: The fake/biased/made up 'news' of Dan Rather got him and his network successfully sued several times but that didn't stop him or his network because the lies catered to a certain subset and advertisers paid dearly to have their ads pushed to that subset.
Dan Rather was not a 'news' man, rather he was just another used car sales man.
Yet he is touted as an icon. Wow.
He sure loved his Cowboy Poetry though.

Re:Do you have right to charge for False Informati

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Is that an anti-Semite there?