Well, I would say that if I lost the key to my Porsche, and because of this, I went to my workshop and created a new key. This key happens to match the key of some other random Porsche owner. The key works to start my Porsche though. Well, I would say that if Porsche bugged my car to call home and tell them what key was used in my car, and remotely disabled some other Porsche owners car because of this, they acted improperly.
"a company to protect it's assets and cash flow" is not a valid reason to behave badly.
There was a time when there were these people that lived in the Southern part of the US. These people often formed companies for their agricultural business. Well, at the time they worked very hard to protect their assets and cash flow. Today, we know that slavery was wrong, and we definitely vilify those people and companies that worked to protect their assets and cash flow.
Now, I am not suggesting that MS Windows activation is as bad as slavery, but it just goes to show that using the excuse of just trying to protect assets and cash flow is fundamentally flawed.
It may have been an example, but your example with the recommendation that a computer owner should not try to do it themselves made you sound like Nick Burns. Of course trying to bolster your image by dropping 8-bit computer names doesn't help.
I don't see where I over reacted. You made a Nick Burns style condescending remark about computer users. Your remark bragged about having the skill set of my 2 year old son, and stated that users should not try to match this skill. I just called you on it. The fact that these users expect the pages of jargon to mean something is not their failing. It is yours, when the first time you talk to them, you don't tell them that is is meaningless, and they can click through it. By not doing that, you are again reenforcing the Nick Burns image, by relying on smoke and mirrors to keep yourself looking smart.
This kind of comment always makes me nervious. I have dealt with incompetent administrators and developers all through my career. The ones who think this stuff is really hard, and that clicking through an installer means they know what they are doing, almost always have learned by rote how to accomplish some simple tasks, and don't understand the computer or the OS. Really... My two year old can install software. If a two year old can do it, it is not something that qualifies as a significant skill.
Now, you might be one of the really good administrators, as there are good administrators out there, but saying that clicking through an install wizard and refering to it as "having the knowledge and skills necessary to quickly and deftly solve problems", does not instill a whole lot of confidence.
Perhaps I misunderstood your post:
"Without them, the US would see even more off shoring of research jobs."
How would a lack of IP laws in the US create even more off shoring?
Moving research off shore to keep others from doing similar work is a delay tactic at best. The reason is that most of these products will be sold in the US, so they must enter the country eventually. Now, that argument might work for a small country that might never see the product anyway, but not the US.
You certainly have the right to make that decision, but many parents are being bullied or tricked into getting the vaccine. I come from a very different perspective with my child than you do with yours. I don't believe for a second that missing a single week of school would make any difference in the long term results of a child's education. Your not necessarily stopping your kid from being miserable for a week. Your child may well get chicken pox anyway, AND you are also risking extremely serious illness for your kid when they are an adult, to prevent a week of feeling bad as a child. I perceive my responsibility as a parent to prepare my child for a happy healthy life. The vaccine does not meet that goal as it increases the chance of chicken pox as an adult when the disease is much more serious. I also would not bat an eye at losing a week doctoring my kid. That is one of the other responsibilities I chose when I decided to have a child. I highly doubt that you cannot afford to take a week off work. It is more likely that you are not willing to give up the things you could buy with that money, and you are willing to risk your child's life to keep having those things.
No, my point isn't that some children die from the vaccination. My point is that the number of otherwise healthy children that die without the vaccination is so low as to be irrelevant. It is that the vaccination is the trading of a major childhood inconvenience for a real risk of a life threatening disease in adulthood. It is that trading the adult health of a child for a little bit of money and convenience is a bad deal.
If the vaccination only had the benefit of protecting someone from sickness, it would be a good idea. The problem is that the vaccine is delaying the sickness for many, and that delay turns an illness that is less harmful than the flu into a life threatening disease. All so that Pharma, doctors, schools, and parents can have some extra cash in in their pockets.
That is why I am against the vaccination of healthy children with the chicken pox vaccine. Adults and those with compromised immune systems are already in as much risk as they are going to be, so they should be vaccinated if they have not had the chicken pox.
Yes, it does. The second half of the CDC's reasoning for getting vaccinated likely points to the primary reason.
"Even with uncomplicated chickenpox cases, lost time from school and work and the cost of medications or treatment that may be needed can result in a significant cost for the family."
Most parents are crappy, and would gladly risk their child's life to save a few bucks. Others are sheep, and just do what they are told. Schools push for it because if a kid is out for a week with chicken pox, the school looses revenue, and the welfare of the students are not nearly as important as a consistent revenue stream. They can rest at night telling themselves that they are preventing kids from dying. They just don't risk asking what the actual odds of a kid dying of chicken pox is. The doctors are people too, and some of them just go along with what is recommended to them without asking questions. Others are also just people, and are looking after their bottom line. We see the same thing with Ritalin. Then there are people from all three groups that are just afraid to buck the status quo.
There is money to be made by doctors, pharma, schools, and parents (a penny saved is a penny earned after all) and all of them can tell themselves and each other that they doing it "for the children". Now, I have linked to the CDC and the New England Journal of Medicine to support my numbers, but you stall state "if the numbers clearly show". So, are you doubting these organizations as legitimate sources, are you just trying to be contrary, are you in denial, or do you see a different set of number being presented by sources as reliable as the CDC and New England Journal of Medicine? I don't ask you to take my word for the numbers. I would ask you to go verify my facts, and THEN if you disagree, point out where you disagree with my analysis instead of just giving a big Nuh-Uhh.
That is a good link. I do not suggest that no one gets the vaccine. Only that it be administered at a much later date. When there are real risks to the disease. Even this link states: "This economic factor is a major force in the drive for universal immunization in the United States." When we start injecting things into kids because it is cheaper, I start to ask some pointed questions, and expect honest answers. As much as the CDC is generally a very good organization, the answers they give do help in reinforcing the pro vaccination side.
A 5% loss of our adult population may be on the pessimistic side, but relying on vaccination after an outbreak would not be a viable solution. I have found no data indicating why 10 percent of the people don't gain immunity due to the vaccine, adults need shots weeks apart from each other to gain immunity, and immunity does not happen immediately. Given these factors, by the time an outbreak happens, it is too late.
The reason I don't count the non-football players in the football death count is because football players are the only ones exposed to the risk of playing football. Chicken pox is a game that 100% of the population must play whether they want to or not. As for the hospitalizations... I didn't count the hospitalization of football players either. So, while the population as a whole MIGHT get a negligibly greater protection from the chicken pox vaccine, any single individual will get far greater protection by choosing not to play high school football. Of course the problem with statistics is coming to a common agreement as to what data is important. Either way, high school football is still in the same league for danger as not being vaccinated for chicken pox, yet I don't hear the suggestion that schools universally shut down their football programs.
Even the CDC is uses the risk of death and saving money as the two reasons to get your kid vaccinated. It is clear that the risk of death is FUD, and it is a little scary that large portions of the population are trading a major childhood incontinence for a risk of death as an adult to save a little money. I will give a pass to the very poor who really cannot take the time off to care for their child (although people having children they cannot afford is an entirely different debate.), but for those of us that can afford it, the questions to the CDC and doctors should be a lot harder.
"but let's remember, there may very well be concerns that those unfamiliar from the issue may not be aware of."
Doctors and the CDC are regularly telling parents that risk of death and money are the reasons to get your kids vaccinated. If the reason is something else, then they are lying, and we should not trust them. Would you really trust a doctor that was suggesting a medical procedure for reasons you knew were invalid?
"of course, it could come to pass that they "experts" were payed off by pharma -- but that would make them NOT scientists in my book. surely some "experts" shouldn't be trusted."
Of course that is exactly the point that all of these naysayers in the weather debate say.
"any way, you seem intent on debating the vaccine issue. not that i don't trust you, but again, i must defer trust to someone who has studied a subject rather than a poster on/."
The reason I use the vaccine issue as an example is because the numbers are easily available, and the numbers published by the pro-vaccine side can be clearly seen to show that the vaccine is a bad idea for small children, yet you will be hard pressed to find a single pediatrician that recommends against the vaccine. It clearly shows that being called an 'expert' doesn't mean you are right. In fact, most 'experts' are people, and people have a tendency to go along with the majority. If you want to easily see the numbers, just follow the thread I linked to originally. It has links to the CDC and New England Journal of Medicine that confirm the numbers I put out.
"as i said, the "experts" in this case may be shills, and you could hold a phd in public health policy. of course, if i were to learn of this, i would trust you over the "experts" in this case -- but really, all that would have happened is that it turned out YOU were the actual expert."
I do not have a PHD. That is exactly my point. As an average joe on Slashdot, I can look at the data and see that those with PHDs are clearly wrong. Of course, I don't have to worry about being completely discredited in my field if I point out that the Emperor has no clothes, so I am in a better position to point out the 2+2 does not equal 7.
The immunization is just a verifiable example of an *overwhelmingly majority* of scientists agreeing on an issue, yet still being wrong. Sometimes you really are the only one in the room with the right answer, and unless people are willing to stand up and say 'Wait a minute. That doesn't add up.' we are in very big trouble.
So, again. The reason that people question these things is because they have seen the experts be wrong enough times that they know better than to just take their word for it.
I didn't find any specific numbers about re-infection, but we know it is extremely rare with infection/immunity, and the documentation that 2 different pediatricians gave me both stated that frequently the children will still get the pox, but with much milder symptoms. We also know that given only 12 years of immunization data, we have no idea what is going to happen with this in the long run. This means that even when immunized there is a countable chance that you are not actually immune, and as less and less of the virus is around, the chances of you getting infected as an adult become greater and greater.
I would say that the doctors are not even giving good advice on an individual level. Given that the chances of immunization saving you from death are 1 in 3,000,000 it can be effectively considered a useless procedure for the purposes of protection. If half of the effort that is put into convincing parents to get their kids vaccinated was put into stopping just high school football, we would see far greater results, given that a child who plays high school football is in the range of 100 times more likely to die. I also dispute that a pediatrician that recommends a procedure today that has a greater chance of killing the child as an adult than it does in saving the child as a child, is not doing their job. Remember, we are talking about a less than 1 in 3,000,000 mortality rate. This is almost identical to the number of people that die of lightning strikes each year.
Given that the number of deaths each year due to lack of immunization for chicken pox is less than 100, there is clearly some other factors involved.
I just looked up another piece of information. Per the CDC, one in ten people who have the vaccine end up with chicken pox anyway. From this link you can also see how an unrealistic fear of death, and the desire to save some money are the two factors being used to convince parents to get their small children vaccinated instead of waiting until they reach the age of 13 or 14 when the risk of the vaccine would equal out to the risk of not being vaccinated. Can you think of even one other medical procedure that only has a 1 in 3 million chance of saving your life, a 1 in 10 chance of failure, and increases the likelihood of adult death that we try to mandate?
Remember, the reason people haven't been dying in droves form chicken pox is because we almost all got it as children when it is not even close to being as dangerous as the flu, who's yearly death toll is estimated as ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 annually. So, lets say the immunization continues, and the amount of chicken pox in the wild decreases dramatically due to immunization. This would lead to the 10% of the population that the vaccine fails on being susceptible to the virus. With the reduced amount of wild chicken pox, these people are far more likely to reach adulthood before they run into the pox. So, even in the best case scenario, with us not needing a booster, we are faced with the eventual point where 10% of our adult population is not immune to an extremely contagious, air born, deadly disease. If we get to that point, and an outbreak occurs, we are royally screwed. If 10% of our population goes down, there won't be enough hospital beds to treat them. I highly doubt that our infrastructure could handle 10% of our population not being well enough to work for 2 or 3 weeks. The mortality rates among those that end up infected would skyrocket as the medical community wouldn't have the resources to treat them. If only half of them die from the disease, we are screwed in the long term, as it would take generations to recover from a 5% loss of our population in just one year. This isn't even counting the hysteria and violence that would ensue when people could start counting the number of neighbors that have died that year from the pox.
Yes, this sounds bad, and might never come to pass, but it isn't entirely unlikely either. The chicken pox vaccine is a little like making sure your kid doesn't get a steam burn by sealing up the holes in your tea kettle. Remember, we are talking about a mortality rate of 88 out of 300,000,000.
I really hope so, but that doesn't change the point of my post. The 'experts' are lying to the population. They are massivly over stating the risk. So, if medical 'experts' are willing to lie to us about vaccinations, it makes sense that we should question the environmental 'experts'. I can't think of any reason that we should believe that environmentalists are somehow inherently better than doctors.
The reason is because we have see the 'experts' being wrong all the time. A perfect example is the debate I was having just yesterday on the chicken pox vaccine. The experts will tell you how important it is to have your child vaccinated for chicken pox. They will tell you that it is important in reducing the mortality rate from chicken pox. What they don't tell you is that in the 12 years we have been using the vaccine, the average yearly drop in deaths has been 88. Not 88 per thousand. 88 in the entire US with a population of 300,000,000. What they will tell you is that the vaccine might need to have a booster shot administered in 20 years. What they leave out is that 18-25 year olds are massivly under insured, and prone to taking very high risks. What they conveniently leave out is that if a booster does end up needing to be administered, we could end up half of our adult population susceptible to a life threatening pox that is highly contagious and air born.
To put this in perspective, the number of deaths due to high school football averages to 30 a year. Given the dramatically lower exposure to playing high school football compared to chicken pox, the risk of death due to allowing your child to play football is in the rage of 100 times that of not getting vaccinated.
Now, I don't expect you to take my word for it. Go look up the numbers for yourself. Then go ask a bunch of 'experts' whether the vaccine is important or not. When you are done, you will understand why so many people feel they are qualified to argue with 'experts'. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a hundred times, shame on me.
I'm not saying your wrong here, but a warning flag to be skeptical comes up when it is suggested that an autonomous robot is a cheaper way to get a temperature than a thermometer on the end of a cable, or a thermometer hooked to a radio transmitter. Feel free to let me know what I am missing that makes high pressure autonomous robots cheaper.
I would say that the number of kitchen fires every year contradict your point.
On a more serious note, we already have computers that are appliances. They are call DVD players, CD players, TVs, Alarm Clocks, Coffee makers, and yes, sometimes toasters. The reason that computers will never be built like appliances is that when it is, it is no longer called a computer. Just look at the mythical "Video Game Crash". People will argue all day long that all the people shifting to full fledged personal computers don't count as video games because a console is not a computer. Now a rational person knows that it is. The Atari 2600 had computer right on the box. It even had a retail programming language available. Unfortunately, rational people are in the minority, and don't necessarily get to pick the definitions of words. So, until you can convince most people to consider their TV that has a more powerful CPU than any PC of the early to mid 80's, a computer, it will be physically impossible to make the PC into an appliance. Heck, you could start by just convincing people to consider their game console a computer.
Go get 5 dictionaries that predate the "Dan Quayle" incident, and look up the word "potatoe". Then do a search on "Sweet Potatoe". You will find that Dan Quayle wasn't so bad of a speller after all. You will also have to start questioning your own ability to spell, as well as that of every news reporter of the time.
I know you will say "But sweet potatoe is a different word". Well, sweet is the adjective that is used with the noun potatoe. it shows an area where the language cleansing failed to notice the un-wording of potatoe.
I know it doesn't really matter, but the removal of potatoe as a correct spelling for the purposes of discrediting a political figure is as 1984 as you can get.
I'm am insisting on proceeding from the assumption that we know what the best case scenario of the chicken pox vaccine is. That would be 88 less deaths a year. A number that is close enough to high school football deaths as to be considered the same. The difference between 88 out of 300,000,000 and 30 out of 300,000,000 is statistically insignificant. Of course while we do know the best case scenario, what we don't have data on is the worst case scenario.
I would go so far as to say the benefits are so low as to count as none. So, given that there is no increase in risk of death by skipping the vaccine, but as you said, we have no data on how much we might have increased the risk to these kids by giving it to them, the obvious correct action is to only give the vaccine to those who have not been naturally immunized by adulthood.
The risk/benefit comes down to this: Saving the lives of approximately 88 out of 300,000,000 people vs. a small chance of mid double digit death rate 20 or 30 years later.
Of course, it is just as silly to believe that the vaccine is effective over time just because the possibility exists as it is to believe that is ineffective for the same reason.
Here is a good rule of thumb. Hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, and don't hope for the best and crapping your pants when it doesn't work out. I know what to do if we stop immunizing young children. We continue on with no effect to society, and likely never even meeting a single person who knows anyone who died of chicken pox. Even if the chance of the vaccine not being permanent is one in a million, we are swapping the risk of one life for that of millions with the same odds. Do you know what we should do if 50% of our adult population is not immune to chicken pox, and an outbreak takes off?
(A little off topic though, while I based my decision to opt out of the vaccine for my child based on the pro vaccine literature I received from a couple of different pediatricians, this thread has prompted me to do more in depth research into the subject, and has changed my argument from "all the literature from the pediatrician boils down to, you can save some money, and have less hassle" to "the chances of death, or even serious complications are low enough to not even count, so the vaccine adds risk (no matter how negligible) with no benefit". It allows me to dismiss any parent who lets their kid play football and argues for the vaccine as a hypocrite, or totally ignorant of the risks they subject their kids to. It is comforting to know that homeschooling my child will decrease his chances of death by a magnitude more than getting the vaccine. So, the thread has been worth while. I came out of it with more information than I went in.)
Did you even read your source? YOUR source said that there were 88 less deaths per year in the entire US. That is 88 people out of 300,000,000. When someone says that you have a 1 in a million chance, they are talking about this. That 1 in a million is even including those who are severely ill with other things, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems, and whatnot. The reason there was a 92% drop in childhood deaths is because a child dying of chicken pox is so rare that 1 less death shows up as a huge percentage. Using percentages with such low numbers is the "desperate" argument. Here are some death numbers to ponder before claiming that the chicken pox vaccine is even worthy of notice:
The numbers of possible lives saved by this vaccine is so low as to be under the radar. You could get almost half as good results by just banning high school football. Heck, you could get just as good results by having 10% of the current school kids moving to home schooling. Using risk of death by chicken pox as an excuse for the vaccine is simply FUD, so that the parents who don't want to take a week off work can feel good about their decision. It is also entirely possible that the numbers of deaths due to chicken pox has actually been increased dramatically, but pushed off for 20 years. Ask your pediatrician. They will tell you that the vaccine might not last into adulthood, and we all know how much worse that will be.
So, if you are really interested in reducing the risk of death for your child, you would take your kid to a pox party, and start home schooling immediately. Heck, just not letting your kid play football is better protection than the chick pox vaccine.
The risk of your child dying for being driven to the park is greater than the risk of dying from chicken pox. If you don't advocate the banning of driving children to the park, you are clearly just trying to spread FUD. While it would be nice for parents to have their kid boostered at 17, it is unlikely to happen with the vast majority of the population. Much more appropriate would be to give the kids their initial vaccination at ~13. This would put their booster at an age where they are far more likely to be able to afford it AND reduce the likelihood of adults getting chicken pox over what we are faced with having semi-mandatory childhood vaccination.
The real truth, though, is that there is no chance that chicken pox is going to go away because of vaccinations. Vaccinated kids get chicken pox all the time. The chicken pox vaccine is not the polio vaccine. It simply is not as effective, and the polio vaccine doesn't run out. Not to mention that polio doesn't keep getting worse the longer you put it off.
The chicken pox vaccine has been available for 12 years. In the rush to save some money, and not have to bother caring for our kids, we have taken a very big risk. A much more practical solution would have been to, as I said earlier, vaccinate at ~13. This is when you would start to see the disease get much more risky. So, the risk due to putting off infection would be similar to the risk of getting vaccinated. Then, after we had real data on whether or not boosters were needed, we could CONSIDER vaccinating earlier.
So, your reference confirms it is an inconvenience for kids. You use adult cases as a reason to vaccinate small children instead of adults and point out shingles, which a person who has been vaccinated can get. Then suggest that it is somehow bad not to risk a plague because my child might come into contact with an adult who chose not to be vaccinated. You seem very aware of the risks of getting chicken pox at an older age, so it baffles me why you would want to increase the chances of that happening to people. I also can't figure out why you would be worried about my child being contagious if you have vaccinated yours.
"I don't know anyone who does aside from kids who feel it's too limiting."
I do. I have a problem with this attitude that someone who is 16 is a "kid". As for opting out, as long as we can, that is fine. I have opted out of the chicken pox vaccine for my child, and have not had any problems so far. We haven't tried enrolling him in school yet, so I still don't know how that will go. It may not matter though, as he is most likely going to need to be home schooled anyway.
I hear you... The one that has been getting at me is the chicken pox vaccine. Having a 2 year old, I have recently been through all of the literature on this particular vaccine. The rational for it seems to boil down to "it will save you money, and be less of a hassle". They make sure to let you know that since the vaccine isn't really that old, your kid might need to get a booster in 16 to 18 years. This would be a minor inconvenience to save some of them from getting chicken pox as a kid. After all, we all know that the 18-25 year old set are some of the most future thinking, least risk taking, and most well insured people on the planet, right?
It seems asinine to me that a vaccine is being almost universally pushed that trades a major childhood inconvenience for a chance at a life threating adult illness. We better hope that a booster shot is not necessary after 16-20 years, or we are sitting on the verge of an honest to goodness plague.
The internal combustion engine was a very good invention. It has just been kept around much longer than it should have, and has been used in much higher quantities than it should.
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Well, I would say that if I lost the key to my Porsche, and because of this, I went to my workshop and created a new key. This key happens to match the key of some other random Porsche owner. The key works to start my Porsche though. Well, I would say that if Porsche bugged my car to call home and tell them what key was used in my car, and remotely disabled some other Porsche owners car because of this, they acted improperly.
"a company to protect it's assets and cash flow" is not a valid reason to behave badly.
There was a time when there were these people that lived in the Southern part of the US. These people often formed companies for their agricultural business. Well, at the time they worked very hard to protect their assets and cash flow. Today, we know that slavery was wrong, and we definitely vilify those people and companies that worked to protect their assets and cash flow.
Now, I am not suggesting that MS Windows activation is as bad as slavery, but it just goes to show that using the excuse of just trying to protect assets and cash flow is fundamentally flawed.
It may have been an example, but your example with the recommendation that a computer owner should not try to do it themselves made you sound like Nick Burns. Of course trying to bolster your image by dropping 8-bit computer names doesn't help.
I don't see where I over reacted. You made a Nick Burns style condescending remark about computer users. Your remark bragged about having the skill set of my 2 year old son, and stated that users should not try to match this skill. I just called you on it. The fact that these users expect the pages of jargon to mean something is not their failing. It is yours, when the first time you talk to them, you don't tell them that is is meaningless, and they can click through it. By not doing that, you are again reenforcing the Nick Burns image, by relying on smoke and mirrors to keep yourself looking smart.
This kind of comment always makes me nervious. I have dealt with incompetent administrators and developers all through my career. The ones who think this stuff is really hard, and that clicking through an installer means they know what they are doing, almost always have learned by rote how to accomplish some simple tasks, and don't understand the computer or the OS. Really... My two year old can install software. If a two year old can do it, it is not something that qualifies as a significant skill.
Now, you might be one of the really good administrators, as there are good administrators out there, but saying that clicking through an install wizard and refering to it as "having the knowledge and skills necessary to quickly and deftly solve problems", does not instill a whole lot of confidence.
I don't know, I just wanted to run my Lotus Domino server on it.
Perhaps I misunderstood your post: "Without them, the US would see even more off shoring of research jobs." How would a lack of IP laws in the US create even more off shoring?
Moving research off shore to keep others from doing similar work is a delay tactic at best. The reason is that most of these products will be sold in the US, so they must enter the country eventually. Now, that argument might work for a small country that might never see the product anyway, but not the US.
You certainly have the right to make that decision, but many parents are being bullied or tricked into getting the vaccine. I come from a very different perspective with my child than you do with yours. I don't believe for a second that missing a single week of school would make any difference in the long term results of a child's education. Your not necessarily stopping your kid from being miserable for a week. Your child may well get chicken pox anyway, AND you are also risking extremely serious illness for your kid when they are an adult, to prevent a week of feeling bad as a child. I perceive my responsibility as a parent to prepare my child for a happy healthy life. The vaccine does not meet that goal as it increases the chance of chicken pox as an adult when the disease is much more serious. I also would not bat an eye at losing a week doctoring my kid. That is one of the other responsibilities I chose when I decided to have a child. I highly doubt that you cannot afford to take a week off work. It is more likely that you are not willing to give up the things you could buy with that money, and you are willing to risk your child's life to keep having those things.
No, my point isn't that some children die from the vaccination. My point is that the number of otherwise healthy children that die without the vaccination is so low as to be irrelevant. It is that the vaccination is the trading of a major childhood inconvenience for a real risk of a life threatening disease in adulthood. It is that trading the adult health of a child for a little bit of money and convenience is a bad deal.
If the vaccination only had the benefit of protecting someone from sickness, it would be a good idea. The problem is that the vaccine is delaying the sickness for many, and that delay turns an illness that is less harmful than the flu into a life threatening disease. All so that Pharma, doctors, schools, and parents can have some extra cash in in their pockets.
That is why I am against the vaccination of healthy children with the chicken pox vaccine. Adults and those with compromised immune systems are already in as much risk as they are going to be, so they should be vaccinated if they have not had the chicken pox.
Yes, it does. The second half of the CDC's reasoning for getting vaccinated likely points to the primary reason.
"Even with uncomplicated chickenpox cases, lost time from school and work and the cost of medications or treatment that may be needed can result in a significant cost for the family."
Most parents are crappy, and would gladly risk their child's life to save a few bucks. Others are sheep, and just do what they are told. Schools push for it because if a kid is out for a week with chicken pox, the school looses revenue, and the welfare of the students are not nearly as important as a consistent revenue stream. They can rest at night telling themselves that they are preventing kids from dying. They just don't risk asking what the actual odds of a kid dying of chicken pox is. The doctors are people too, and some of them just go along with what is recommended to them without asking questions. Others are also just people, and are looking after their bottom line. We see the same thing with Ritalin. Then there are people from all three groups that are just afraid to buck the status quo.
There is money to be made by doctors, pharma, schools, and parents (a penny saved is a penny earned after all) and all of them can tell themselves and each other that they doing it "for the children". Now, I have linked to the CDC and the New England Journal of Medicine to support my numbers, but you stall state "if the numbers clearly show". So, are you doubting these organizations as legitimate sources, are you just trying to be contrary, are you in denial, or do you see a different set of number being presented by sources as reliable as the CDC and New England Journal of Medicine? I don't ask you to take my word for the numbers. I would ask you to go verify my facts, and THEN if you disagree, point out where you disagree with my analysis instead of just giving a big Nuh-Uhh.
That is a good link. I do not suggest that no one gets the vaccine. Only that it be administered at a much later date. When there are real risks to the disease. Even this link states: "This economic factor is a major force in the drive for universal immunization in the United States." When we start injecting things into kids because it is cheaper, I start to ask some pointed questions, and expect honest answers. As much as the CDC is generally a very good organization, the answers they give do help in reinforcing the pro vaccination side.
A 5% loss of our adult population may be on the pessimistic side, but relying on vaccination after an outbreak would not be a viable solution. I have found no data indicating why 10 percent of the people don't gain immunity due to the vaccine, adults need shots weeks apart from each other to gain immunity, and immunity does not happen immediately. Given these factors, by the time an outbreak happens, it is too late.
The reason I don't count the non-football players in the football death count is because football players are the only ones exposed to the risk of playing football. Chicken pox is a game that 100% of the population must play whether they want to or not. As for the hospitalizations... I didn't count the hospitalization of football players either. So, while the population as a whole MIGHT get a negligibly greater protection from the chicken pox vaccine, any single individual will get far greater protection by choosing not to play high school football. Of course the problem with statistics is coming to a common agreement as to what data is important. Either way, high school football is still in the same league for danger as not being vaccinated for chicken pox, yet I don't hear the suggestion that schools universally shut down their football programs.
Even the CDC is uses the risk of death and saving money as the two reasons to get your kid vaccinated. It is clear that the risk of death is FUD, and it is a little scary that large portions of the population are trading a major childhood incontinence for a risk of death as an adult to save a little money. I will give a pass to the very poor who really cannot take the time off to care for their child (although people having children they cannot afford is an entirely different debate.), but for those of us that can afford it, the questions to the CDC and doctors should be a lot harder.
"but let's remember, there may very well be concerns that those unfamiliar from the issue may not be aware of."
/."
Doctors and the CDC are regularly telling parents that risk of death and money are the reasons to get your kids vaccinated. If the reason is something else, then they are lying, and we should not trust them. Would you really trust a doctor that was suggesting a medical procedure for reasons you knew were invalid?
"of course, it could come to pass that they "experts" were payed off by pharma -- but that would make them NOT scientists in my book. surely some "experts" shouldn't be trusted."
Of course that is exactly the point that all of these naysayers in the weather debate say.
"any way, you seem intent on debating the vaccine issue. not that i don't trust you, but again, i must defer trust to someone who has studied a subject rather than a poster on
The reason I use the vaccine issue as an example is because the numbers are easily available, and the numbers published by the pro-vaccine side can be clearly seen to show that the vaccine is a bad idea for small children, yet you will be hard pressed to find a single pediatrician that recommends against the vaccine. It clearly shows that being called an 'expert' doesn't mean you are right. In fact, most 'experts' are people, and people have a tendency to go along with the majority. If you want to easily see the numbers, just follow the thread I linked to originally. It has links to the CDC and New England Journal of Medicine that confirm the numbers I put out.
"as i said, the "experts" in this case may be shills, and you could hold a phd in public health policy. of course, if i were to learn of this, i would trust you over the "experts" in this case -- but really, all that would have happened is that it turned out YOU were the actual expert."
I do not have a PHD. That is exactly my point. As an average joe on Slashdot, I can look at the data and see that those with PHDs are clearly wrong. Of course, I don't have to worry about being completely discredited in my field if I point out that the Emperor has no clothes, so I am in a better position to point out the 2+2 does not equal 7.
The immunization is just a verifiable example of an *overwhelmingly majority* of scientists agreeing on an issue, yet still being wrong. Sometimes you really are the only one in the room with the right answer, and unless people are willing to stand up and say 'Wait a minute. That doesn't add up.' we are in very big trouble.
So, again. The reason that people question these things is because they have seen the experts be wrong enough times that they know better than to just take their word for it.
I didn't find any specific numbers about re-infection, but we know it is extremely rare with infection/immunity, and the documentation that 2 different pediatricians gave me both stated that frequently the children will still get the pox, but with much milder symptoms. We also know that given only 12 years of immunization data, we have no idea what is going to happen with this in the long run. This means that even when immunized there is a countable chance that you are not actually immune, and as less and less of the virus is around, the chances of you getting infected as an adult become greater and greater.
I would say that the doctors are not even giving good advice on an individual level. Given that the chances of immunization saving you from death are 1 in 3,000,000 it can be effectively considered a useless procedure for the purposes of protection. If half of the effort that is put into convincing parents to get their kids vaccinated was put into stopping just high school football, we would see far greater results, given that a child who plays high school football is in the range of 100 times more likely to die. I also dispute that a pediatrician that recommends a procedure today that has a greater chance of killing the child as an adult than it does in saving the child as a child, is not doing their job. Remember, we are talking about a less than 1 in 3,000,000 mortality rate. This is almost identical to the number of people that die of lightning strikes each year.
Given that the number of deaths each year due to lack of immunization for chicken pox is less than 100, there is clearly some other factors involved.
I just looked up another piece of information. Per the CDC, one in ten people who have the vaccine end up with chicken pox anyway. From this link you can also see how an unrealistic fear of death, and the desire to save some money are the two factors being used to convince parents to get their small children vaccinated instead of waiting until they reach the age of 13 or 14 when the risk of the vaccine would equal out to the risk of not being vaccinated. Can you think of even one other medical procedure that only has a 1 in 3 million chance of saving your life, a 1 in 10 chance of failure, and increases the likelihood of adult death that we try to mandate?
Remember, the reason people haven't been dying in droves form chicken pox is because we almost all got it as children when it is not even close to being as dangerous as the flu, who's yearly death toll is estimated as ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 annually. So, lets say the immunization continues, and the amount of chicken pox in the wild decreases dramatically due to immunization. This would lead to the 10% of the population that the vaccine fails on being susceptible to the virus. With the reduced amount of wild chicken pox, these people are far more likely to reach adulthood before they run into the pox. So, even in the best case scenario, with us not needing a booster, we are faced with the eventual point where 10% of our adult population is not immune to an extremely contagious, air born, deadly disease. If we get to that point, and an outbreak occurs, we are royally screwed. If 10% of our population goes down, there won't be enough hospital beds to treat them. I highly doubt that our infrastructure could handle 10% of our population not being well enough to work for 2 or 3 weeks. The mortality rates among those that end up infected would skyrocket as the medical community wouldn't have the resources to treat them. If only half of them die from the disease, we are screwed in the long term, as it would take generations to recover from a 5% loss of our population in just one year. This isn't even counting the hysteria and violence that would ensue when people could start counting the number of neighbors that have died that year from the pox.
Yes, this sounds bad, and might never come to pass, but it isn't entirely unlikely either. The chicken pox vaccine is a little like making sure your kid doesn't get a steam burn by sealing up the holes in your tea kettle. Remember, we are talking about a mortality rate of 88 out of 300,000,000.
I really hope so, but that doesn't change the point of my post. The 'experts' are lying to the population. They are massivly over stating the risk. So, if medical 'experts' are willing to lie to us about vaccinations, it makes sense that we should question the environmental 'experts'. I can't think of any reason that we should believe that environmentalists are somehow inherently better than doctors.
That makes sense. I'm not prepared to take it as fact, but it does fall into the 'mostly likely to be true' category when you point that out.
The reason is because we have see the 'experts' being wrong all the time. A perfect example is the debate I was having just yesterday on the chicken pox vaccine. The experts will tell you how important it is to have your child vaccinated for chicken pox. They will tell you that it is important in reducing the mortality rate from chicken pox. What they don't tell you is that in the 12 years we have been using the vaccine, the average yearly drop in deaths has been 88. Not 88 per thousand. 88 in the entire US with a population of 300,000,000. What they will tell you is that the vaccine might need to have a booster shot administered in 20 years. What they leave out is that 18-25 year olds are massivly under insured, and prone to taking very high risks. What they conveniently leave out is that if a booster does end up needing to be administered, we could end up half of our adult population susceptible to a life threatening pox that is highly contagious and air born.
To put this in perspective, the number of deaths due to high school football averages to 30 a year. Given the dramatically lower exposure to playing high school football compared to chicken pox, the risk of death due to allowing your child to play football is in the rage of 100 times that of not getting vaccinated.
Now, I don't expect you to take my word for it. Go look up the numbers for yourself. Then go ask a bunch of 'experts' whether the vaccine is important or not. When you are done, you will understand why so many people feel they are qualified to argue with 'experts'. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a hundred times, shame on me.
I'm not saying your wrong here, but a warning flag to be skeptical comes up when it is suggested that an autonomous robot is a cheaper way to get a temperature than a thermometer on the end of a cable, or a thermometer hooked to a radio transmitter. Feel free to let me know what I am missing that makes high pressure autonomous robots cheaper.
I would say that the number of kitchen fires every year contradict your point.
On a more serious note, we already have computers that are appliances. They are call DVD players, CD players, TVs, Alarm Clocks, Coffee makers, and yes, sometimes toasters. The reason that computers will never be built like appliances is that when it is, it is no longer called a computer. Just look at the mythical "Video Game Crash". People will argue all day long that all the people shifting to full fledged personal computers don't count as video games because a console is not a computer. Now a rational person knows that it is. The Atari 2600 had computer right on the box. It even had a retail programming language available. Unfortunately, rational people are in the minority, and don't necessarily get to pick the definitions of words. So, until you can convince most people to consider their TV that has a more powerful CPU than any PC of the early to mid 80's, a computer, it will be physically impossible to make the PC into an appliance. Heck, you could start by just convincing people to consider their game console a computer.
Go get 5 dictionaries that predate the "Dan Quayle" incident, and look up the word "potatoe". Then do a search on "Sweet Potatoe". You will find that Dan Quayle wasn't so bad of a speller after all. You will also have to start questioning your own ability to spell, as well as that of every news reporter of the time.
I know you will say "But sweet potatoe is a different word". Well, sweet is the adjective that is used with the noun potatoe. it shows an area where the language cleansing failed to notice the un-wording of potatoe.
I know it doesn't really matter, but the removal of potatoe as a correct spelling for the purposes of discrediting a political figure is as 1984 as you can get.
I'm am insisting on proceeding from the assumption that we know what the best case scenario of the chicken pox vaccine is. That would be 88 less deaths a year. A number that is close enough to high school football deaths as to be considered the same. The difference between 88 out of 300,000,000 and 30 out of 300,000,000 is statistically insignificant. Of course while we do know the best case scenario, what we don't have data on is the worst case scenario.
I would go so far as to say the benefits are so low as to count as none. So, given that there is no increase in risk of death by skipping the vaccine, but as you said, we have no data on how much we might have increased the risk to these kids by giving it to them, the obvious correct action is to only give the vaccine to those who have not been naturally immunized by adulthood.
The risk/benefit comes down to this: Saving the lives of approximately 88 out of 300,000,000 people vs. a small chance of mid double digit death rate 20 or 30 years later.
Of course, it is just as silly to believe that the vaccine is effective over time just because the possibility exists as it is to believe that is ineffective for the same reason.
Here is a good rule of thumb. Hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, and don't hope for the best and crapping your pants when it doesn't work out. I know what to do if we stop immunizing young children. We continue on with no effect to society, and likely never even meeting a single person who knows anyone who died of chicken pox. Even if the chance of the vaccine not being permanent is one in a million, we are swapping the risk of one life for that of millions with the same odds. Do you know what we should do if 50% of our adult population is not immune to chicken pox, and an outbreak takes off?
(A little off topic though, while I based my decision to opt out of the vaccine for my child based on the pro vaccine literature I received from a couple of different pediatricians, this thread has prompted me to do more in depth research into the subject, and has changed my argument from "all the literature from the pediatrician boils down to, you can save some money, and have less hassle" to "the chances of death, or even serious complications are low enough to not even count, so the vaccine adds risk (no matter how negligible) with no benefit". It allows me to dismiss any parent who lets their kid play football and argues for the vaccine as a hypocrite, or totally ignorant of the risks they subject their kids to. It is comforting to know that homeschooling my child will decrease his chances of death by a magnitude more than getting the vaccine. So, the thread has been worth while. I came out of it with more information than I went in.)
Did you even read your source? YOUR source said that there were 88 less deaths per year in the entire US. That is 88 people out of 300,000,000. When someone says that you have a 1 in a million chance, they are talking about this. That 1 in a million is even including those who are severely ill with other things, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems, and whatnot. The reason there was a 92% drop in childhood deaths is because a child dying of chicken pox is so rare that 1 less death shows up as a huge percentage. Using percentages with such low numbers is the "desperate" argument. Here are some death numbers to ponder before claiming that the chicken pox vaccine is even worthy of notice:
Estimated deaths due to no chicken pox vaccine: 88
Deaths due to lightning strike: 82
Alzheimer's: 60,000
Assault: 17,500
Driving: 40,000
Flying: 200
High School Football: 30
Traveling to and from school: 800
The numbers of possible lives saved by this vaccine is so low as to be under the radar. You could get almost half as good results by just banning high school football. Heck, you could get just as good results by having 10% of the current school kids moving to home schooling. Using risk of death by chicken pox as an excuse for the vaccine is simply FUD, so that the parents who don't want to take a week off work can feel good about their decision. It is also entirely possible that the numbers of deaths due to chicken pox has actually been increased dramatically, but pushed off for 20 years. Ask your pediatrician. They will tell you that the vaccine might not last into adulthood, and we all know how much worse that will be.
So, if you are really interested in reducing the risk of death for your child, you would take your kid to a pox party, and start home schooling immediately. Heck, just not letting your kid play football is better protection than the chick pox vaccine.
The risk of your child dying for being driven to the park is greater than the risk of dying from chicken pox. If you don't advocate the banning of driving children to the park, you are clearly just trying to spread FUD. While it would be nice for parents to have their kid boostered at 17, it is unlikely to happen with the vast majority of the population. Much more appropriate would be to give the kids their initial vaccination at ~13. This would put their booster at an age where they are far more likely to be able to afford it AND reduce the likelihood of adults getting chicken pox over what we are faced with having semi-mandatory childhood vaccination.
The real truth, though, is that there is no chance that chicken pox is going to go away because of vaccinations. Vaccinated kids get chicken pox all the time. The chicken pox vaccine is not the polio vaccine. It simply is not as effective, and the polio vaccine doesn't run out. Not to mention that polio doesn't keep getting worse the longer you put it off.
The chicken pox vaccine has been available for 12 years. In the rush to save some money, and not have to bother caring for our kids, we have taken a very big risk. A much more practical solution would have been to, as I said earlier, vaccinate at ~13. This is when you would start to see the disease get much more risky. So, the risk due to putting off infection would be similar to the risk of getting vaccinated. Then, after we had real data on whether or not boosters were needed, we could CONSIDER vaccinating earlier.
So, your reference confirms it is an inconvenience for kids. You use adult cases as a reason to vaccinate small children instead of adults and point out shingles, which a person who has been vaccinated can get. Then suggest that it is somehow bad not to risk a plague because my child might come into contact with an adult who chose not to be vaccinated. You seem very aware of the risks of getting chicken pox at an older age, so it baffles me why you would want to increase the chances of that happening to people. I also can't figure out why you would be worried about my child being contagious if you have vaccinated yours.
"I don't know anyone who does aside from kids who feel it's too limiting."
I do. I have a problem with this attitude that someone who is 16 is a "kid". As for opting out, as long as we can, that is fine. I have opted out of the chicken pox vaccine for my child, and have not had any problems so far. We haven't tried enrolling him in school yet, so I still don't know how that will go. It may not matter though, as he is most likely going to need to be home schooled anyway.
I hear you... The one that has been getting at me is the chicken pox vaccine. Having a 2 year old, I have recently been through all of the literature on this particular vaccine. The rational for it seems to boil down to "it will save you money, and be less of a hassle". They make sure to let you know that since the vaccine isn't really that old, your kid might need to get a booster in 16 to 18 years. This would be a minor inconvenience to save some of them from getting chicken pox as a kid. After all, we all know that the 18-25 year old set are some of the most future thinking, least risk taking, and most well insured people on the planet, right?
It seems asinine to me that a vaccine is being almost universally pushed that trades a major childhood inconvenience for a chance at a life threating adult illness. We better hope that a booster shot is not necessary after 16-20 years, or we are sitting on the verge of an honest to goodness plague.
The internal combustion engine was a very good invention. It has just been kept around much longer than it should have, and has been used in much higher quantities than it should.