If you have a crowd of credible amateurs giving your product exposure in a new medium with excellent youth market penetration, the best thing to do is shut it down. After all, they should be re-imbursing the labels for...um...the free product advertising?
Oh, wait, that's actually a terrible idea. And from those peerless innovators in the recording industry - who knew?
The reality of a Lodge meeting is that we have a business meeting, grouse about the price of postage for our newsletter[...]
Of course, those with the super secret information, thankfully available on a wide assortment of Internet sites and homemade magazines, know that "business" is a Masonic codeword for "domination of the world's governments."
See, you just can't slip anything by a dedicated conspiracy theorist armed with a vast amount of unverifiable "information!"
Of course, the opposite of "Funny" isn't "Off-topic," so it's still a bad moderation since the post refers, at least, to the topic.
"Off-topic" is more like "Wikipedia requiring credentials? How about the Bush administration's persistent disregard for [fill in the blank and add the blog link of your choice]?"
Unfunny comments should either be left alone or modded "Overrated" (assuming they've already been +modded).
But seriously, I'm sure they ship them flat specifically so that they CAN read them.
It was stiff enough that it appeared to have never been closed. I think this is innocuous: there's no way to distinguish passports when they're closed, and they certainly don't want to send them to the wrong person, so this is probably to facilitate sorting. There's certainly no reason for the government to scan them as they travel through the mail; they already know you have a passport, and they're already tracking the package via the USPS tracking system.
I'd say that so long as they don't have the same weak-key problem (or similar) as UK passports, who cares? The issue isn't reading my passport when it's in the mail. The issue is reading my passport when it's on me, and knowing things about me that you can use for pretexting etc.
I'm curious about the encryption as well. Any ideas where to find an RFID reader and test this out?
Not sure all the SHOUTING is necessary, but I was replying specifically to a question about what the effect would be of going through immigration without working RFID. I wasn't referring to the potential of compromise at all, in fact.
They made the change sometime in January. Easy to tell; there's a little gold symbol under the words, "of America" on the front cover that looks like a box with a circle in the middle.
In every article we've seen on this, there is always the discussion of the government's position of "no one can read it if it's closed". What happened to that? I don't recall my passport arriving opened inside the pouch.
Mine did, actually, but the article is referring to the U.K. passports. Different kind of RFID on the U.S. models, and the cover is definitely a different (and thicker) material than the older passports.
Not sure about the effects on a UK passport holder, but you can still use a U.S. passport if the RFID is disabled. The only advantage of having one seems to be shorter lines at Immigration. (Which isn't true yet, at least at LAX as of two weeks ago. They're probably waiting for more people to get the new passports before they set up the equipment.)
I received one of the new U.S. Passports - the day I handed in my application happened to be the first day of the change, and I had my order expedited, so I have one of the first new passports.
There's no "chip:" the electronic storage is embedded in the photo page of the passport, among a series of wires covered with laminate. The Department of State says the cover of the new passports prevents RFID scanning when closed, which probably explains why the cover is a different thickness and flexibility than the previous passports.
Funny thing, though: the passport itself was opened flat in the shipping envelope from the passport center. So, presumably, it could be read. I wonder what sort of security the USDoS is using on these things?
The article has nothing to do with U.S. passports, since the Brits are using a different RFID mechanism. So, no help there. I wonder how many people read the article summary (which fails to mention this detail - it probably should, since this is a rather U.S.-centric website) without RTFA and are busy microwaving their new U.S. passports?
This is a relatively new vaccine. Based on the high incidence of side effects of the vaccine and its relative newness, there is a gamble.
Care to substantiate that? Even the anti-vaccine lobby only points to 82 instances of adverse reactions, none of which were fatal, and most of which were related to any medical procedure involving needles, such as taking blood (things like "itching at the injection site").
And BTW, that 11,000 HPV immunizations figure I cited earlier is actually well out of date. The number's actually over 25,000 in the United States alone.
Come on, you're a/.er with a low user #. You do the math. 82/25,000 is ~.03%, and that low rate of adverse reaction reporting doesn't even include anything resembling a permanent condition, let alone any fatalities.
Would you mind explaining where, exactly, this "gamble" may be found? Or is this just speculation based on paranoia about the pharmaceutical industry?
Hell, I'm fucking paranoid about them myself, especially with regards to their persistent manipulation of the American economy and the massive loads of cash they devote to influencing doctors. It's a shame that an industry is so stupid and venal as to abuse the public trust in the manner of this one. Still, I'm certainly not going to give my understandable paranoia more decision-making authority than reason. When the best efforts of the most well-funded and highly-motivated opposition (like the founders of NVIC, who blame DPT immunizations for their kids' ADD) doesn't even come close to substantiating their own claims, and is filled with selective omissions of both data and context, the rational decision is obvious.
The medical industry is more likely to be reformed is people learn that the non-scientific appeals of a collection of osteopaths and blame-seeking parents are nowhere to start, and that a fixation with "secret knowledge" is counterproductive and distracting.
Why should I deny what? Cancer takes a lot longer to kill than the couple of months the HPV has
been in use and we have no idea what the long-term effects are going to be.
Now you're asserting that these people will die of cancer, although you have no way of knowing that and admit as much? Then you post a video which is guilty of the same selective omissions and overgeneralizations as your posts and previous article, as though it would convince anyone who wasn't already willing to believe you despite your lack of actual evidence for your claims?
What intellectually dishonest bullshit. Your opinions on this subject are formed by conspiracy screeds that you don't seem to have the ability or inclination to take at anything other than face value, and you have no actual evidence to support your claims. You can go ahead and have the last words on this thread if you like. I'm sure they'll be as empty of meaningful content as your previous words.
Although I do hope posting this video higher in the thread starts a discussion of its obvious (at least to your average/.er) manipulations of statistics and medical understanding. If I get bored, perhaps I'll join in.
People will undoubtedly find this entire thread when they search for HPV vaccination or Gardasil,
I suppose they'll make up their own minds about this who they will listen to.
Tough choice: your persistently unsubstantiated allegations, or the fact (that you've not even tried to deny) that not a single person has died or sustained lasting ill effects as a result of HPV vaccination?
You unquestioningly accept information as true if it comes from a source that agrees with your prejudices, but automatically dismiss anything that runs counter to your perspective. Everyone knows the medical industry is a bunch of corrupt bastards, but believing that everything they crank out is going to kill you is just as stupid as believing that doctors have your best interests at heart.
Here's a fine example of this thought process at work:
If you ask Governor Perry [...]he'll tell you what Merck and the
CDC are feeding him[...]If you ask medical experts [who?] who are upset with the damage vaccines do to people you will hear a different story.
Why should I be so intellectually lazy as to do either? Since when do we form opinions by asking those of others? The information needed to make an informed decision is out there. If you want to argue that the pharmaceutical industry spends a ridiculous amount of money influencing the prescription practices of doctors, than you can actually substantiate that argument with, you know, proof. Sorry, though: if you want to argue that vaccines are secretly killing people, the sort of vague and shadowy conspiratorial nonsense you throw around doesn't cut it. Your only attempt to provide evidence for your claim actually strengthens the opposing claim, since you can't even point to a single person who has suffered a permanent effect from HPV immunization.
Thank you for playing "Reasoned Opinion." Good luck doing better next time!
The article you cite describes 82 VAERS reports. (This number represents about 0.3% of over 25,000 people vaccinated against HPV to date.) Two-thirds were filed on the day of vaccination, and all but three of the rest were filed within a week.
A quarter (22) of these reports describe episodes of vasovagal syncope (known more commonly as "fainting"), all occuring in women and with 4 involving mild seizures (measured in seconds and with no post-seizure neurological indicators). The report obsesses over these descriptions, yet fails to note that these "syncopal episodes" are associated with any medical procedure that involves needles: taking blood, for example. These symptoms (fainting with rare mild seizures) even occur, in a person with a severe needle phobia, on the sight of another person giving blood. Every one of the cases describes a typical fainting or seizure episode, and the report fails to disclose the patient's history with regard to fainting, seizure, or phobia. It is only "remarkable" (article's word) or "disturbing" (yours) if presented in the absence of medical or statistical context, as in this report.
The report also elaborates on two cases of Guillan-Barre Syndrome, building up a good fright before finally pointing out that both patients had also received a meningitis vaccine that is already associated with GBS. GBS is rare, non-lethal, and temporary (which the article's authors find fit to omit), affecting 1-2 out of every 100,000, while meningitis is contagious and fatal. I'm not quite sure why the authors of this article felt this diversion was necessary.
Tellingly, the report does not provide a breakdown in numbers of the other cases, preferring to list a range of symptoms already associated with metal allergies. It also lists itching and burning at the injection site (again, something associated with any needle procedures in many people) among the remaining VAERS reports. I wonder why they didn't feel it was necessary to provide exact numbers here, unlike the earlier sections?
But why would an institution with such a reputable-sounding name and prestigious-looking website as the National Vaccine Information Center cobble together such a transparent scare article, filled with lurid-sounding medical terminology devoid of any context? Let's look at their "About Us" page:
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national, non-profit educational organization founded in 1982. Located in Vienna, Virginia, NVIC is the oldest and largest parent-led organization advocating reformation of the mass vaccination system and is responsible for launching the vaccine safety movement in America in the early 1980's.
So, let me get this straight: you criticize my sourcing and accuse me of scare-mongering, and your critique is a misleading article from the professional anti-vaccine lobby? An article that confirms, by the way, my earlier assertion that nobody has died from HPV vaccination, while ignoring the real threat of the second-most common cancer among women (with the lowest median age of mortality)?
Right now, people from both the anti-sex and the anti-vaccine-pseudoscientific-hysteria crowd are overlapping on this issue. I think the motivations are simple from both sides: The former want to avoid "sending a message," while the latter oppose a vaccine that has caused no fatalities among over 25,000 tests to date on "safety grounds" (often without doing the simple research required to note that the HPV vaccine does not contain thimerosal.)
Deeper motivations for the latter? How about the illusion of possessing secret knowledge that a distrusted power structure is harming people? The medical industry doesn't exactly help by being such a pack of shady bastards, and like the federal government, shady bastards attract conspiracy theories. Sometimes spurred on by the desire to place blame for a child's disabling illness, more often by the appeal of "special knowledge" (which is easier to find if one replaces healthy cynicism with paranoia), these people are chasing the same mental high as the "U.S.-government-caused-9/11" crowd and don't even know it.
"Since there is no such thing as a 100% safe vaccine, and this vaccine is relatively new, a person would be gambling with their daughter's life either way."
Really? This vaccine hasn't killed any of the 11,000women involved in testing. Cervical cancer kills one woman for every five who die in automobile accidents in the United States. Where, exactly, is this "gamble?"
"Of course, we could just educate the girls and parents and let them make the decision as to yes/no and if yes, when, themselves."
Or we could just, you know, eradicate the disease from the population as quickly as possible. What exactly is your point?
Almost 4,000 Americans will die of cervical cancer this year, while 12,000 will be diagnosed. That's one cervical cancer death per every five automobile fatalities among women at present rates. I don't see you providing any opposing reason why parents should prevent such an easily avoidable possibility. The vaccine is administered at a young age to prevent a minority occurence of the disease, but again, who's enough of a bad person to gamble with this possibility for their daughter, as opposed to just having this vaccine as part of the normal immunization cycle? Who's deluded enough to think that denying this vaccine "sends a message" in any way that has a meaningful impact on their child's sexuality? "Well, Mikey, I'd love to have sex, but I never got the HPV vaccine?" Like you said, teen pregnancy is the biggest pitfall of teen sexuality, but if a teenager has decided to run that risk, I'll bet HPV doesn't even enter into the equation. And I'd hate to see the numbers of how many teenagers are even aware of its existence after a post-Health-class brain dump.
As for charges of "scare-mongering," you're way off. This isn't something to be scared about. The rate of cervical cancer has been steadily declining for some time now, at least among those with access to routine medical care, as a result of wider Pap smear testing. With the majority of parents unwilling to buy into baseless anti-vaccine hysteria, I'm sure we'll be seeing more mandatory vaccination laws across the country, and cervical cancer will decline much further. Frankly, I don't think a few crazies from the fundamentalist and/or anti-vaccine crowd are something to be "scared" about.
"But if the government were to make it mandatory for companies to offer people from all income ranges insurance, wouldn't that remedy it? or is it not economically viable to do that for the companies?"
It's neither economically or politically viable. I'm sure there will eventually be enough support for a single-payer government program, as medical and insurance costs continue to rise under the current "system."
"Did you think it was a mistake for the government to FORCE people to be vaccinated against polio? Against smallpox? Against measles? Mumps? Rubella? Meningococcal disease (for college students)? Diphtheria? Plenty of these other vaccines make money for pharmaceutical companies; why aren't you complaining that we're FORCEd to take them?"
Simple: because anything that raises the issue of teen sex (is it a spookier idea in bold?) sets off all sorts of red flags for these people.
This thinking that having HPV immunity will encourage girls to have sex is the same kind of stunted reasoning that demands marijuana criminialization to "send a message" to kids. Of course, if the intended message is "We parents are so mentally deficient that we seriously believe your private decisions are affected by generally unenforceable laws," well, mission accomplished.
"Technically, since there is an opt-out (for religious or philosopical beliefs), the children aren't being forced into vaccinations, "
I like the opt-out requirement. It requires parents to go on record as saying, "I'm gambling with my daughter's life or uterus that she will live up to my ideal of purity." I've always thought, if you're going to be a horrible person, it's best to do it on-record so others can be suitably careful about your capacity for compassion and reason.
"Merck and GlaxoSmithKline are right now lobbying for laws to
_FORCE_ innoculation of girls in school from 6-11 mandatory with
their vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease virus[...]show[s] the callous disregard for the health and well-being of people"
I'm no fan of the pharmaceutical industry by any means, but I would think that refusing to vaccinate one's daughter against cervical cancer shows callous disregard. This is a serious disease, and the chance for survival presently comes at the cost of reproductive capacity. Holding unnecessary death or sterility over your child's head as a consequence of possible sexual activity - which is usually unplanned, and sometimes non-consensual - is monstrous. That's why the only people who are pushing against the HPV vaccine are those with the seriously delusional belief that they can know their child's future sexual activity with certainty, in the face of thousands of years of parenting evidence to the contrary (and barring the use of gated, armed compounds.) These people are, at least, easy to spot, but I don't know why their vaguely incestuous religious ideals should determine public policy that affects the prevalence of a disease.
It'd be funny if it weren't so sad: Mandatory vaccines are usually opposed only by the "grasping-at-unsubstantiated-straws-to-blame-someo ne-for-my-kid's-autism" crowd, but once the dynamics of youth and sexuality come into play, all sorts of other crazies surface in the public sphere.
This seems to be a trend; the most exciting oncology news I've recently seen came out of Alberta.
Is cancer research a major industry in Canada, or is this an abnormally productive period for their universities? It seems like a lot of recent discoveries in that field have come from my Frozen Northern Neighbor.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have a crowd of credible amateurs giving your product exposure in a new medium with excellent youth market penetration, the best thing to do is shut it down. After all, they should be re-imbursing the labels for...um...the free product advertising?
Oh, wait, that's actually a terrible idea. And from those peerless innovators in the recording industry - who knew?
See, you just can't slip anything by a dedicated conspiracy theorist armed with a vast amount of unverifiable "information!"
Of course, the opposite of "Funny" isn't "Off-topic," so it's still a bad moderation since the post refers, at least, to the topic.
"Off-topic" is more like "Wikipedia requiring credentials? How about the Bush administration's persistent disregard for [fill in the blank and add the blog link of your choice]?"
Unfunny comments should either be left alone or modded "Overrated" (assuming they've already been +modded).
I'm curious; what's the issue with the Ayn Rand article?
They made the change sometime in January. Easy to tell; there's a little gold symbol under the words, "of America" on the front cover that looks like a box with a circle in the middle.
Not sure about the effects on a UK passport holder, but you can still use a U.S. passport if the RFID is disabled. The only advantage of having one seems to be shorter lines at Immigration. (Which isn't true yet, at least at LAX as of two weeks ago. They're probably waiting for more people to get the new passports before they set up the equipment.)
I received one of the new U.S. Passports - the day I handed in my application happened to be the first day of the change, and I had my order expedited, so I have one of the first new passports.
There's no "chip:" the electronic storage is embedded in the photo page of the passport, among a series of wires covered with laminate. The Department of State says the cover of the new passports prevents RFID scanning when closed, which probably explains why the cover is a different thickness and flexibility than the previous passports.
Funny thing, though: the passport itself was opened flat in the shipping envelope from the passport center. So, presumably, it could be read. I wonder what sort of security the USDoS is using on these things?
The article has nothing to do with U.S. passports, since the Brits are using a different RFID mechanism. So, no help there. I wonder how many people read the article summary (which fails to mention this detail - it probably should, since this is a rather U.S.-centric website) without RTFA and are busy microwaving their new U.S. passports?
And BTW, that 11,000 HPV immunizations figure I cited earlier is actually well out of date. The number's actually over 25,000 in the United States alone.
Come on, you're a
Cervical cancer, on the other hand, kills 4,000 women every year, and has the lowest median age at mortality.
Would you mind explaining where, exactly, this "gamble" may be found? Or is this just speculation based on paranoia about the pharmaceutical industry?
Hell, I'm fucking paranoid about them myself, especially with regards to their persistent manipulation of the American economy and the massive loads of cash they devote to influencing doctors. It's a shame that an industry is so stupid and venal as to abuse the public trust in the manner of this one. Still, I'm certainly not going to give my understandable paranoia more decision-making authority than reason. When the best efforts of the most well-funded and highly-motivated opposition (like the founders of NVIC, who blame DPT immunizations for their kids' ADD) doesn't even come close to substantiating their own claims, and is filled with selective omissions of both data and context, the rational decision is obvious.
The medical industry is more likely to be reformed is people learn that the non-scientific appeals of a collection of osteopaths and blame-seeking parents are nowhere to start, and that a fixation with "secret knowledge" is counterproductive and distracting.
What intellectually dishonest bullshit. Your opinions on this subject are formed by conspiracy screeds that you don't seem to have the ability or inclination to take at anything other than face value, and you have no actual evidence to support your claims. You can go ahead and have the last words on this thread if you like. I'm sure they'll be as empty of meaningful content as your previous words.
Although I do hope posting this video higher in the thread starts a discussion of its obvious (at least to your average
You unquestioningly accept information as true if it comes from a source that agrees with your prejudices, but automatically dismiss anything that runs counter to your perspective. Everyone knows the medical industry is a bunch of corrupt bastards, but believing that everything they crank out is going to kill you is just as stupid as believing that doctors have your best interests at heart.
Here's a fine example of this thought process at work: Why should I be so intellectually lazy as to do either? Since when do we form opinions by asking those of others? The information needed to make an informed decision is out there. If you want to argue that the pharmaceutical industry spends a ridiculous amount of money influencing the prescription practices of doctors, than you can actually substantiate that argument with, you know, proof. Sorry, though: if you want to argue that vaccines are secretly killing people, the sort of vague and shadowy conspiratorial nonsense you throw around doesn't cut it. Your only attempt to provide evidence for your claim actually strengthens the opposing claim, since you can't even point to a single person who has suffered a permanent effect from HPV immunization.
Thank you for playing "Reasoned Opinion." Good luck doing better next time!
A quarter (22) of these reports describe episodes of vasovagal syncope (known more commonly as "fainting"), all occuring in women and with 4 involving mild seizures (measured in seconds and with no post-seizure neurological indicators). The report obsesses over these descriptions, yet fails to note that these "syncopal episodes" are associated with any medical procedure that involves needles: taking blood, for example. These symptoms (fainting with rare mild seizures) even occur, in a person with a severe needle phobia, on the sight of another person giving blood. Every one of the cases describes a typical fainting or seizure episode, and the report fails to disclose the patient's history with regard to fainting, seizure, or phobia. It is only "remarkable" (article's word) or "disturbing" (yours) if presented in the absence of medical or statistical context, as in this report.
The report also elaborates on two cases of Guillan-Barre Syndrome, building up a good fright before finally pointing out that both patients had also received a meningitis vaccine that is already associated with GBS. GBS is rare, non-lethal, and temporary (which the article's authors find fit to omit), affecting 1-2 out of every 100,000, while meningitis is contagious and fatal. I'm not quite sure why the authors of this article felt this diversion was necessary.
Tellingly, the report does not provide a breakdown in numbers of the other cases, preferring to list a range of symptoms already associated with metal allergies. It also lists itching and burning at the injection site (again, something associated with any needle procedures in many people) among the remaining VAERS reports. I wonder why they didn't feel it was necessary to provide exact numbers here, unlike the earlier sections?
But why would an institution with such a reputable-sounding name and prestigious-looking website as the National Vaccine Information Center cobble together such a transparent scare article, filled with lurid-sounding medical terminology devoid of any context? Let's look at their "About Us" page:
So, let me get this straight: you criticize my sourcing and accuse me of scare-mongering, and your critique is a misleading article from the professional anti-vaccine lobby? An article that confirms, by the way, my earlier assertion that nobody has died from HPV vaccination, while ignoring the real threat of the second-most common cancer among women (with the lowest median age of mortality)?
What fucking chutzpah.
Right now, people from both the anti-sex and the anti-vaccine-pseudoscientific-hysteria crowd are overlapping on this issue. I think the motivations are simple from both sides: The former want to avoid "sending a message," while the latter oppose a vaccine that has caused no fatalities among over 25,000 tests to date on "safety grounds" (often without doing the simple research required to note that the HPV vaccine does not contain thimerosal.)
Deeper motivations for the latter? How about the illusion of possessing secret knowledge that a distrusted power structure is harming people? The medical industry doesn't exactly help by being such a pack of shady bastards, and like the federal government, shady bastards attract conspiracy theories. Sometimes spurred on by the desire to place blame for a child's disabling illness, more often by the appeal of "special knowledge" (which is easier to find if one replaces healthy cynicism with paranoia), these people are chasing the same mental high as the "U.S.-government-caused-9/11" crowd and don't even know it.
"Do a little research on the subject first, will ya."
OK, I'll start. Your turn.
Oh, and that figure I quoted earlier of 11,000 tests already? It's actually over 25,000 according to a more recent source. My bad.
"Since there is no such thing as a 100% safe vaccine, and this vaccine is relatively new, a person would be gambling with their daughter's life either way."
Really? This vaccine hasn't killed any of the 11,000 women involved in testing. Cervical cancer kills one woman for every five who die in automobile accidents in the United States. Where, exactly, is this "gamble?"
"Of course, we could just educate the girls and parents and let them make the decision as to yes/no and if yes, when, themselves."
Or we could just, you know, eradicate the disease from the population as quickly as possible. What exactly is your point?
Almost 4,000 Americans will die of cervical cancer this year, while 12,000 will be diagnosed. That's one cervical cancer death per every five automobile fatalities among women at present rates. I don't see you providing any opposing reason why parents should prevent such an easily avoidable possibility. The vaccine is administered at a young age to prevent a minority occurence of the disease, but again, who's enough of a bad person to gamble with this possibility for their daughter, as opposed to just having this vaccine as part of the normal immunization cycle? Who's deluded enough to think that denying this vaccine "sends a message" in any way that has a meaningful impact on their child's sexuality? "Well, Mikey, I'd love to have sex, but I never got the HPV vaccine?" Like you said, teen pregnancy is the biggest pitfall of teen sexuality, but if a teenager has decided to run that risk, I'll bet HPV doesn't even enter into the equation. And I'd hate to see the numbers of how many teenagers are even aware of its existence after a post-Health-class brain dump.
As for charges of "scare-mongering," you're way off. This isn't something to be scared about. The rate of cervical cancer has been steadily declining for some time now, at least among those with access to routine medical care, as a result of wider Pap smear testing. With the majority of parents unwilling to buy into baseless anti-vaccine hysteria, I'm sure we'll be seeing more mandatory vaccination laws across the country, and cervical cancer will decline much further. Frankly, I don't think a few crazies from the fundamentalist and/or anti-vaccine crowd are something to be "scared" about.
"But if the government were to make it mandatory for companies to offer people from all income ranges insurance, wouldn't that remedy it? or is it not economically viable to do that for the companies?"
It's neither economically or politically viable. I'm sure there will eventually be enough support for a single-payer government program, as medical and insurance costs continue to rise under the current "system."
"Did you think it was a mistake for the government to FORCE people to be vaccinated against polio? Against smallpox? Against measles? Mumps? Rubella? Meningococcal disease (for college students)? Diphtheria? Plenty of these other vaccines make money for pharmaceutical companies; why aren't you complaining that we're FORCEd to take them?"
Simple: because anything that raises the issue of teen sex (is it a spookier idea in bold?) sets off all sorts of red flags for these people.
This thinking that having HPV immunity will encourage girls to have sex is the same kind of stunted reasoning that demands marijuana criminialization to "send a message" to kids. Of course, if the intended message is "We parents are so mentally deficient that we seriously believe your private decisions are affected by generally unenforceable laws," well, mission accomplished.
"Technically, since there is an opt-out (for religious or philosopical beliefs), the children aren't being forced into vaccinations, "
I like the opt-out requirement. It requires parents to go on record as saying, "I'm gambling with my daughter's life or uterus that she will live up to my ideal of purity." I've always thought, if you're going to be a horrible person, it's best to do it on-record so others can be suitably careful about your capacity for compassion and reason.
"Merck and GlaxoSmithKline are right now lobbying for laws to _FORCE_ innoculation of girls in school from 6-11 mandatory with their vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease virus[...]show[s] the callous disregard for the health and well-being of people"
o ne-for-my-kid's-autism" crowd, but once the dynamics of youth and sexuality come into play, all sorts of other crazies surface in the public sphere.
I'm no fan of the pharmaceutical industry by any means, but I would think that refusing to vaccinate one's daughter against cervical cancer shows callous disregard. This is a serious disease, and the chance for survival presently comes at the cost of reproductive capacity. Holding unnecessary death or sterility over your child's head as a consequence of possible sexual activity - which is usually unplanned, and sometimes non-consensual - is monstrous. That's why the only people who are pushing against the HPV vaccine are those with the seriously delusional belief that they can know their child's future sexual activity with certainty, in the face of thousands of years of parenting evidence to the contrary (and barring the use of gated, armed compounds.) These people are, at least, easy to spot, but I don't know why their vaguely incestuous religious ideals should determine public policy that affects the prevalence of a disease.
It'd be funny if it weren't so sad: Mandatory vaccines are usually opposed only by the "grasping-at-unsubstantiated-straws-to-blame-some
Oh, we've got a few reasons for this. (last one's a ~100K PDF)
This seems to be a trend; the most exciting oncology news I've recently seen came out of Alberta.
Is cancer research a major industry in Canada, or is this an abnormally productive period for their universities? It seems like a lot of recent discoveries in that field have come from my Frozen Northern Neighbor.