Another infuriating article about the twee Bobo sociopaths who refuse to vaccinate their children. Knowing parasites upon the herd immunity of everyone else, they are increasingly creating clusters of unvaccinated kids who form disease reservoirs where previously eradicated illnesses like measles are making a comeback. Their precious darlings then go on to infect younger children who haven't had their vaccinations, the immunocompromised, and adults whose immunity has waned1.
There is substantial evidence that communities with pools of unvaccinated clusters risk infecting a broad community that includes people who have been inoculated.For instance, in a 2006 mumps outbreak in Iowa that infected 219 people, the majority of those sickened had been vaccinated. In a 2005 measles outbreak in Indiana, there were 34 cases, including six people who had been vaccinated.
Words fail one in trying to come up with adequate words to describe people who permit their children to bring the precious gift of sterility, encephalitis, and death to perfect strangers.
Of course, I recognize that people have a right to abide by their conscience, and I would not want public health officials to force children to be vaccinated. I just think that people who are unvaccinated, unless they have a legitimate medical reason for same, should not be allowed to use public roads, public sidewalks, or public services. They have a right not to vaccinate their children. But they do not have a right to risk my health.
Update I chose the word "sociopath" quite deliberately. I think parents who leave their children unvaccinated are the moral equivalent of people who drive drunk. I imagine the person in my comments who contracted measles at 15 months from an unvaccinated child, and ended up with permanent corneal scarring, feels even less kindly than I do.
1While it is commonly assumed that vaccinations give you lifetime immunity, depending on the disease, that immunity can fall off over time; the vaccines work by denying diseases their most common reservoir (schoolchildren), not necessarily by giving everyone permanent immunity.
Wait, you have no problem essentially keeping these children under house arrest, but you wouldn't want to force them to get vaccinated? Why the heck not?
I mean, I'm a pretty hardcore libertarian, but my negative-externality-sense is tingling.
Just allow the parents of vaccinated kids who get sick to sue the parents of kids are aren't vaccinated and who spread the disease...
Or, perhaps schools should be more strict in requiring immunizations for attendance. I could even see allowing for some parents to choose not to for religious reasons or whatever but once the unvaccinated percentage reaches a critical number the school can declare that no more waivers be granted or all kids must now be immunized or whatever.
Recent research states that 98% of all adults are not up-to-date on their shots. The effectiveness of shots fade over time, if effectice at all. Having been born in 1963, I only had four shots. I never had measles, mumps and I contracted chicken pox at 41. Am I, or have I ever been, a diseased threat to mankind? If so, it seems I have a lot of company.
After careful reading and research, I have refused vaccines on my kids. I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law. I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot. Am I a sociopath?
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is trying to get an Act passed so the government studies non-vaccinated populations with vaccinated populations and compares the health of both sets. Isn't this a good idea? Don't we all want to know?
There are valid questions regarding vaccines-- why the toxins, why so many, why so early, why does my newborn need a shot for an STD? We need to get some questions answered and I hope we can all agree it is the responsibilty of our governemnt to respond.
I absolutely think we should be able to force kids to get vaccinated through the mechanism of making it mandatory for public school admission. There are the options of home schooling and (some, I'm sure) private schools if you don't want to be vaccinated.
I don't understand why anyone would have any qualms about this policy. The state has justified power to quarantine, to force tests, to search (think lice), all in the effort of avoiding health outbreaks. Vaccination has a different set of cost/benefit values, but its not substantially different.
"people who are unvaccinated, unless they have a legitimate medical reason for same, should not be allowed to use public roads, public sidewalks, or public services"
Geeze, would this also apply to the use of public goods and services like air, the water and sewage system?
After careful reading and research, I have refused vaccines on my kids. I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law. I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot. Am I a sociopath?
No, you're merely naive and self-centered to the point of cruelty. Only someone who lives in the frankly miraculous era of modern medicine could underestimate the incredible danger and misery that diseases like measles and the mumps cause. If you think that "nutrition, love and exercise" are going to help your children to stave off diseases that have killed millions, I'm afraid you probably aren't qualified to be a parent. And the real tragedy isn't the risk to your own children, but the other people who you and your children imperil by being unvaccinated. Like Megan, I don't think you or your children should be forcibly immunized on libertarian grounds. But I also don't think you should have the right to public education, public transport, or free movement through public and publicly financed areas of our country, if you're so willing to abandon the social contract that makes societies possible.
So, she won't vaccinate her child due to unspecified and unsubstantiated fears, but she will deliberately infect him with a potentially-dangerous disease, putting him at a much higher risk of serious health problems than the vaccine would, and turning him into a vector for spreading the disease for others.
Someone needs their head screwed on straight. Most non-vaccinators I think either grossly misweigh costs and benefits, or callously freeload off of other children's vaccinations. This woman's just crazy.
This is one case where I'm perfectly willing to make an exception to my general libertarian tendencies. Everyone attending a public school should be vaccinated, none of this "personal-belief" exception bullshit. Bona fide medical exceptions only.
If you're homeschooling your kid, or sending them to private school, it's up to you (though I would never send my child to any private school that allowed unvaccinated children through the door).
It is possible to nudge people (not 100%) to do what appears to be the right thing without turning the country into a Meganic Republic.
"nutrition, love and excercise" eh, Palmrita?
Yes, I would like the government to do studies to see if love is as effective in providing mass health as medical science has been.
Because, hey, if small pockets of unvaccinated but very loving people living inside a huge society of vaccinated people are okay then probably all those millenia of debilitating disease that humanity suffered through were just because there wasn't enough love in the world.
My god. Just because you use the word "love" doesn't mean your not every bit as dangerous as a sociopath.
After careful reading and research, I have refused vaccines on my kids. I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law. I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot. Am I a sociopath
Yes. And additionally, an idiot. Virtually all of the gains in life span, reduced infant mortality and the other things we associate with the modern world system boil down to a handful of things: Along with antibiotics and good hygiene, vaccination is foremost amongst them.
I think one could make the case that people who refuse to vaccinate their children are de facto unfit to be parents and should have them taken away. If I didn't dislike heavy-handed use of state power nearly as much as I do idiocy, I would certainly support that line of reasoning.
It's amazing how Americans can duplicate the behavior of ignorant Nigerian tribesmen who keep polio vaccines from their children.
One sending your kids to get sick from other kids, see the South Park episode where the children gave all their parents herpes as revenge for exposing them to chicken pox.
So, let me get this straight: for decades, caring parents made certain to get their children immunized and to keep their shots up to date, and as a result, kids grew up healthy and disease-free. And now, parents think they care about their kids by keeping them from the chemicals the government puts in the immunizations, and as a result, kids are starting to come down with diseases we'd thought we nearly eradicated.
I blame the Internet.
I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot.
So, I guess all the dead kids in sub-saharan Africa just didn't have parents who loved them enough.
Glad to know that others think that this kind of "parenting" is insane. I nearly died at 15 months from a case of the measles that I contracted from an unimmunized older child. My case was so severe that I ended up with corneal scarring, which is a complication usually seen in adults. I just think that in cases like this where the good health of the public is at stake, government intervention is needed.
I see no problem in "forcing" people to immunize their children. It protects my children from the children of idiots, like this one:
"I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law."
Ah yes, the old "it is only a theory" argument. You know what else is only a theory? Numbers. Do you believe in numbers, or are they only a theory? Or gravity, that's only a theory too.
Really, this is no different than police protection. We need police to protect us from criminals, and we need forced immunization to protect us from the criminally stupid.
Sure, and increased public opprobrium, which is at most the only effect that Megan's post here is likely to have, is an important part of that nudging.
Can anyone successfully address the fact that 98% of adults are not up-to-date on their shots?
The non-vax movement is characterized as educated. We've acheived broad understanding of the issue through reading volumes of research and speaking to a variety of professionals/ experts. Refusing vaccines was not impetuous, it was informed. To forgo shots requires knowledge.
The malice I'm reading in these comments is misplaced. There are indisputable questions that need to be addressed, i.e.,who's got the 'mitochondrial disorder'? Why are drug companies now using aluminum instead of mercury in shots?
To have a intellegent conversation about vaccines, one needs to analyze each one and decide-- not simply adhere to a blanket policy of , "Vaccines are man's gift to man."
Bob Sears has written 'The Vaccine Book.' It's a good start to understand this complex topic. Any Moms and Dads with questions/ doubts should read it and decide what they want to do with their most precious assets.
Where's the problem in giving people the right to sue unvaccinated disease carriers for the communication of vaccinable diseases? The prospect of paying damages out of court is ample incentive to get people to take reasonable precautions. If we instead ban unvaccinated people from public places, people will just lie about being vaccinated. Then, unless we have jackbooted thugs with assault rifles and gas-masks at the doors of every public venue checking tamperproof (ha! don't make me laugh) vaccination documents, you will have a system where unvaccinated people can pay a non-social-welfare-enhancing price to evade a system of piecemeal enforcement.
Besides being antithetical to a free society, punishing behavior that might cause harm doesn't work (witness drug prohibition, thoughtcrime, and any other otherwise victimless "crime" justified as benefitting society). Not getting vaccinated does not de facto ensure the contraction of a communicable disease, just like buying a gun doesn't ensure its going to put bullets into anything but a paper target.
I really hate to be more pedantic than I already am, but read J.S. Mill, people.
Can anyone successfully address the fact that 98% of adults are not up-to-date on their shots?
Sure. Even if it were true that the fact that all of these adults aren't up-to-date with their immunizations meant that they were all potential carriers for disease (and it's not), it would still be no argument for not immunizing children. The point of immunizing children isn't to ensure that all adults are immune from these diseases, but to "drain the swamp": disease like mumps and the measles require an infectible-children population to spread. Children are the reservoir for infection; removing that reservoir has enormous public-heath benefit.
"I have refused vaccines on my kids. I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law."
That's because you don't understand the difference between a theory and a law. Laws are generalizations about what has happened used to predict what will happen. Theories are explanations of observations. Both are backed up by scientific facts, are generally accepted by the scientific community and can be proven wrong with new data. No hierarchy is implied in the scientific field, theories are not laws waiting to happen.
So if I know when/where eclipses will occur then I have a law explaining them, but if I know WHY eclipses occur I have a theory.
Children are no more of a 'resevoir for infection' than adults. Adults get sick, so do kids.
Please check recent research to validate the 98% figure.
An enormous 'public health detriment' has been autism. Hannah Poling will be the first concession in many more. Vaccines are the 'WMD' of the health industry.
Whatever your opinion of me and my comments, you have a right to them. Try, however, to keep an open mind as this issue unfolds. I think we are all in for unpleasant surprises.
The quote you provided makes me curios:
"For instance, in a 2006 mumps outbreak in Iowa that infected 219 people, the majority of those sickened had been vaccinated."
It seems to me that if the majority of those sickened by the disease had been vaccinated, perhaps the potentially harmful series of injections were an unnecessary risk.
Bob Sears on his website proposes an alternate vaccine schedule. He does not say parents should forgo vaccinating their children. He also acknowledges that the diseases can be fatal.
You have a right to your opinion. You do not, however, have a right to endanger the lives of other people.
Your bizarre assumptions about herd immunity speak to the fact that you haven't researched this topic nearly as well as you seem to think that you have. The reason that children form disease reservoirs is that a) they do not practice good hygeine b) they touch each other all the time, share food, etc. c) you have a large group of people with no immunity spending all of their time together and d) the diseases have evolved as pediatric diseases thanks to reasons a-c.
Denying diseases their reservoirs--whether their reservoirs are people, contaminated water supplies, or swamps--is a practice that has saved more human lives than any other invention in history. And if other people weren't draining the swamp, I guarantee you'd be getting your kids vaccinated, because polio is far, far worse than the extremely rare side effects of the polio vaccine.
Keeping an open mind works both ways.
Children are no more of a 'resevoir for infection' than adults. Adults get sick, so do kids.
I'm sorry, but that's either a misunderstanding on your part or just wrong. Children are both more susceptible to catching many of the diseases that are immunized against, and more likely to survive severe infections. Survivability increases opportunity for transmission. The spread of contagious disease through children has been meticulously studied and cataloged by medical science, and the literature is freely available.
An enormous 'public health detriment' has been autism.
The idea that autism, as damaging as it is, represents an equal public health risk to diseases such as measles the mumps is foolish. More to the point, it's irrelevant, as the autism-inoculation link has been rather thoroughly refuted. It is certainly true that there has emerged no reputable scientific evidence demonstrating a link between autism and vaccination.
Vaccines are the 'WMD' of the health industry.
The net-positive effect of vaccinations on public health is close to incalculable. It is certainly the case that millions of American lives and hundreds of millions of lives worldwide have been saved by routine childhood inoculation.
Mith: The effectiveness of measles vaccine attenuates over time. The reason we had succeeded in virtually eradicated the diseases is that the primary reservoirs were children; once you made that pool immune, the disease had nowhere to live and spread to adults who had never gotten it.
Also, elderly people, and the immunocompromised, lack immunity simply because their immune systems no longer work right; it's not some fault in the vaccine.
It makes vastly more sense to drain the swamp than to try to coordinate annual vaccination campaigns for adults, particularly since the side effects are more severe among adults than children.
Palmrita, you are an idiot.
"Children are no more a resevoir of disease than adults. Adults get sick, so do kids."
Yes, you're absolutely right. No difference at all between kids who are herded into schools to spend hours and hours in close contact and adults who scrupulously maintain personal space. No difference between kids who will put all sorts of fun things in their mouths and adults who, to put it mildly, don't. No difference between kids who will dissemble to get out of basic hygiene (did you brush your teeth? Did you wash your hands? Behind your ears?) and adults who keep up with basic hygiene or face ostracization at the very least.
But most of all, no difference at all between kids whose immune systems are still developing and adults with a fully functioning immune system. When they make announcements of outbreaks about disease and add that it's mostly a danger to "the very old, the very young and those with compromised immune systems" they're just spreading fear based on a "theory", right?
If only they could learn how to love.
Idiot.
"Children are no more of a 'resevoir for infection' than adults. Adults get sick, so do kids."
Yes they are, children go to school where there is a dense population of children. Adult work-spaces are generally more spread out. Children also have weaker immune systems in general and worse personal hygeine all leading to higher disease rates.
Secondly, you only lose your immunity if you aren't exposed to the disease for 10-15 years. Just because somebody hasn't been vaccinated, doesn't mean they weren't exposed.
I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise.
So did the American Indians. Remember what happened to them when Old World diseases arrived?
Words fail one in trying to come up with adequate words to describe people who permit their children to bring the precious gift of sterility, encephalitis, and death to perfect strangers.
I would like to know how many of these people claim to care for others, or to teach their children to do so.
Actually you're all idiots. There are issues with vaccines. There are issues with not getting vaccinated.
In most cases the vaccinations are the right thing to do. In some cases they are not.
The cocktail shots are concerning as are the plethora of people and governments demanding kids now get vaccinated against STDs.
According to Megan, kids need to get vaccinated because they are so dirty and share bodily fluids. But because so many adults jump at any chance they get to share bodily fluids of another kind these adults are now insisting the kids get vaccinated against HPV, and others as they no-doubt become available.
Some vaccines are crucial. I'm not expert, but I'm glad my kid has the polio vaccine, the measels, etc. But other vaccines are certainly less important, and this whole practice of developing combo shots and making a schedule to start sticking them in your kid without any kind of involvement is indeed concerning.
You're an idiot if you forgo giving your kid protection out of ignorance from a serious risk. You're also an idiot if you blindly consent to dump cocktail shot after cocktail shot into your kids without any concern as to whether this plethora of shots is crucial. You're a complete ass if you question the sincerity of the parents to are concerned about their children in the middle of all this.
Personal insults aside, I hope reasonable parents who read these comments understand that we all need to be on the same side-- questioning the shots and compelling the gov't. and the drug companies to make them safer, later, fewer. The one-size-fits-all philosophy does not work. The debate continues because there are valid questions.
Are the Amish, largely unvaccinated, unfit parents?
Is Dan Burton crazy? Jenny McCarthy? Doug Flutie?
Barbara Loe Fisher? Andrew Wakefield? Edward Hooper?
Check what these people have said and written. If their thoughts and beliefs strike a chord, read more, Mom and Dad.
I hope reasonable parents who read these comments understand that we all need to be on the same side-- questioning the shots and compelling the gov't. and the drug companies to make them safer, later, fewer.
Except that the best, scientific evidence is that combining "safer" with "later and fewer" is contradictory.
Is Dan Burton crazy? Jenny McCarthy? Doug Flutie?
Barbara Loe Fisher? Andrew Wakefield? Edward Hooper?
They're not crazy. They're desperate for explanation, which sadly makes them susceptible to bogus information. And they are wrong, when it comes to a thermisol-autism link.
If these people are unwilling to sacrifice for the public good, it's time the public stopped sacrificing for them. No more public schooling, police or fire departments. To hell with them.
Man, just reading through Palmrita's posts is like reading a quick and dirty example book of argumentative fallacies. Wow.
And Sam, if people were specifically and solely contesting drug schedules and cocktail shots and yet were still insisting, rigorously, that their children get the absolutely necessary vaccines this wouldn't be an issue. And I think you know that.
Hell, even with the cocktails, how can you possibly explain how parents who reject them are making the right decision? Because their children might have an adverse reaction? But yet you let them dissemble away when it comes to the probabilities of the uninoculated contracting disease? I mean, hell, we're not just talking about their children, but others too!
Just look at the nonsense that palmrita is spewing into these boards! Can you say, with a straight face, that this is really about your pet peeve, STD shots? Please...
A question for parents considering not vaccinating their children:
If you were going to take your kids to a 3rd world country were these diseases are common, would you still not immunize them?
The real reason people don't want their kids to get shots is that they know the chance of disease is low--thanks to all the other people who do get their kids vaccinated.
This is pretty much the dictionary definition of sociopath.
The CDC considers the old order Amish to be at increased risk for vaccine-preventable diseases. JAMA reports that in 2004-2005 the Amish in a Delaware community suffered a pertussis outbreak affecting over 300 children. (The Amish did accept antibiotics to treat the children.) The Amish have also suffered from outbreaks of rubella and Haemophilus influenzae type b.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/16/1960
And why should anyone care what celebrities believe and think, unless they are famed for being epidemiologists?
I agree with the posters above who said that parents who do not vaccinate their children ought to be liable to lawsuits, much as we would sue others who put public health at risk. It is breathtakingly irresponsible.
And that includes Jenny McCarthy and the Amish.
Gee, no exception in your "unfit parent" thing for sincerely held religious beliefs?
Let me know when the FDA gets around to approving a rubella vaccine (already available in Japan) that doesn't use a cell line obtained from an aborted human fetus.
More importantly, the Amish essentially suffer the proposed penalty for not having the shots already. If these parents refusing vaccines want to completely shut themselves out of public society in order to do so, well, fine.
But that isn't the issue, as these parents want to rely on how the rest of society is inoculated. It's wrong.
he prospect of paying damages out of court is ample incentive to get people to take reasonable precautions.
I don't imagine that people who refuse to vaccinate to save their own children's lives are going to be doing a thorough cost-benefit on the probability of losing some money in a lawsuit.
I don't imagine that people who refuse to vaccinate to save their own children's lives are going to be doing a thorough cost-benefit on the probability of losing some money in a lawsuit.
At least then there is a real cost for making the choices they do. As of right now, there isn't much of a counter-incentive for not inoculating their children.
It might not be the best idea, but it certainly seems to fit the situation.
Where's the problem in giving people the right to sue unvaccinated disease carriers for the communication of vaccinable diseases? The prospect of paying damages out of court is ample incentive to get people to take reasonable precautions.
1) How would you prove that a particular child was the source of the infection? (There are really two problems here: first, the problem of identifying the likely carrier, and second, the problem of excluding other sources of infection.)
2) What are the damages? (Pain and suffering?)
3) What incentives do judgment-proof parents of young children have to get their kids vaccinated? ("Judgment proof" = not enough assets to make suing them worthwhile, which describes most parents of very young children.)
Incidentally, I don't see any legal reason that parents can't sue other parents now based on such a cause of action; the fact that you don't hear about such suits tells you a great deal about the impracticality of bringing them.
I recently had a child and we decided to go much slower on the vaccines and have discussed with our docotor the necessity of each vaccine on its own merit. We have not to this point chosen to forgoe any and probably will not. But I never blindly give my child something because it is on some schedule. Our doctor was very supportive of this.
I don't see any legal reason that parents can't sue other parents now based on such a cause of action
Indeed, negligence action might get you there, but the trick is showing that the parents of the unvaccinated child had a duty to other parents (and not just, say to other children, or to their own children) which is discharged by vaccination. I wouldn't be prepared to say that was a winning theory, but it's not insane, either.
I still say that death of one's children by preventable disease is a powerful counter-incentive, and if that's not enough, then liability isn't likely to be, either.
I'd be curious to understand how that fellow with TB who took the plane ride was legally put under quarantine by the government; and whether that has any parallels when it comes to public health and vaccination.
My kids are vaccinated. But I did not want my second daughter to get a zero day vaccine for some form of Hepatitis (which could be given later). 2 weeks later, I read an AMA report not recommending that particular vaccine at zero day.
Let me know when the doctors figure out why placebos work in scientific terms, then I'll trust their decisions on what's mandatory or optional or not.
Google Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It's statistics. If you can't control on which part of the percentage you're on, would you give your child a vaccine based on stochastic estimations of pharmaceutical trials?
The human body is complex. There are plenty of 'unknowns' in modern medicine. See 'The Business of Being Born'.
The non-vax movement is characterized as educated. We've acheived broad understanding of the issue through reading volumes of research and speaking to a variety of professionals/ experts. Refusing vaccines was not impetuous, it was informed. To forgo shots requires knowledge.
No, forgoing shots requires willful stupidity, which is a trait possessed by many an educated jackass. I would guess that the non-vax movement would be accurately characterized as "educated, particularly in non-technical fields."
As far as I'm concerned, I don't care if you've got a PhD in English literature and scored a 180 on your LSAT, if you don't understand statistics and epidemiology you're in no position to be forgoing vaccination and endangering the rest of us. Call me again when you find credible epidemiologists who are anti-vaccination, and I'll listen to their arguments.
Anna K:
It seems to me that if the majority of those sickened by the disease had been vaccinated, perhaps the potentially harmful series of injections were an unnecessary risk.
No. Because the vast majority of people are vaccinated, it's possible for the majority of people infected to be vaccinated even though vaccination dramatically reduces the risk of infection. Look up Bayes' Theorem.
To give a concrete example, suppose that 95% of a population is vaccinated, that 5% of the population is infected, and that half of those infected are vaccinated. Bayes' Theorem tells us that the probability of a vaccinated person getting infected is about 2.6%, while the probability of an unvaccinated person getting infected is 50%.
"Of course, I recognize that people have a right to abide by their conscience, and I would not want public health officials to force children to be vaccinated. I just think that people who are unvaccinated, unless they have a legitimate medical reason for same, should not be allowed to use public roads, public sidewalks, or public services."
Hear, hear! That's a stout libertarian statement. Die all you want, but don't kill me.
Hi Brandon,
Not sure who you're quoting but it wasn't me. As I am a retired healthcare researcher and am married to someone who has done CDC influenza tracking and co-authored a study on the incidence of hepatitis, I am strongly pro-vaccination.
On in millions chance of ones young child to get one of those diseases.
1 in 150 chance for autism. Much higher if it's a boy to get autism early.
Perhaps we should be doing a bit more investigating and discussing then in casting stones and acting in an ignorant and foolish manner.
As a parent whose normal child subsequently showed autism after being vaccinated, I'm sorry if I feel empathy and believe a lot of these parents are wiser than the demagogues and talking heads who in one paragraph blast the science of global warming, but in the next ignore valid and serious concerns regarding the largest epidemic in our countries history for poor and bad studies.
On in millions chance of ones young child to get one of those diseases.
1 in 150 chance for autism. Much higher if it's a boy to get autism early.
Perhaps we should be doing a bit more investigating and discussing then in casting stones and acting in an ignorant and foolish manner.
As a parent whose normal child subsequently showed autism after being vaccinated, I'm sorry if I feel empathy and believe a lot of these parents are wiser than the demagogues and talking heads who in one paragraph blast the science of global warming, but in the next ignore valid and serious concerns regarding the largest epidemic in our countries history for poor and bad studies.
Richard says: "On in millions chance of ones young child to get one of those diseases."
Only where most of the population is vaccinated against those diseases.
I don't understand talking to loving, but misguided parents in the way that some of you are. I do not agree with their decision, and I do think they are a public health risk, but most all of them have made the decision not to vaccinate because they believe, however incorrectly, that it is in the best interest of their child(ren). Calling them bad parents and sociopaths is unfair and untrue. It seems your effort would be better spent on explaining why their decision is misguided. Mothers are very unlikely to listen to people who are berating them and calling into question the love they have for their children. They will almost always listen to information that pertains to the health of their children.
My point: Calm down. Explain.
"I just think that people who are unvaccinated, unless they have a legitimate medical reason for same, should not be allowed to use public roads, public sidewalks, or public services."
Oh, please. Just as soon as you're willing to refund their taxes for these purposes.
I agree with your preference they vaccinate their children, by the way. I think you take too much malicious satisfaction in the prospect of punishing them for disagreeing with you, with no regard to the logical consequences of this moralistic snit. There's far too much of this in today's political discourse. It's called thinking like a tyrant. No, neither you nor anyone else can speak for society--you can only speak for some against others.
I think SM wins for Best Post on the Thread.
most all of them have made the decision not to vaccinate because they believe, however incorrectly, that it is in the best interest of their child(ren).
SM I and most others here are trying to speak respectfully, but to also be realistic and honest. And honesty, if you don't vaccinate your children because of ill-defined and vague health risks that are utterly unsupported by scientific evidence, yes, you are a bad parent. And given that not vaccinating their children poses a public health risk to all of us, yes, they are selfish and dangerous. That's the facts. Just like it's a fact that there is no reputable evidence whatsoever to justify a link between autism and vaccines. So what would you have me do? Pretend that that isn't the case, out of an appeal to others' feelings? I'm sorry, but the measles, mumps and other easily preventable but debilitating diseases represent far too great a public health risk to continue to capitulate to loony theories about autism.
You’re right that negligence would require that the plaintiffs prove the existence of some pre-existing duty (as well as a breach of that duty) but it still leaves the issues alkali raised of proving causation and damages (not to mention actually trying to recover from likely judgment-proof parents).
Does anyone know if there has ever been a successful (read: not overturned on appeal and where the Defendants actually paid out money after a judgment establishing their liability) lawsuit for damages from the negligent transmission of a communicable disease?
Rob Lyman wrote: I don't imagine that people who refuse to vaccinate to save their own children's lives are going to be doing a thorough cost-benefit on the probability of losing some money in a lawsuit.
Depends on their motivation. If they believe their child has little chance of acquiring one of those diseases otherwise, which would be correct in a country where herd immunity is ineffect, then they might be tempted to free-ride. Assuming there were a good way of imparting legal liability, the analysis would change.
eccdog wrote: I recently had a child and we decided to go much slower on the vaccines and have discussed with our docotor the necessity of each vaccine on its own merit. We have not to this point chosen to forgoe any and probably will not. But I never blindly give my child something because it is on some schedule. Our doctor was very supportive of this.
Lucky you, because if your doctor had been minded differently, the demagogues at CPS are only a phone call away.
Palmrita,
Are you and your kid the ones who infected my 1 month old cousin with Whooping cough back in November? He spent a week in the hospital. He was too young for the vaccine.
My uncle is in a wheelchair from polio. He was one of the last to catch it before the vaccine came out. My great aunt died of diptheria. My great grandmother tried to save her by scraping the mucous out of her throat with a knitting needle. That was back in the 1920s but that isn't that long ago. In the 1940s my husbands uncle died at 1 week of age due to germs floating around the maternity ward. His grandmother was RUINED from that experience.
Palmrita, you have never seen illness and death. You don't believe they really happen, or could never happen to you because you are special. You are a child.
I do not agree with their decision, and I do think they are a public health risk, but most all of them have made the decision not to vaccinate because they believe, however incorrectly, that it is in the best interest of their child(ren)
Bacteria and viruses really don't care what the parents believe. The math on this decision is clear enough and well-publicized enough that there really is no excuse for this behaviour.
Calling them bad parents and sociopaths is unfair and untrue.
It may be ineffective, but is in no way unfair. Megan's comparision of non-vaccinating parents to drunk drivers is arguably unfair to drunk drivers. They are at least putting their own lives at risk thoughtlessly, as well as those of random bystanders. Non-vaccinating parents are comparatively safe, while putting their children at risk instead.
I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot.
Nutrition, love and exercise are all wonderful things but they don't create antibodies.
How do you quote in the dark box?
So what would you have me do? Pretend that that isn't the case, out of an appeal to others' feelings?
I think you misunderstand my point. My point is not about sparing anyone's feelings. My point is that you aren't helping your cause by berating the misinformed. You would help your cause by informing the misinformed.
In my experience, most of the people I know who do not vaccinate do so believing vaccines are dangerous. They have certainly gotten some bad, one-sided information, but are not so married to the conclusions that they would ignore more balanced information that might contradict what they previously read(like some, ahem, global warming alarmists).
Calling them bad parents and sociopaths is unfair and untrue.
It may be ineffective, but is in no way unfair.
I disagree. Being a loving, responsible, dedicated parent and making bad and/or misguided decisions are in no way mutually exclusive. A fact that is being largely ignored in many sentiments expressed here.
Wow, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the best cure for urban yuppie-dom is an extended stay in a third-world country.
Any parent who considers contracting measles, mumps or rubella an acceptable risk over having an MMR vaccine has had a very sheltered life. I would like to see these parents try this stunt in Taiwan or Singapore.
Hey, can I join in here? Just a second...let's see... Oh, right...mooo....mooooooo...mooooo.
What a bunch of mindless cattle. There's this thing called the web. You can find all kinds of information on it. You should try it some time. Look up info on health issues related to childhood episodes of measles. People, like me, who had the measles when we were kids have life time immunity. And I don't remember kids dying off in droves. Kids and adults who have had the shots are still exposed over their life to much nastier varieties. My 15 year old son, who was inoculated as a child, got the chickenpox last fall. And it was nasty. But kids can't attend our schools unless they've had all of their shots. So where did he get it? Gee, he must of been goofing around with one of those private school jerks.
But, hey, get along little doggies.
The following link is of autism diagnosis rates from 1992 to 2006:
http://www.fightingautism.org/idea/autism.php
As you can see from the first graph, the rate of autism has increased 15 times in a 14 year period.
It is simply insane to believe that this is due to a "genetic" cause. A genetic cause, like assortive mating, might cause a 40-50% increase in autism over a 30 year period. It cannot cause a 1,500% increase in 14 years. Anyone who claims that this increase in autism is due to "genetic" factors is either stupid, insane, or lying. The cause of autism has to be environmental.
There are three plausible causes of the rapid increase in autism; 1) a newly emergent infectious agent, 2) a new industrial pollutant that has emerged in the past 20 years or, 3) something that doctors are doing to the kids, like vaccines. There are no other plausible explanations. To believe that there are others is insanity.
The possibility of an infectious agent is easily testable. Check if the autism rates in places around the world (Sub-Saharan Africa, South East Asia, Amazon) where infectious diseases are common and health care in minimal to see of these regions exhibit the largest increase in autism. The fact is that this is not the case. So, the recent wave of autism cannot be caused by an infectious agent.
The second possibility is that autism is caused by a recently introduced industrial compound that has shown up in the environment only in the past 15-20 years. Perhaps it is a pollutant caused by semiconductor manufacture or by some new plastic that has come out recently. The way to test this is by checking if the recent increases in autism are localized to areas that have these industries. The data I have seen suggests that this is not the case. Also, the medical community has invested no effort or resources in researching this possibility. This suggests they know full well that this is not the cause of autism.
This leaves the third possibility: That autism is caused by something that doctors do to kids, most likely vaccines.
>I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot.
>Nutrition, love and exercise are all wonderful things but they don't create antibodies.
True. But they create a better immune system that can.
Hey Chuck,
My grandmother contracted German Measles when she was pregnant with my mother. My mother was born with many disabilities that are known to come from in utero exposure to those germs. Her life was shortened due to this, and the life she had was filled with illness and suffering.
I suppose we'll be seeing more of this now that there are so many pseudo-intellectual snobs out there whose perfect darlings are too good for vaccines.
People like you are a menace. The word PARASITE is perfectly appropriate for your kind.
sincerely,
Jen (who no longer has a mom, and whose kids no longer have their grandma)
An enormous 'public health detriment' has been autism.
Life is a series of cost/benefit analyses. Even though I don't believe that a causal link has been established between thimeresol and autism, as a parent I would accept a 1:100 risk of autism to avoid a 1:4 chance of death due to childhood viral diseases.
Do the anti-vaccine activists have any clue what childhood mortality was like before widespread inoculation?
Richard,
Sorry to hear about your boy's autism(ASD) diagnosis, and I hope that this pretty early diagnosis can help you to cope and treat him as well as can possibly be done.
I will say, though, that part of the reason that people don't believe the vaccination link is that it's been systematically tested and refuted. Parents often associate their children's downturn with a vaccination b/c children that age are almost always getting one vaccine or another and ASDs are developmentally emergent disorders - so there's a sort of illusory conjunction between the vaccine's administration and the symptom onset.
I work in cognitive neuroscience research and I can tell you that autism is the focus of as much research from some really smart people, and I hope they make helpful progress for you and your son.
As for SM's point, the reason there is little sympathy for these parents is not that they don't understand, but that they understand enough to behave in a totally cynical manner. They refuse to incur the tiniest potential risk to their child while increasing a greater risk to everyone - often to people more susceptible than their own kids. As the article makes clear, these are not poor people who are low on education, they are wealthy and educated people who either presume they know more than health professionals (thus arrogant) or understand perfectly well and are leeching health off others (cynical opportunist), or both.
I have full sympathy for parents of already affected children looking for any answer that makes sense to them, but the people in the NYT story are willfully, defiantly ignorant (measles party???) and are educated enough to know better.
SM,
I appreciate your perspective, and agree that it is important to communicate. One of the problems I see in this thread is that if a parent mistrusts the science and/or assumes that the majority of medical researchers in the field are incompetent or engaged in some kind of cover-up, appealing to scientific studies isn't going to resolve their questions.
Not sure how to bridge that divide.
Regarding the above discussion about why children are vaccinated at so young an age:
It's not just the "reservoir effect" that Megan describes. Many of the diseases on the vaccine schedule are much more serious in infants than in adults, so it's far more important to protect children/infants from them than adults. A good example of this is pertussis. Adults can get pertussis and it's like having a bad head cold--but no big deal. Pertussis can kill an infant, particularly those under six months. The best way to protect infants from pertussis is to keep them from getting it, and the best way to do that is to keep the adults and other children around them from having it (the immune systems of babies
Being a loving, responsible, dedicated parent and making bad and/or misguided decisions are in no way mutually exclusive.
Sure, except that being loving, responsible, and dedicated is nowhere near enough to avoid being a bad parent. Again I would note that bacteria don't really care about how you felt when you were making your misguided and negligently uninformed decision. You still qualify as a bad parent if your unvaccinated child gets rubella no matter what bogus information you were looking at at the time, or how much you cared. You still qualify as a sociopath if your kid becomes a carrier for whooping cough and infects multiple classmates. The universe really doesn't care how nice you were trying to be when you screwed up.
kurt9 -- that's a good hypothesis. Now are you interested in reviewing the results of the many who have sought to test that hypothesis?
Kurt9
what about parents having kids later in life? Isn't there some studies about older fathers being the cause of autism?
Is there a child in the world with autism who wasn't vaccinated? That, I would like to know.
How about trans-fats? Aspartame? Those are new to the 20th century.
But feel free to ignore all that- its got to be the vaccines, its just got to be.
Excellent point, Anna K.
Megan is right. These people are sociopathic and doing a horrible, evil thing that is a threat to the rest of us. Since we aren't willing to forcibly immunize the children, the best thing is public shaming of their parents.
Calmly explaining won't work -- there's plenty of calm literature in any doctor's office and on the web that these scumbags are already ignoring.
The best thing is social ostracism and public shaming. Screaming at them loudly isn't a bad idea either.
> It seems your effort would be better spent on explaining why their decision is misguided.
No. They don't listen. The only way is to ostracize them. Why not charge them with child abuse? Intentionally infecting your child with a disease (a "measles party", for God's sake) would seem categorically abusive.
If you only read the comments, you'd think this was 'global warming' or something. Over-heated, over-blown, half-understood rheoric.
I haven't immunized my son completely. Whooping cough, sure, but does he need Hep protection at three months? He isn't having sex yet. Polio is gone. And the autism risks, which are increasingly correllated to over-done immunizations, is one hell of a lot more serious. One in 150?
You want to sue me if you get sick? Who does a parent with an autistic child sue? Could we sue all the screamers on this thread?
I don't understand talking to loving, but misguided parents in the way that some of you are. It seems your effort would be better spent on explaining why their decision is misguided. Mothers are very unlikely to listen to people who are berating them and calling into question the love they have for their children. They will almost always listen to information that pertains to the health of their children.
As previously mentioned by one of the magical-thinking, non-vax people, it's not for a lack of information that parents decide not to vaccinate their children. Given that, providing patient explanation seems like a dead-end.
Scorn and social opprobrium seem more likely to do the trick. And I'm not going to pretend I have respect for them any more than I would someone who wants to replace the study of evolution with that of intelligent design.
People, like me, who had the measles when we were kids have life time immunity. And I don't remember kids dying off in droves.
Then you must have missed out on the regular epidemics in which people did, in fact, die off in droves. Congratulations.
SM, I feel your sentiment. And there's a lot of frustration at the anti-vax folks, for good reason, that seems to come out too strongly here.
But the antivax invite this. Having said that the combination shots are "too much" for a "developing immune system", do they then proceed to get single-disease vaccinations that cover the same illnesses? Having decried the standard vaccination schedule, do they then space them out slightly as the recommended schedule permits?
Largely, no. They just decide they're not going to do it at all. I don't have a problem with doing either of the two things I mention above, although I think it's silly to imagine that the delivery of three simultaneous antigens is something unusual or obscene for the human immune system. But I'll be damned if I'll sit by and watch people endanger all the rest of us because they think - based on a few stories - that children became autistic after getting vaccines, as opposed to children getting vaccines at about the same time they get actual, identifiable-by-people-other-than-the-parents personalities.
I was immunized as a child, and yet caught pertussis as an adult. It was unpleasant, and irritating, at thirty. At three it would have been potentially fatal.
Sure, except that being loving, responsible, and dedicated is nowhere near enough to avoid being a bad parent. Again I would note that bacteria don't really care about how you felt when you were making your misguided and negligently uninformed decision. You still qualify as a bad parent if your unvaccinated child gets rubella no matter what bogus information you were looking at at the time, or how much you cared. You still qualify as a sociopath if your kid becomes a carrier for whooping cough and infects multiple classmates. The universe really doesn't care how nice you were trying to be when you screwed up.
You know, I don't disagree with that last sentence, but I do take exception to the rest. You do make great points, all very valuable to this discussion. My only concern is that so many great points here aren't lost among the slinging of insults.
"The malice I'm reading in these comments is misplaced."
No, malice is appropriate. What should one feel toward someone who knowingly endangers people in general, and their own children specifically? I suppose Ghandi might not feel malice in this situation, but I ain't him.
I don't agree with "sociopath", though. A true sociopath doesn't care enough about their child to act one way or another about vaccination.
Kurt,
You are simply wrong.
"There are three plausible causes of the rapid increase in autism; 1) a newly emergent infectious agent, 2) a new industrial pollutant that has emerged in the past 20 years or, 3) something that doctors are doing to the kids, like vaccines. There are no other plausible explanations. To believe that there are others is insanity."
Let's add #4 - better diagnosis.
People used to just call autistic kids "retards," and be done with them. Thankfully we don't do that anymore.
"I don't understand talking to loving, but misguided parents in the way that some of you are."
Loving? Misguided?
No Bobos engaged in moral preening. Indulging their own vanity at the expense of their children and their neighbors.
Misguided? No. Actively trying to delude themselves into thinking they some secret gnosis unavailable to mere mortals.
Explanations and science are available out the wazoo. It is time to declare reason to be a failure, and to bring the full weight of the law on these idiots. Throw them in jail and give their children up for adoption.
Kurt9,
Wouldn't the fact that mercury is no longer used in vaccines show a related decrease in autism cases?
This is still inferring a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. What about the increase in autism awareness? How many children were previously classified as retarded?
There are three plausible causes of the rapid increase in autism; 1) a newly emergent infectious agent, 2) a new industrial pollutant that has emerged in the past 20 years or, 3) something that doctors are doing to the kids, like vaccines. There are no other plausible explanations. To believe that there are others is insanity.
You're clearly correct that autism isn't caused by assortive mating. However, it's a long leap from there to assuming that it's one of the three things you mentioned. For instance, it could be the increased time children spend in front of the television, or any of the half dozen things other commenters have mentioned. There's no doubt that something has changed, and resulted in higher rates of autism. However, fairly exhaustive studies have produced no evidence that it's vaccination.
"There are three plausible causes of the rapid increase in autism; 1) a newly emergent infectious agent, 2) a new industrial pollutant that has emerged in the past 20 years or, 3) something that doctors are doing to the kids, like vaccines."
You forgot possibility 4) that the DIAGNOSIS rate of autism has dramatically increased, while the INCIDENCE rate remains constant.
You know, I don't disagree with that last sentence, but I do take exception to the rest. You do make great points, all very valuable to this discussion. My only concern is that so many great points here aren't lost among the slinging of insults.
Agreed. And while palmrita's misguided application of 'love' isn't going to do the trick, a misguided application of 'hate' won't do it, either, yet several posters are advocating exactly that in loud terms. Don't let the irony crack your skull on the way out, guys.
Libertarians are a riot. It doesn't take much for them to show their hypocrisy and go Nazi and B.A.M.N.
"Sociopaths...idiots... throw them in jail and put their kids up for adoption."
The libertarian way, with Megan leading the howling mob.
Please don't reproduce.
but it still leaves the issues alkali raised of proving causation and damages (not to mention actually trying to recover from likely judgment-proof parents).
I think those would be easier hurdles than duty. Damages are fairly obvious: medical expenses, pain and suffering, wrongful death, punis. On causation, you would at the very least get to the jury if you could could 1) an unvaccinated kid, 2) who had the disease, and 3) who was in contact with the victim during what an expert witness would be willing to say was a contagious period.
If there's a cluster of kids in an outbreak, then sue all the parents on a Summers v. Tice theory and let them sort out whose to blame.
Does anyone know if there has ever been a successful...lawsuit for damages from the negligent transmission of a communicable disease?
There have, I believe, been some prosecutions for intentionally spreading AIDS. I know of no civil lawsuits, and surely a precedent like that would show up in the casebooks.
kurt9:
This article states that many childhood `behaviour' and `developmental' disorders are now being diagnosed as autism. Autism diagnosis have risen while the diagnosis of other disorders has fallen.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/328/7436/364-b
kurt9 @ 2:29,
I believe that a fourth "plausible cause of the rapid increase in autism" could be simply that the actual incident rate of autism has been relatively unchanged over the years, but that doctors are simply diagnosing it more often. This could be due to several factors, merging of previously separate sydromes into "autism," an increase in the medical field's awareness of autism, etc. etc. I just want to ask you, am I "insane" for believing that there might be another explanation?
"There are three plausible causes of the rapid increase in autism"
Let me suggest a fourth, we currently have a greater understanding of autism which leads to higher diagnosis rates. Instead of a child being labeled mentally retarded/insane and thrown into an asylum, they are labeled autistic and given the care that they need. Or it going undiagnosed in less severe cases and the parents deal with a problem child best they can. It's difficult to compare autism rates to third-world countries, because they are likely to under report due to poor health care.
It should be real easy to talk about this. Don't force vaccinations, but you don't get to go to public school without them.
We don't force people to drive, but we do make them get a driver's license if they want to. Should be the same thing.
Live apart fom society, like the Amish, and there's no problem. Live inside society, and you cannot endanger the children of others. If you're THAT worried about autism, I would think that your conscience would dictate your choice.
What some who won't vaccinate want is the benefits of society without the responsibilities.
I think Chris makes a good point. An economist recently proposed to me that a good definition of evil was increasing one's marginal utility a small amount at the cost of a massive decrease in the marginal utility of someone else. Parents not vaccinating their kids because of a very small risk and in doing so posing a very large risk to everyone else seems to fall into that category.
As a practical matter, if they're really sociopaths, then social pressure won't work. Sociopaths don't care what others think or how they affect others (presumably, even their children).
I'm with SM, for the record. Insults may be appropriate, but they accomplish nothing. Reason has some chance, but anger has none.
"But the antivax invite this. Having said that the combination shots are "too much" for a "developing immune system", do they then proceed to get single-disease vaccinations that cover the same illnesses? Having decried the standard vaccination schedule, do they then space them out slightly as the recommended schedule permits?"
This is exactly what my wife and I did as well as several of my colleague's at work. It was a little extra work but not too much. Also I made sure that all the vax were themerasol free including the production process.
These where realatively easy steps. Instead of railing aganst the anti Vax folks maybe some of you should try convicing them that there is a realatively easy middle ground that addresses their concerns but still insures that thet their children are 1)protected from the likely early life viruses and 2) fully vaccinated by the time they start coming in contact with other children.
Insults may be appropriate, but they accomplish nothing. Reason has some chance, but anger has none.
I think this drastically underestimates the power of shame to create social change. That said, I would recommend not anger (although it is justified), but rather derision. The most efficient way to get the parents mentioned in the NYT article to change their minds would be to get anti-vaccination viewed by the general populace as a lower-class behavior.
Anna K.:
Since you have some expertise on the matter, can you comment on the odd placement of HepB as a childhood vaccine? Is it a matter of draining the swamp from an early age or something else?
I think it's the oddest vaccine on the childhood list. The rest are understandable.
Eccdogg, having read your upthread comment, I should have specifically credited you with doing the right thing. I'm sorry I didn't. You're doing things in a different way, but one which doesn't endanger the public. I have no problem with that.
If all you folks are so certain that vaccinations work so well, why are you all so afraid of kids that are not vaccinated?
Because you know that your kids are really not protected from disease just from having these vaccinations.
I was alarmed when I researched the efficacy of the MMR vaccine (when it was still being investigated as a potential cause for autism). The Lancet did one 4-week micro study of the effects of the MMR vaccine on the immune systems on toddlers and children. This is sufficient testing? Four freaking weeks total testing on a formula that is being given to millions of toddlers?
Would adults accept that a drug they take has only four weeks of testing? I think not.
NP Devilbunny, I knew your comment was not directed at me as I am not AntiVax, just a general skeptic.
I just wanted to use your comment to point out that there is a reasonable middle ground here.
Kurt 9 wrote: "There are three plausible causes of the rapid increase in autism; 1) a newly emergent infectious agent, 2) a new industrial pollutant that has emerged in the past 20 years or, 3) something that doctors are doing to the kids, like vaccines. There are no other plausible explanations."
I'm not at all sure how there could be "no other plausible explanations." There are many.
While autism may be on the rise, I suspect the big reason is probably changes in diagnosis criteria. You can't diagnose what you weren't looking for in the first place. The population is also not static: The pool of children has also shifted due to decreases in infant mortality. It may well be that children who are susceptible to autism used to die before being diagnosed. I don't know if the latter issue is correct but the changing of diagnosis patterns certainly is a major issue that makes consideration of trend nearly impossible.
As to the people who need a lesson on why vaccination is necessary, might I suggest the classic book Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill?
Crimfan
' is simply insane to believe that this is due to a "genetic" cause. A genetic cause, like assortive mating, might cause a 40-50% increase in autism over a 30 year period. It cannot cause a 1,500% increase in 14 years. Anyone who claims that this increase in autism is due to "genetic" factors is either stupid, insane, or lying. The cause of autism has to be environmental.'
This is wrong. While autism diagnoses have increased dramatically, most of that is due to diagnostic standards. The real rate of increase is probably much closer to that 40-50% than 1500%. It is certainly feasible (but not close to being proven) that changes in human mating practices could lead to this. Our society has changed so that socially awkward people are much more likely to get married to eachother (or at all). Analytical skills are much more highly compensated than they used to be, making people who would tend to have autistic chlidrem more likely to marry, and more likely to have kids.
Fifty years ago, while my wife and I might have married somebody, there is little chance that we would have married eachother. We would each have married someone more outgoing simply because we would not have met eachother. We have two autstic children. Our daughter, in retrospect, was clearly showing signs of autism by seven months. It became much more noticeable around 20 months, but that's just because of how children develop.
There is already strong evidence of a genetic connection to autism. For the moment, it is only correlational, but the genetic studies are young.
Klug:
Babies and young children have a very high risk for developing chronic HBV infection if they become infected at a young age.
Those with chronic HBV infection are most likely to spread the infection to others.
HBV infection in infants and young children usually produces no symptoms.
HBV remains infectious for at least seven days outside the body and can be found on and spread through sharing of inanimate objects such as washcloths or toothbrushes.
Among the other details listed in the link below, children seem to suffer morre acutely from being infected, and are more likely to infect others if infected.
http://www.vaccineinformation.org/hepb/qandavax.asp
This is exactly what my wife and I did as well as several of my colleague's at work. It was a little extra work but not too much. Also I made sure that all the vax were themerasol free including the production process.
[This] is a relatively easy middle ground that... insures that their children are 1)protected from the likely early life viruses and 2) fully vaccinated by the time they start coming in contact with other children.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the very definition of responsible parenting. There's nothing dumb about wanting to spread the vaccines out a bit, nor not wanting non-termerasol based vaccines.
That is active and responsible parenting. Forgoing vaccination is just the opposite.
Damages are fairly obvious: medical expenses, pain and suffering, wrongful death, punis.
I am not sure to what extent you can get damages for wrongful death of a child: the traditional measure of damages for wrongful death is lost wages, and I seem to recall courts don't award those in the case of a child. Medical expenses may be minimal (either quick recovery or, in the worst cases, sudden death). Note that pain and suffering are capped in some jurisdictions and punitives are either barred or don't exist in some jurisdictions.
On causation, you would at the very least get to the jury if you could could 1) an unvaccinated kid, 2) who had the disease, and 3) who was in contact with the victim during what an expert witness would be willing to say was a contagious period.
I agree with this in its broad strokes with the following caveats:
(1) It may be hard as a practical matter to find the unvaccinated kid who had the disease. I don't know which of my kid's classmates have been out sick recently or for what, and I certainly don't know whether they've been vaccinated (except insofar as I'm aware that it's a requirement at my kid's school).
(2) I'm sure it's possible at some level of expenditure to get a pretty medically definitive answer to the question -- you can even check virus DNA -- but expert witnesses and scientific testing carry expenses that potential litigants may not be able to bear.
I think reason would be appropriate if the nonvaxers came to their decision the way one would decide between two attractive job offers or car models. I suspect that they've rather acted on a superstition and then grasped for what sparse, discredited evidence they can brandish in defense of it.
In this respect, as one commenter noted, they're exactly like the intelligent design crowd. It's enough for IDers that one person with a PhD suggests that evolution can't be responsible for the complexity of life on Earth. The fact that hundreds of thousands of other PhDs call ID fatuous bullshit doesn't matter despite the general presumption that one should hold with the more expert side.
No body of evidence is going to convince the nonvaxers otherwise, and frankly this makes me want to fistfight each and every one of them.
Mama Bear,
Why? Precisely b/c of people like you. The vaccines are only about 95% effective, but efective enough to grant herd immunity if everyone in the herd has them. Without a place to form, the diseases simply do not show.
However, the one person who shows up unvaccinated can compromise about 5% of those who are. I think if you are that worried about Autism, then stay away from the rest of us who are willing to take on our societal obligations.
BTW, the point of lack of Autism diagnosis even 25 years ago is a very valid one. An increase in diagnosis does not correspond to an increase in incidence. People didn't know what Cystic Fibrosis was 100 years ago, either, but that didn't mean children didn't have it - it was simply written off to another cause(like childhood pneumonia).
I'll vaccinate my children when the Center for Disease Control actually quarantines AIDs patients. That is a disease with real death consequences, and they want me to vaccinate against the chicken pox.We homeschool, and one of the reasons is that we don't want our children getting diseases from the "herd". Lower class behavior, that's a laugh.
Hey, Fraggle Rock! Thanks for the helpful link -- very useful.
If all you folks are so certain that vaccinations work so well, why are you all so afraid of kids that are not vaccinated?
Because you know that your kids are really not protected from disease just from having these vaccinations.
We all know that vaccinations aren't fool-proof, which is why the idea of "herd-immunity" or "draining the swamp" is so important. The idea is that if enough people are resistant, the virus can't hang on in enough hosts to perpetuate itself.
If vaccinations were 100% effective, I'd only care abstractly about parents who didn't vaccinate their own kids, because they wouldn't be endangering anyone but them. I could vaccinate my kids and know that they're safe. However, it's precisely because I know vaccines aren't 100% effective that I hold non-vax people in contempt.
I'll vaccinate my children when the Center for Disease Control actually quarantines AIDs patients. That is a disease with real death consequences, and they want me to vaccinate against the chicken pox.We homeschool, and one of the reasons is that we don't want our children getting diseases from the "herd". Lower class behavior, that's a laugh.
If you're homeschooling, it's your business whether or not you immunize your kids. I've got no problem with that.
Part of the reason to vaccinate children against Hepatits B may be because children are less likely than adults to clear the disease. Also, the disease can be transmitted mother to child, and in areas besides the U.S., the disease is transmitted between children. So while U.S. children are less likely to get it than adults, if they are exposed to children who come from areas where it is common in children, they will be less able to fit off the disease than adults.
"If all you folks are so certain that vaccinations work so well, why are you all so afraid of kids that are not vaccinated?"
Not everyone is old enough to be vaccinated. We just had an outbreak of measles in San Diego, due to two kids who weren't vaccinated, contracted measles in Europe then spread it around their day-care. The hardest hit were the infants 1 year and younger in the day-care who can't be vaccinated yet. A decision made by the parents closed a day care, forced hundreds into quarantine and sent some infants to the hospital.
I am not sure to what extent you can get damages for wrongful death of a child
Oh, loss of society, loss of support in old age, loss of advice, loss of comfort. You could come up with something. Plus most jurisdictions haven't totally abolished non-economic damages, and most haven't abolished punis. You'd have to be pretty unlucky to find a court that wouldn't give a big payout for a dead kid.
It may be hard as a practical matter to find the unvaccinated kid who had the disease.
True, but if there's an outbreak, you'll be able to find out. And as for experts, your lawyer might just be willing to advance some expenses.
I'm mostly concerned with the legal theory rather than the practical difficulties; I thought when I first read your post that it was DOA, but I've convinced myself otherwise. Somebody should try it out.
This is sufficient testing? Four freaking weeks total testing on a formula that is being given to millions of toddlers?
MamaBear, I'd like to delicately suggest that you may wish to do a tiny bit more research into the FDA approval process.
>Nutrition, love and exercise are all wonderful things but they don't create antibodies.
>True. But they create a better immune system that can.
Not without the presence of antigens. Good nutrition and exercise promote general good health and certainly are important to the proper operation of the various systems in our bodies, however, antibodies don't get created without exposure to antigens.
Mom of 10,
Glad you homeschool - that's your choice and clears you, mostly, from societal responsibilities.
But your answer about AIDS shows you lack education. AIDS is largely a behavioral disease and CANNOT be caught from casual contact.
Measles, Mumps, Polio, et al are either airborne or easily transmitted in saliva and mucus, which kids transmit all the time while playing.
When someone with AIDS can give it to another simply by being in the same room, your argument will have merit. Until then, it shows you need to leave home a little more often.
While it mitigates the issue somewhat, it's usually not a wise decision to exclude homeschooled children from vaccinations. It varies from home to home, but these children often have significant interaction outside of the home, including church activities, homeschool support groups / joint-learning sessions, recreational sports leagues, Boy Scouts, playing with neighbors, etc.
SM these people have demonstrated by their actions that a calm rational analysis of the data will not persuade them - otherwise they wouldn't be the homicidal if not genocidal maniacs that they are by refusing to vaccinate their children. So instead we are providing them with opprobrium, ridicule, and ingenious investigations of punishments in response to their lack of action.
The world is poorer for having Palmrita et al in it, and the species is doubly so since they have produced offspring. Darwin has been asleep at the switch. I do love the idea that Jenny McCarthy - who rose to fame as a pretty, ditzy blonde on an MTV dating show and then progressed to the intellectual heights of a Playboy spread - is someone who should be listened to with respect on the causes and treatment of autism.
Pace kurt 9, there are more than 3 alternative hypotheses for the increases in ASD diagnoses. Further, these do not have to be exclusive. If many are simultaneously true you can see a very high rate without necessitating one grand cause. I do notice that 2 very important linked causes of an increase in diagnoses is ignored: increased awareness of Autism (the availability fallacy) and the broadening of diagnostic characteristics (hence ASD rather than just "Autism" or idiot savant). One should note the dramatic increase in diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, also a behavioral/developmental diagnosis primarily affecting boys, and wonder about the possibility of pathologising more and more of behavior that used to be considered in the normal range for boys.
As to the link between Autism and a jab - there is no test for Autism or most other developmental problems except development. This is one giant, flaming Post Hoc fallacy, that while understandable is also exceptionally damaging and detrimental to society as a whole.
The 1/150 number is also total BS, as it comprise the full spectrum of autism disorders. Most, if not nearly all, of the student population at MIT and CalTech, as well as the Profs at every Math, CS, Physics, and Engineering department or faculty could easily be classified as suffering from ASD. While odd, lacking in certain social graces, frequently unable to dress themselves appropriately, and skipping showers all too often - these people are not just functioning in society but thriving. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Steven Cohen, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, etc could all be plausibly placed on the AS. If Autism were as common as the anti-vax groups claim, we wouldn't be so fascinated with its manifestations (Rain Man) or as fearful of a diagnosis (1 in 150 gets you a large enough population such that society can cater to it).
The only reason these childhood diseases are so rare is because everyone gets the vaccines. Measles, mumps, rubella, polio, etc will kill and debilitate several orders of magnitude more people than ASD ever will, so even if the vaccine hypothesis were true vaccinations are still worthwhile for ALL people. It is a similar grand bargain as sanitation - one person urinating on the street or being careless with trash isn't a problem, but if everyone does it you're living in the slums of Calcutta and just waiting for the Black Death or Bubonic Plague to come and kill 30% of the population.
Drunk Drivers are paragons of virtue and responsibility compared to those who refuse to vaccinate their children. DUI and you might kill/injure yourself and a few bystanders - 10 is the absolute worst case scenario outside of a drunk bus driver or pilot. An unvaccinated child can incubate a disease that kills and injures hundreds to thousands - or many more if polio ever gets loose again.
As to liability - pass a law saying that ALL parents of unvaccinated children are jointly and severally liable for ALL damages due to any outbreaks. They want to parasitise on herd immunity, they can enjoy herd liability. These judgments should also be non-dischargeable in bankruptcy - you can refuse vaccines as long as you accept forever living in a van down by the river.
Herd immunity is not a theory. It is statistics. People who do not understand it, should not be allowed to breed.
Actually, our family knew a little girl who wound up a vegetable after having an adverse reaction to MMR or DPT (can't remember which).
I am getting my child vaccinated, but I wish I had a better feeling about what they do when your kid is the 1/100,000 that has an allergic reaction to MMR, or the 1/23,000 who gets ITP.
http://www.mmrthefacts.nhs.uk/library/mmrsideeffects.php
How is it hypocritical for a libertarian to wish to disincentivise behaviours that lead to negative externalities? I fail to see exactly where Megan advocates the State putting children up for adoption and jailing their parents. The free-rider problem is a huge one, and hysterically caricaturing those that point it out doesn't bring a lot to the discussion. I'm not sure about denying families of unvaccinated children access to public spaces, but I think there might be room for some sort of Pigovian taxation, or a Coasian bargaining system whereby you pay to offset your free-riding.
And there's certainly nothing anti-libertarian as such about the use of social opprobrium to discriminate against behaviours we wish to discourage. Since most people cede the monopoly on violence to the State, what else do we have left?
part of the reason that people don't believe the vaccination link is that it's been systematically tested and refuted. Parents often associate their children's downturn with a vaccination b/c children that age are almost always getting one vaccine or another and ASDs are developmentally emergent disorders - so there's a sort of illusory conjunction between the vaccine's administration and the symptom onset.
Except this is not accurate. The studies have not be really valid or extended. Essentially, they don't THINK it causes autism, but given that the methodology of testing is so flawed, it leaves a lot to be desired.
There are two reasons why anyone who is well informed should be worried. First, they are still utterly clueless about autism. Second, the doctors who are doing most of the studies are also in the employ of the pharmaceutical companies. Who should one trust, a parent who saw first hand in the mid 90s their son essentially go from normal to autistic overnight after vaccination or a small clinical study from those in bed with the companies who make the vaccines?
I work in cognitive neuroscience research and I can tell you that autism is the focus of as much research from some really smart people, and I hope they make helpful progress for you and your son.
My son is now a teenager and we have made the best of a difficult situation. I have yet to see a single piece of research or help that has done anything for my son. His growth has been at the forced behest of my making the school mainstream him, and a lot of interaction, patience and parenting. I have no doubts the vaccines are the cuplrit and it's maddening to see so many who are utterly clueless like Megan argue against us who have FIRST HAND ACCOUNTS of this.
As for SM's point, the reason there is little sympathy for these parents is not that they don't understand, but that they understand enough to behave in a totally cynical manner. They refuse to incur the tiniest potential risk to their child while increasing a greater risk to everyone - often to people more susceptible than their own kids. As the article makes clear, these are not poor people who are low on education, they are wealthy and educated people who either presume they know more than health professionals (thus arrogant) or understand perfectly well and are leeching health off others (cynical opportunist), or both.
1 in 150 is not a tiny risk. Autism growth rates are staggering and correlate with the massive increase in vaccines.
When I was young, we had 4 vaccines applied. I cannot remember ever seeing another autistic child like the mass influx of high functioning aspergers we have today.
Now, I can't turn a corner without seeing a lot of these children.
I believe vaccinations are important, but I think someone like Dr Bob Sears has the right idea, and while I support vaccination I think people would be wise to follow his guidelines and to not trust the pharmaceutical guidelines, or those who call others who have seen their children gravely 'injured' sociopaths.
I have full sympathy for parents of already affected children looking for any answer that makes sense to them, but the people in the NYT story are willfully, defiantly ignorant (measles party???) and are educated enough to know better.
There is ignorance all around. The simple truth is there is not enough in depth research on all these vaccines and preservatives we are pumping into children during the first 18 months of their lives.
"plausible cause of the rapid increase in autism"
The cause of the rapid increase in the number of diagnosed cases of autism is the increase in governmental benefits payable to victims and their parents.
You get what you pay for.
A little knowledge is an incrediably dangerous thing. Or to quote a great line from Men in Black "A person is smart. PEOPLE are dumb, dangerous animals."
There is a nefarious attitude at work in our culture- the idea that experts are bunk, and your average person with a little time on the web is qualified to know anything.
I'll put it to the anti-vaccination people the same way i put it to the anti-evolution people: just because scientists don't know everything doesnt imply that they know nothing. Science has cured smallpox, what have you done?
Ok. I have to respond to this with what will amount to a basic primer in Immunology. Please bear with me.
At birth, our immune system operates on the principal of a random number generator. You see, it produces all of these defensive cell types without any real knowledge of what is needed. It is untrained. Unexposed to the real world of pathogens. So it uses its ‘random number generator’ to create antigens to random protein structures that may or may not invade host.
This is a recipe to get us all killed, but luckily as infants, our immune system is bolstered by something called Transferred Immunity. Basically some of our mother’s antigens carry over from pregnancy explicitly to bolster our untrained immune system. Even better, breastfeeding bolsters our immune system by transferring some of our mother’s antigens allowing us to better identify and deal with foreign threats. (Insert long tirade about the benefits of breastfeeding here).
So how do we gain immunity? Or rather, what is the process that produces Acquired Immunity? Natural Selection (Danger! Forbidden concept alert!). Remember the random number generator I mentioned above? Well it doesn’t work alone. Our immune system works not only randomly, but also as a catalytically induced Positive Feedback Loop. Exposure causes an increased antigen production response, and this ‘trains’ the immune system to better handle antigenic threats.
To put it another way, our Immune system relies on Natural Selection to train it for Acquired Immunity (I know, I know. Natural Selection is only a theory. Never mind that it underpins all modern biology. Anyway…). The random nature of Immunity becomes ‘weighted’ toward those things it has been exposed to and has successfully repressed. Natural Selection trains our immune response to be better respond to those challenges to which it has been previously exposed.
With all of this in mind, how to vaccines work? They jump-start this process. A denatured or attenuated invasive microorganism artificially introduced into our system will trigger a response to that antigen. The reason we don’t die due to this exposure is due to the fact that those microorganisms have been artificially damaged or killed prior to their introduction. In other words we are artificially inducing a natural process in a way that increases the odds of the subjects survivability at initial and subsequent exposures.
As to linking thermisol to autism there have been repeated studies undertaken to explicitly confirm this hypothesis. No linkage has yet to be demonstrated.
In conclusion, I am all for open mindedness. But there can be a terribly short path between an open mind and GIGO. I’m all for people finding out the utility of each individual vaccine allowing them to make an informed decision. But to decide to forgo all vaccines due to ‘research’ is the height of irresponsibility. Your decisions impact far more than you. You are significantly increasing the odds of your children having an untrained response to a potentially high morbidity infection, and allowing them to act as a vector to a significant population of people who may not have the ability to effectively resist the infection for a variety of reasons. Children are no more a ‘reservoir of infection’ than adults are. However, they do not have the acquired immune response of an adult either.
Failing to vaccinate your children significantly skews the odds against them. Personally it strikes me as an extraordinarily foolish thing with which to gamble
Richard, to back up your point that we just don't know everything when I was getting my daughter vaccinated the doctor told us that the shot she was getting was new one because the shot from ten years ago was found to cause problems (I don't remember what it was but it was not trivial).
At that point the doctor, my wife and I all discussed the limits of medical knowledge. Ten years ago they would have told us the other vaccine was just fine. How then can I be certain of this vaccine? We can't. You have to weigh the risk on both sides.
Richard, I am sympathetic to what your son has gone through. I cannot imagine your life. Hwoever, remember, until twenty or thirty years ago, a lot of children with diseases such as autism were simply institutionalized. You may not have seen these kids because they were stuck in group homes or institutions and not where you would know them. Unlike your child, they weren't mainstreamed. Also, remember, you are now more educated about the spectrum of autistic behaviors. You now may recognize the behavior, whereas when you were kids, the child may have been "the funny kid who forgets to shower".
Richard, Denmark eliminated thimerosol years ago; no change in the ASD diagnosis trend. We eliminated it a few years ago; again, no change. This is as clear an indication as you could possibly have that there is no link between vaccines and thimerosol.
As for the vaccines themselves, if the vaccines were giving people ASD, it's pretty likely that getting the actual diseases, as millions of children used to do every year, would have caused more, so the trend should run the other way. Autism rates vary by country in industrial nations, even though vaccination rates don't, much. And any preservative in the vaccine would be dwarfed by the massive amounts of preservatives your children are picking up from any food you don't grow yourself, your furniture, your laundry soap, the leather in your car, their toys . . . .
You should also remember that the reason you didn't used to see all these autistic kids is that until the seventies, they were stuck in institutions and never talked about. You were a child; unless it was a close relative, no one would have told you about Susie's brother who got sent away when he was three, which is a pretty terrifying thing to share with a kid. As it happens, I had two friends with disabled siblings, both of whom were institutionalized. Moreover, New York's state school for the mentally disabled happened to be in the town my mother's from, and believe me, autism didn't just pop into existance twenty years ago.
Has a study been done where the drug use of parents of autistic children has been investigated? I ask because not too many years ago one of the big Boston hospitals found a large increase of young women in their twenties giving birth to Down's syndrome children. It turned out that most of them had used a spermicide as birth control prior to getting pregnant and the residue was considered a determining factor in the epidemic of Down's syndrome births. Other unexplored elements may be responsible in the uptake in autism not the least of which might be more accurate diagnosis.
And there's no edit feature. Tech me to type a response in a browser window. Anyway. Substitute antibody for antigen the fist three times and the post makes a lot more sense.
*sigh*
Richard, the word autism didnt exist until 1910. The modern defintion of the disorder came into use in the 1930s. This correlates to the invention of vaccination, but that by no means implies causation.
By your logic autism didnt exist in 1909 because we hadnt invented the word yet. There has been a huge influx of cases because it is being diagnosed when it never was before, and using wider and wider definitions.
But you know all that and reject it. This is all for the benefit of those who may not.
Lets put it this way- people used to drop dead of typhoid for thousands of years before somebody stuck the sucker under a microscope and 'discovered' it. That DOES NOT imply that the microscope creates typhoid.
If there was a crackpot theory that vaccinations caused homosexuality, I doubt that these people would believe it.
Tells you what they think autistics, doesn't it?
Is this America? Are you listening to yourselves? I don't agree that vaccines are beneficial and you want to deny me rights? Do you want unvaccinated children to wear little 6 pointed stars? Maybe they should be gathered up and placed in camps to prevent them from infecting you. Hey let's just gas them and be done with it. Then we could force the parents to burn the bodies in ovens as a fit punishment for their idiocy.
This father of 2 vaccinated autistic children and 3 unvaccinated normal children remains unconvinced of the absolute benefit of vaccines.
As for the plattitudes about "Years ago we didn't know about autism and these children were simply institutionalized.", there are not enough institutions in this country to hold all the children beingh diagnosed with autism.
Megan, please keep your immunizations up to date and you won't have to worry about coming in contact with my disease resevoirs. Unless perhaps immunizations aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Erik Warren
Thank you, Erik.
Thank you, Erik.
Erik, just keep your unvaccinated kids away from babies and others with weakened immune systems. The right to your crackpot theories based on anecdotal evidence ends where at the rights of those who dont wish to be infected with diseases that have killed more humans than you can imagine.
Look, these women aren't sociopaths. Perhaps a few are, but there's no evidence.
Yes, "sociopath" is a word of scorn.
So, to offer another example, is "Nazi."
These women are worthy of scorn, but there's no proof that they're "sociopaths." Nor are they Nazis.
For that matter, most people who drive drunk aren't sociopaths either.
Maybe these women are selfish, stupid, ignorant, yuppie fools doing great harm, but there's no evidence that they're sociopaths.
Likewise many people who drive drunk would fail to meet any definition of a sociopath. Awful as you may find their behavior.
Words having meaning. Even words that derive form psychological classification, which admittedly doesn't have the rigor of, say, botany.
So while your choice of "sociopath" may be done "quite deliberately" it's still wrong.
The fact that you back it up with the thought that someone who contacted measles from an unvaccinated child "feels even less kindly" is bizarre. It's the equivalent of saying Bush is a Nazi and then answering arguments against the proposition by saying, damn it, an Iraqi who lost a family member would feel that way even more than the speaker. Moral indignation in the defense of something that simply isn't backed up by any facts.
The post and the update represent an aberration from your usual fairly high standard.
I know parents with children with ASD have suffered much, but don't use misguided blame as a means of therapy. Don't substitute anecdotes for science. If this movement grows, tragedy will only be multiplied -- don't be a contributor.
I just wish someone would develop a vaccine for willful ignorance.
Let's take a long term perspective. 300 years from now, if medical science continue its progress, the methods used today will almost seem as barbaric and wrong as the methods of 300 years ago.
For example, 200 years ago, giving birth at a hospital is regarded as dangerous because almost everyone got infections from unsanitary conditions and practices at hospitals.
Likewise, during the Victorian era, educated women would go on a diet the moment they discover they are pregnant so as to have the smallest possible baby and the highest probability of both mother and child surviving birth.
Could it be reasonable to assume that in the future, these vaccines would be seen in the same light as medical treatments like mercury pills, which was once widely prescribed for a variety of ailments?
While I concur that the science behind most vaccines look pretty good today, I would like to, where the risks are not overwhelming, give a small minority of parents the choice to do as they see fit just in case the science is wrong.
Or, just in case that vaccines were contaminated (as they have been in the past) and caused unforeseen problems.
A little respect for the dissenting parents goes a long way as an insurance policy against what might be a good idea going bad? Just suppose that curing small pox also killed off a microorganism that gave us immunity to some new superbug in the future?
While, I, as a parent, would not risk that and will take the vaccine, I do take exception at people who go rabid demanding everyone be vaccinated.
Did you hear that? Megan!!!!!
Why.... some of the more rabid ones ought to be given rabies shots just to be sure they don't have rabies.
SM,
I am suprised you have not gotten an answer to your style question.
<blockquote>YOUR TEXT</blockquote>
For example:
The upward spiral in autism diagnoses has nothing to do with actual cases of autism. The number of diagnoses has increased because the definition was expanded to include normal children. The old saw holds true: the more you expand the parameters of a condition, the more you undermine the understanding of the condition.
This is what happens in an uneducated society: superstition and nonsense.
D, this is a terrible argument. In 300 years they may view vaccination as a barbaric and insufficient measure against these diseases. They may say the same thing about antibiotics and chemotherapy. That doesn't mean that the logical course right now is to abandon them when the indisputable evidence is that they do more good than harm.
A lot of people I know don't wear seatbelts, and when asked for a justification they cite cases where someone has been trapped in a burning car by a malfunctioning seatbelt, or thrown to safety when a belted person would have been crushed with the car. Even supposing that seatbelts kill a tenth as many people as they save, there's no way of predicting what the physics of your accident will be and only the purest kind of fool chooses the worse odds. I'm afraid that the publicity this contemptible movement has attracted makes it likely that a lot of parents are going to see the folly of their actions only when their children start to die of illnesses we've already beaten.
Land of the free,
as long as you agree with me?
Can you say Vioxx?
Most people have no problem believing the gov't lies. Why can't they be twisting the truth with the shots?
Read David Kirby on www.huffingtonpost.com
Read the court documents for yourself from the Poling case and decide what's true. Questioning parents have the right to refuse. It is a parent's choice. My body, my decision. Deal with it.
That's ridiculous of course I don't want them to wear a 6 pointed star. It would be a yellow V on a face mask.
Alright I admit that is in poor taste, but I agree with Megan that by not vaccinating your children you place not only them but other children at risk.
In Erick's case we may have a special exception in that his children may suffer from a genetic condition that causes autism when exposed to certain triggers, which was the case in the Poling case, but if his type of case was the only exception then herd immunity wouldn't be threatened.
Milking it for what it is worth...
"indisputable evidence is that they do more good than harm"
Where you stand depends on where you sit. Take a look at any vaccine, and you will find that there is a small percentage (tiny, but significant)that can have severe reactions to the vaccine, contaminants, or the procedure.
If you are a person in that tiny percentage that develop severe reactions(which often cannot be tested for in advance), you would not take it very kindly that you are the sacrifice needed to make everyone else safe.
A bit less tyranny would go a long way in encouraging, rather than mandating vaccinations.
BTW, look at another controversial medical procedure like circumcision. There is lots of arguments for and against it, and lots of different reactions depending on whether it is for males or females.
Would you also insist on similar dictatorial action in either making everyone have this procedure or banning it?
I hope not.
Mary,
Your rights end where they infringe on others. Unvaccinated children do just that.
As I posted earlier, if your conscience really dictates that your children go unvacinnated, then you must go through with keeping them from a society that has decided vaccinations are a good thing.
Sounds to me like you want to make the choice without regard to the consequences.
D,
You, again, miss the point. Your example of circumcision is flawed b/c an uncircumcised child would only be affected himself. A child who contracts Whooping Cough and is exposed to other children is a health risk to the entire group.
Maybe parents of unvaccinated children should set up their own little community. Then, let's compare disease contagion rates and childhood mortality in 10 years.
My body, my decision. Deal with it.
Sure. And the point that has been repeatedly made is that your decision doesn't only affect your body; it has the potential to kill or maim others. So make your decision, but then remove yourself from the company of those whom your decision has the potential to harm by ceasing to appear in public places.
My body, my decision. Deal with it.
Fair enough. Here is your ticket for United Flight 433, non-stop service to The Island.
By the way, if your body develops an enormous urge to disbelieve all the government lies about stoplights, I can guarantee the "dealing with it" will disillusion you of any ideas that all of your decisions are automatically isolated from the society in which you live.
The ignorance displayed by parents who do not vaccinate their children is astonishing. The comments they've posted here display an appalling -- and dangerous -- arrogance about a subject on which they are demonstrably ignorant.
A point-by-point refutation of their nonsensical arguments is useless. They have already demonstrated that objective scientific knowledge is not enough to sway them.
Suffice it to say that I have met many parents during my career who have refused to immunize their child. Not once, however, have I met a physician or immunologist who has refused to immunize their child.
"am getting my child vaccinated, but I wish I had a better feeling about what they do when your kid is the 1/100,000 that has an allergic reaction to MMR, or the 1/23,000 who gets ITP."
I can't speak to the MMR allergic reaction, but one of my 18-month-old daughters was just diagnosed with ITP (after a viral illness, not a vaccination, as is far more common). She spent a weekend in the hospital receiving IVIG, which wasn't exactly fun for her, but had no serious side effects. Most kids with ITP don't even need treatment, only those with the lowest platelet counts. 80% of children will spontaneously recover within six months, and most of the rest will recover within a year or two. Only about 75 kids a year in the US die from ITP, and a majority of those kids will have caught it from mild viral illnesses rather than vaccines.
Putting your child in a car is objectively riskier than ITP.
EmmaB.
Thanks for some sanity.
"My body, my decision. Deal with it."
I agree. But, and this a very big but, your children's bodies are not yours. You are only their guardian.
"Almost all vaccines can cause pain, redness or tenderness at the site of injection. And some vaccines cause more severe side effects. For example, the pertussis (or whooping cough) vaccine can cause persistent, inconsolable crying, high fever or seizures associated with fever."
http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=75743
The logical question is how good are the follow up studies that show that there are no long term side effects? I would consider seizures in a child that is too young to know or understand what is happening is pretty alarming.
What is needed are serious, scientific, longitudinal studies of control vs. vaccinated populations to see if subtle effects turn up.
However, a quick look on Medline I failed to locate such studies of a few of the more common vaccines like whopping cough.
Interestingly, when propagandist are asked for hard studies backing a course of action that the medical establishment don't want to hear about, there are, a) little funding for research, b) no serious studies.
FYI, a longitudinal study of people exposed to mild amounts of radiation in Sweden found that children were mentally impaired. See:
http://www.nuwinfo.se/bonner20070816.html
I would like to see similar kinds of studies done for vaccines.
Prove that this stuff is as safe as the propagandist like us to think it is.
I wonder why my healthy well loved great uncle died from polio in 1926? My grandfather went on to become a doctor and had to watch a patient die from lockjaw. He talked about it for the rest of his life---seeing the man shake uncontrollably for hours and feeling so helpless.
The people who keep insisting that autism rates have increased must live in a beautiful world of butterflies and unicorns. Until VERY recently, all over the world, including America, children who were going to be a drain on their families resources "died" as soon as that became apparent. Do you really think that a family making the trek West in covered wagons were able to give the kind of attention and supervision to impaired children that they required? I’d be very interested about correlating statistics for increases in the incidence of Down’s Syndrome too…not too many 100 year old pictures of Down’s kids. There weren’t always institutions…institutionalizing mentally impaired children was a MORE humane solution that what had been done before.
Every culture has stories about fairies or trolls or some other mystical creature that steals children in the night and takes them to their world…why do you think that is? Google the story of the “Changling”, especially the Grimms version. Those stories evolved in part to explain why perfectly normal children suddenly appeared dumb and unable to communicate or connect with people (sound familiar?) and also to excuse their disappearance.
The rise in Autism is the result of a societal shift that makes it possible to care for severely impaired children in spite of their drain on resources because there are more resources to go around and a very new (historically speaking) idea that the lives of children are inherently valuable.
It’s completely asinine to assert that there has been a huge increase in Autism since the 1940’s. We quit turning a blind eye to euthanasia, the entire world is basically able to communicate and research together and now that a criterion for diagnosis has been agreed on, people know what they’re looking for.
After careful reading and research, I have refused vaccines on my kids. I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law. I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot. Am I a sociopath? - Palmrita
Yes.
fyi, in 2002, WHO estimates 14% of the 10,000,000 children under 5 who died, succumbed to vaccine preventable diseases
I didn't see where anyone else had posted this, so thought I would add. Sorry if it is a repeat
http://www.who.int/immunization_monitoring/diseases/en/
After reading this entire thread, I have to confess to some serious doubts about the wisdom of the 19th amendment.
"Who should one trust, a parent who saw first hand in the mid 90s their son essentially go from normal to autistic overnight after vaccination or a small clinical study from those in bed with the companies who make the vaccines?"
This is the nub of the issue. And the answer is simple--you trust the professional, not the parent.
The parent is looking for an explanation. Folks like Richard latch on the correlation of vaccination-symptoms and assume it is also correlation.
EXACTLY George. Which is why we see concerned parents championing this, and not medical researchers and nobel prize winning biologists.
People are looking for answers to tragedy. But sometimes there is no easy answer. Sometimes, no answer at all.
We spend just as much time looking for answers to why our kids have ADD or wheat allergies. The speculation there (to be kind) goes to tv shows or baby formula. It wouldnt matter a rats behind why parents thought their kids got autism, except that in this case there are many, many more lives at risk. And the most defenseless lives of all.
There are nuts out there that dont buy into germ theory as well. Are we willing to let them get their kids sick with tuburculosis and go to school the next semester?
Occam's Beard, I'm glad you know for a fact that someone posting under the name "Mary" or "Palmrita" couldn't possibly be a hairy, tattooed, overweight janitor who gets his jollies pretending to be a ditzy chick.
Now back to the adults....
I went to school with some guys who, looking back, were more than likely high functioning autistics/Asperger's syndrome kids. They were weird and a little off, but no one thought to put them into special programs.
It used to be that having a "different" kid was a source of shame. Now there are people desperately trying to get their kids classified as disabled so they can get extra tutoring or time on tests.
I probably could get special consideration for ADD if I was a kid in school today. However, back in the dark ages of the '70's, my parents were simply told that I couldn't possibly be "hyperactive" (the term they used back then) because I was a girl, and everyone knew girls weren't hyper.
They were told to crack down on the discipline and make me toe the line, since I was just a smart alecky, unmotivated kid.
Now, I'd probably get Ritalin and a specialized education plan.
Exactly. And too often, as in this case, is not excessively bright, but even if that's not the case, the parent is too close to the situation to be suitably objective, and cannot grasp that "post hoc propter hoc is not sufficient basis for drawing the conclusion they want to draw.
I'd say one should trust themselves, after becoming educated and evaluating the truth in what they see.
I am not saying vaccines are 100% of the cause, but anyone who isn't blind can take a glimpse and see the result of the Hanah Poling case which LEGALLY linked autism to vaccines.
Expect more cases, and expect more 'professionals' without merit who seem to think 1 in 150 autistics is fine, as long as it's for the greater good.
That is, until one of those is their child, as it was for Dr. Jon Poling, a neurologist
You're now just saying this to cheer me up, are you? God love ya.
As an aside, read this, especially the real arrogant types, such as Dr Bill.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/health/stories/2008/03/06/autism_0306.html
This is also the story of many others, that people here discount and wrongly discount due to vapid studies.
Explain to me why they are locking the court records about this case. What do they have to hide?
It's pretty well known the link so many here disbelieve is factually present in this court case, as such has been leaked.
Not that it matters to those of us who have seen this same damn thing played out in front of our eyes, which professionals can continue to deny, but which anyone with an ounce of common sense can realize is simple truth.
I am not saying vaccines are 100% of the cause, but anyone who isn't blind can take a glimpse and see the result of the Hanah [sic] Poling case which LEGALLY linked autism to vaccines.
That's a bit of a stretch...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/us/08vaccine.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin
Some key quotes:
“Let me be very clear that the government has made absolutely no statement indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism,” Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday. “That is a complete mischaracterization of the findings of the case and a complete mischaracterization of any of the science that we have at our disposal today.”
"Dr. Trevathan explained that children with mitochondrial disorders often develop normally until they come down with an infection. Then their mitochondria are unable to manufacture the energy needed to nourish the brain. As a result, they regress."
"The disease control centers, the Food and Drug Administration, the Institute of Medicine, the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all largely dismissed the notion that thimerosal causes or contributes to autism. Five major studies have found no link, and since thimerosal’s removal from all routinely administered childhood vaccines in 2001, there has been no apparent effect on autism rates."
Reading crap on the internetz does not equal an education. Nor does reading pamphlets, or even books. I'm going to vote the actual doctors who've gone through YEARS of education and residency are going to be more educated than virtually any parent with DSL and a library card. And the Doctors side with vaccinating.
And people keep bringing up the Poling case. The crux of that case was that the child was given NINE vaccines (half of which were make-up vaccines) on a single visit which effect a PRE-EXISTING condition. This is not proof that vaccines = autism. Sarah Poling does not even have autism. If you bothered to research the case she has various problems that resemble autism. Not the same thing. Then again, you read it on the internetz, so it must be true, right? You've been _educated_.
C'mon Richard. Bad things happen to good people, as the pop psychologists tell us. There isn't necessarily any (attributable) causality involved. Cosmic rays fry ova every day, and the result could perfectly well be ...autism. (NB: spermatazoa are generated continously, and so less likely to be subject to, e.g., cosmic ray hits). A perfectly viable hypothesis.
And thanks, amy, for helping me to fight back my qualms about the 19th amendment.
Anna K:
Not sure who you're quoting but it wasn't me.
Sorry--it was mith, whose comment was just above one of yours.
Richard: "I'd say one should trust themselves, after becoming educated and evaluating the truth in what they see."
Exactly!
Wait, um... By "becoming educated" you do mean getting a PhD in immunology, right? And by "evaluating the truth in what they see" you do mean reading & publishing peer-reviewed papers, right? Right?
"I'd say one should trust themselves, after becoming educated and evaluating the truth in what they see."
Good philosophy. I've been reading up on appendectomies. Who's game? Im pretty sure i can pull it off. I believe in myself.
This is just blind arrogence. There are dozens of subjects i've read up on extensively, and i may have my own pitiful ideas about them but I certainly wouldnt pretend I have an answer to the dilemna. Particularly one that flies in the face of basically the entire medical and biological community.
You know there are people out there that, given a couple of hours, can probably convince you that we faked the moon landing, or that 911 was an inside job, and we all know Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy of Cubans, mafia, LBJ, CIA, and an angry hill of brush. There is a reason we have experts. There is a reason there is a consensus. If the medical profession needed your opinion on vaccines, i'm sure they would have asked for it long ago.
Am I the only one who can see Darwin nudging whoever's next to him and saying, "See? That's the sh*t I'm talkin' about?"
Garrett Schmitt: "Besides being antithetical to a free society, punishing behavior that *might* cause harm doesn't work"
Garrett, what's reckless endangerment?
palmrita: "Is Dan Burton crazy?"
Not at all. I have the highest respect for Cincinnati Bible Seminary's programs in Immunology and Theoretical Epidemiology.
Prime, Occam's beard, et. al.
Experts? It's a single word oxymoron.
Do you actually believe that someone can actually become an expert in the human body?
Doctors use static diagnosis (point in time and space). Modern diagnostic tools that are not stuck in space or time are just starting to be used for advanced research.
I'd like to know the sponsors of the studies finding no link between autism and vaccines. Out of curiosity, how can you find correlation without causation when you don't know what causes autism (apart from genetics, which wouldn't be part of the study anyways)?
I read Mary's reference to David Kirby at Huffington Post. The symptoms of the seizure which happened 6 years ago was linked to vaccinations.
If you have friends in drug testing facilities, I'd recommend asking them their views on drugs rolling out of their labs. You'd find pharma companies knowledgeable about the fact of mortality linked to drugs, but since the death happened 10 or 15 years later, no one could prove causation.
Trust your instincts. For yourself and your children.
At this point in the thread most arguments have been made at least once, but I wanted to add to what Hey pointed out regarding Kurt 9's equating 'autism dianosis' with 'autism'. In addition to more existing cases being diagnosed due to greater awareness, there are more cases being diagnosed due to an expansion of the definition. Autism isn't an on/off, yes/no condition - the term spectrum is useful. Our definition of autism extends much farther across the spectrum than it used to.
Look at any engineering or mathematics department, and you'll see plenty of autism-spectrum types that probably weren't diagnosed in the past but would be today. They're high-functioning people that could survive without help as children but will probably do better with it, and the schools are watching for those cases now.
In addition, there may be even more cases that aren't actually autism-spectrum, since that diagnosis has become the catch-all category for those that need services in the school system. In my state, at least, the category is 'autism spectrum not elsewhere classified', and it's extremely vague. It's what the schools use when they can see that a child needs extra help, but that child doesn't fit any other standard labels. After all, a child cannot receive extra services without a label.
SP,
What are you talking about? Of course a person can become an expert in the human body. I'd love to know what you mean about diagnostic tools "not stuck in space or time." Does Billy Pilgrim run those machines?
People can trace nerve fibers from your fingertips to the top of your spine. People can perform surgery on fetus brains. I could go on endlessly at the amazing advances in knowledge. These people are called doctors, surgeons, researchers of all stripes. They've studied the physiology if the human body for years upon years and, in fact, know an awful lot about it.
It's interesting that you want to know the sponsors of the studies, but nothing about the studies. You're basically impugning motives w/o caring to hear about the argument.
In any case, these studies chucked a tons of variables about patients into a regression equation along with whether or not the patient had a thimerasol vaccination - that way, they could determine whether the vaccine or other factors was most associated with getting autism. If there was a correlation between autism and a vaccine (of any sort), then that would be a good reason to look at what possible causes there might be that could result from vaccination.
A statistically significant correlation may be an indication of causation, or another underlying related factor may be the cause. However, the vaccine theory does not even pass the correlation step in several studies - so there's no need to speculate on cause. A California study showed an uptick in autism right as the thimerasol vaccine was phased out. The Danish study looked at 500,000 people and found no correlation.
Your instincts can fail you in scary situations involving your kids. Trust real science.
And so SP takes us right back to the idea that if doctors dont know everything, their opinion is no more valid than a guy off the street with an internet connection.
Is Dan Burton crazy? Jenny McCarthy? Doug Flutie?
Barbara Loe Fisher? Andrew Wakefield? Edward Hooper?
Epidemiologists every one of them, eh?
I know that when I need medical advice I always turn to retired NFL quarterbacks and pneumatically inflated starlets.
The non-vax movement is characterized as educated.
Remember, about 1/3 of Nazi concentration and death camp commandants had advanced degrees. Lot's of educated folks believe incredibly stupid and harmful things. Look at the liberal arts faculty of any university.
Pasteur and Salk are spinning in their graves.
People, like me, who had the measles when we were kids have life time immunity. And I don't remember kids dying off in droves.
How old are you?
Know what the March of Dimes is all about?
I bet you don't remember any kids having birth defects because their pregnant mothers were exposed to rubella.
You say you don't remember.
I was born in 1954. The Salk polio vaccine was first publicly available in 1955. You don't remember, but I do. I remember parents literally terrified about polio. I remember iron lungs. My mom didn't even like me drinking from drinking fountains because of her fear of polio. I remember thousands of people lining up at public schools when the oral polio vaccine became available in the 1960s. People didn't line up because they were fooled by unthinking doctors in the service of avaricious pharma companies. They lined up because polio was a very real threat and the vaccine helped wipe out the disease.
D: "300 years from now, if medical science continue its progress, the methods used today will almost seem as barbaric and wrong as the methods of 300 years ago."
Some will, some won't. Be specific: Do you believe that the conceptual foundations of public health will be viewed as barbaric and wrong? And more to the point, will the methods used today be viewed as better or worse than the alternatives available today?
And by what process will these wondrous techniques of 24th century medicine be created? I'm pretty confident that it'll be through the process of peer-reviewed scientific research and the tools it uses, not folk wisdom or new-age remedies or some other nonsense.
Dr. Bill: "The ignorance displayed by parents who do not vaccinate their children is astonishing. ... They have already demonstrated that objective scientific knowledge is not enough to sway them."
Dr. Bill, I think it goes beyond that. Like most people, they lack a science-shaped receptor in their heads.
I'm not an MD (I'm a physicist - and it took me years to get my science-shaped receptor.) What I see is not merely people who lack facts, (c'mon, I lack plenty of medical facts) but who lack the intellectual substructure needed to participate in this conversation, e.g., no concept of statistical vs anecdotal reasoning or of mathematical modeling used in public health.
Don't get me wrong, I think MDs are basket-cases when it comes to math & statistics. :-) But the anti-vax people don't even realize how ignorant they are. They think they're having a conversation about this subject. Therefore I reluctantly agree with other posters who suggest that social pressure, not scientific reasoning, is the way to address this problem.
Polio is gone.
Really? Effectively suppressed is closer to reality. In my previous post I should have said "wiped out in most developed countries". In 1988 when there were seven reported cases of polio in a town in northern Israel, even though 90% of Israelis were vaccinated, the public health ministry started mass inoculations and 200,000 people volunteered to get vaccinated.
Can you say Vioxx?
Actually, many clinicians believe that, properly used and properly screened for cardiac issues, beta blockers are an important tool for treating arthritis and other disorders. For many, many patients Vioxx made it possible to function without pain and many of them find the replacements to be less effective.
The problem with Vioxx is that Merck played down the cardiac risk.
A friend of mine is a transplant cardiologist. He told me that when he was in med school one of his professors said, "50% of what you learn in med school will eventually be proved wrong, ineffective or even harmful. The problem is that we don't know which 50%."
Medicine, like all science and engineering, learns from failures. Still, there is the concept of "best scientific evidence". It may not be perfect but it's the best we have at this time.
BTW, look at another controversial medical procedure like circumcision. There is lots of arguments for and against it, and lots of different reactions depending on whether it is for males or females.
With my nic, I just have to respond.
Apples and oranges. With men it's relatively minor cosmetic procedure that hasn't seemed to dampen Jewish male's enjoyment of sex. Any of you know any Jewish men who don't like sex? The foreskin has virtually no nerve endings - well at least compared to the labia and clitoris, which are excised in so-called female circumcision. If FGM was truly analogous to male circs, they'd remove the hood of the clitoris instead of cutting it off completely.
BTW, FGM is evidence that women perpetuate many of the values that "oppress" them. Most female circs are done by female relatives of the woman getting cut, or by female religious officiants. Just like in "patriarchal" cultures, mothers raise their sons and daughters with those cultures' values.
Prove that this stuff is as safe as the propagandist like us to think it is.
Posted by D
Ah, the precautionary principle in action. Two can play the same game.
Prove that childhood viral illnesses are more safe than vaccinations.
For those making points in regards peer reviewed papers and limited studies about vaccines and autism, please feel free to explain to me where autism comes from. Don't use non factual reasoning or guesswork that is without merit. Explain to me the cause of Autism. You can't, because the doctors and specialists are clueless. Totally. Clueless.
Now, try to answer the parents who see a catalyst of change in their children who go from being normal one week, to being autistic the next. Again, they see this. You don't. It's akin to me explaining my days in combat to you, who have never been there, and you telling me I'm wrong since studies say what I saw wasn't true.
Answer why the Poling case was sealed and why it isn't open and transparent? Why are the other settlements, and there have been others also are sealed?
It's nice so many of you feel papers released from doctors in the employ of the drug companies are 100% square. I don't. The case studies we need to have done regarding children who are not vaccinated and autism rates are not there. Do those, then talk to me. Otherwise, you are ignoring the crux of my argument and simply buying into what you are being sold by a few doctors who still have not the slightest idea what causes Autism, and the underlying way to combat it.
Feel free to buy into studies that are so ridiculously flawed that an engineer like myself cringes just reading the details, and those who accept the findings of a group that are utterly in the dark about something they try to present as fact, and others buy.
If you had seen your boy go from happy, talking and on a normal development cycle to not looking in your eyes, waving his hand in front of his face nonstop and being completely nonverbal and anti social after being vaccinated you'd have a clue and understand why despite not being an immunologist, we just might have a pretty good idea what we're talking about.
We all know if it was your child, you'd sing a different tune, but this is the case with most situations similar to this.
Excuse me, but if YOU'VE been vaccinated, how is your health at risk at all by unvaccinated children? To paraphrase Barbie, Logic is hard!
As a parent of TWO children with Asperger's Syndrome, a supposedly rare disorder that has conclusively been proven to be on the rise since the introduction of mercury-based preservatives in vaccines, I find your position offensive to say the least. You are advocating discrimination if I don't go along with the herd mentality on public policy or health matters. Are you reading from Antonio Gramsci's playbook or something?
Mercury is a poison to the human body. Yet we give it to children whose brains have not fully developed in those vaccines, and Big Science and Big Government tells us its safe!?! And if we don't give it to our children, under your philosophy, we don't get to use the roads we helped pay for?
This is why there is a Second Amendment. Oh, I forgot, people like you want to do away with that as well.
What an idiot.
I still don't understand how when we have an outbreak of measles and the majority of those infected ARE vaccinated, the unvaccinated are to blame? How could you sue me for not being vaccinated when I'm not sick and you who are vaccinated are?
My wife comes from family of 9 children, only one of which was vaccinated (only because he was in the military). He got sicker then anything when they pumped him with all the vaccines too. Nevermind that not a single one of them ever came down with anything that a vaccine could prevent.
A _few_ doctors? Just a few? These are the kind of statements that cause truly educated people to simply laugh at your 'arguments.'
Further proof that you are so ignorant of the topic you are speaking of that you continue to make fools of yourself unknowingly. You don't seem to even have the basic knowledge of epidemiology and biology necessary to grasp the concept of child immunizations. Even after it's been explained to you several times over in these comments. This is why so many people in these comments don't even bother to have a discussion with you. You don't have the tools necessary to even engage in such a discussion. Just because you see correlation, and things make sense to you, does not mean the vast majority of pediatricians and epidemiologists are evil pharma-backed hacks trying to poison your children.
This is what I was trying to quote up above - Otherwise, you are ignoring the crux of my argument and simply buying into what you are being sold by a few doctors who still have not the slightest idea what causes Autism, and the underlying way to combat it.
Chris,
Forgive me for wanting to know the context of the study. I'm more of a critical reader. In fact, if you point me to the studies, I'd actually read the entire text, and not some journalists interpretation of it.
What do you think was the modeling used in that study you were referring to? Correlation is a weak study of anything. 'Chucking tons of variables' into a regression equation means there was an equation that came out of a model. Modeling means assumptions. Assumptions that someone is making. Before you trust a statistical study, find out what model they used.
I actually don't care much about the increase in Autism against vaccination. As many in this thread point a simple cause could be better educated doctors about symptoms of Autism. I'm more interested in VAERS and issues around vaccines in general.
I can give you several examples of modern medical 'discoveries' that aren't in 'vogue' with most doctors. Estrogen secreted by heart tissue, neurons in your GI, etc.
I agree people can be experts in some parts of the human body. My allusion was no one can become an expert in the entire human body. And the interactions between different physiological parts are key.
Endocrinology is what I'm referring to when I say diagnostics stuck in space and time. A dynamic system such as the endocrine system cannot be measured by taking samples of blood or urine and figuring out the levels in it. Can you imagine the hormonal landscape in your body and trying to get a visual clue of all the interactions of the hormones and its effects?
If you do trust science, then that is the basis of your instincts. Go with it. Mine is based on more than blindly believing that 'science' and what 'experts' say is the best case scenario.
Answer why the Poling case was sealed and why it isn't open and transparent? Why are the other settlements, and there have been others also are sealed?
It could be for any number of reasons none of us would be privy to, but a strong possibility is that it is sealed because a child is involved (think family court or adoption records until recently). It is also common for any case resulting in a cash settlement to be sealed. For all you know, the parents could have requested that it be sealed because there are some details that they don't want revealed (like possibly the size of the payment, to keep no account relatives from asking for a "loan" to tide them over).
Yeah, I know, stories about it are all over the innernut, and all that. But if you think the media report everything accurately you have been living in a fantasy world.
Prime ribs:
"Some will, some won't. Be specific: Do you believe that the conceptual foundations of public health will be viewed as barbaric and wrong? And more to the point, will the methods used today be viewed as better or worse than the alternatives available today?"
Yes, I do believe that there will be future revolutions in public health theory that will take a more benign view of the microbes culture we are embedded in.
The Pasteur 'germ' theory, with its rather black and white views of microbes, was a major advance in its time. In 300 years, we will know a lot more about microbes and with that knowledge, probably walk away from most 'eradication' campaigns and replace it with techniques that suppress - like encouraging benign variants of bugs to exist and thus, crowd out the ecological niche - without wholesale eradication.
I do not for a moment want to think I can even conceive of what will be invented 300 years into the future (except for Hyperdrive for space craft!) but I am pretty sure that public health practices today will be seen in the same light as theories like racial hygiene widely practiced in the early part of the 20th century. Hmmm come to think of it, eradication fits that group quite nicely too!
"And by what process will these wondrous techniques of 24th century medicine be created? I'm pretty confident that it'll be through the process of peer-reviewed scientific research and the tools it uses, not folk wisdom or new-age remedies or some other nonsense."
I am pretty sure it will not necessarily come from the peer-review process dominated by DWEMs and their modern incarnations. Every major scientific revolution came from a few persons who are so radical that their stuff cannot be published in respectable places --- it is suppressed by the dominant paradigm as heresy.
It can come from God or Gods (if you like final causes), it can come from aliens who in the course of eradicating apes that infest this planet impart knowledge to a talented tenth of them, it can come from entirely different epistemological traditions, it can come from different peer group than the present DWEM dominated ones, who knows.
Closed mindedness and rabid advocacy of beliefs is the first and foremost evidence that the scientific community is in decline with many commentators here.
Two bit play at this game:
"Ah, the precautionary principle in action. Two can play the same game.
Prove that childhood viral illnesses are more safe than vaccinations."
Sure, lets do that.... I will begin by vaccinating people like this for rabies --- pretty sure they have the disease (unless they are refusegees from the elections blog).
I still don't understand how when we have an outbreak of measles and the majority of those infected ARE vaccinated, the unvaccinated are to blame? How could you sue me for not being vaccinated when I'm not sick and you who are vaccinated are?
Ever hear of your "namesake", Typhoid Mary?
She enjoyed perfect health. The people around her, not so much.
Wow, there seem to be quite a few people claiming to be libertarians around here that also want the government to force people to things against there will.
Never thought I would ever actually meet the rare tribe of Statist-Socialist-Nazi-Libertarians, but lo, here you are.
Perhaps you need to actually investigate the meaings of words, as I do not htink you know what the word libertarian means. It does not mean statist power monger with over emphasis-fixation on the sexual libertine.
there = their
htink = think
Additionally, please look up the word sociopath as you seem to not be aware of the definition of that word as well.
Bring on the police state...where we can force those that don't believe as we do to do exactly what we want them to.
How joyous you all will be to turn in your neighbor to Big Brother.
Conan,
This place is a Meganic Republic.
A fatwah was issued by Megan that those who are non-believers in vaccination are to be exterminated.
Now go out and do your religious duty.
Oh, and I have to say this:
a 1:150 incidence rate for autism is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Off by an order of magnitude, even with more sensitive diagnostic criteria in effect.
Vaccinations caused my first born son to have a fatal seizure four days after he was vaccinated. There were no other inputs, diseases, or abnormalities discovered despite running all the tests. Of course all the doctors circled the wagons and said it's inexplicable.
Now we're left with a medical community which lies and demonizes anyone who questions their moral right to murder some children to "save" others. Sorry if I don't see the logic in a fatal vaccine for a rarely fatal disease.
And don't get me started on 'hot lots' of vaccines causing clusters of death followed by the typical denials.
Thank you, George.
As one who probably would have been "diagnosed" as ASD had I been born a few years ago (like Edison, Jobs...well maybe not Jobs but definitely Woz) I'd like to chime in about that.
When I was a very small child I talked late, then stuttered, walked on my toes, and would wave one hand around as if were conducting (for the curious, I was drawing pictures in the air) - but this all "resolved" by around 8 years old with no intervention. Well, I still walk on my toes!
And I'm quite offended by the implication that those things make you ASD, frankly. I'm a little shy, but have lots of friends and am sociable enough! I don't have any desire to look back and say "oh I had Aspergers or ASD" or whatever the hell else. I was a smart kid with some eccentricities, probably just due to the developing neurological system that small children have. That development, with all its quirks, has now been pathologized.
Right now, today, children (like my own child) are being "diagnosed" by schools hungry for federal funds, because they might sometimes walk on their toes. Or occasionally move their hands oddly while telling a story. No social problems, no developmental problems - just a single "symptom" is enough for the label "ASD" or, better yet, "PDD-NOS." Some parents actually seem to like the "special attention" - the schools and EI services people certainly do. I do not.
There's a lot of anecdotes being tossed around, but here's another - in my area (Southeastern PA, a very rich locale full of brainy science types) I know of quite a few little boys who were put "on the spectrum" at very young ages (like 18 months!!!) for not talking enough. No other developmental problems. Their parents were scared to death. They are ALL now (at 4-5 years old), just fine and have "lost the diagnosis."
There's a money-maker here in SE PA for EI services and they are not shy about getting parents to buy in. I know quite a few moms here who have nice part-time jobs in EI and they are happy with being able to offer spazzed-out parents in-home "speech therapy" or "eating therapy" for their completely normal toddlers and preschoolers. They'd much rather do that than work with ACTUAL Autistic children, who tend to be more difficult and, very unfortunately, also tend not to improve completely with age.
There is most definitely an economic aspect to the rise in ASD diagnoses, at least in my neck of the woods. If people had to pay for the cost of EI services, they would balk more at accepting the diagnosis for "mild" (read: fabricated) cases.
After careful reading and research, I have refused vaccines on my kids. I do not believe in the 'herd immunity' theory- it is a theory, not a law. I build good health through nutrition, love and exercise. True good health is not found in a shot.
...Just like evolution is just a theory. Something I think your gene line might just have a run in with at some point...
Am I a sociopath?
Yes. Putting others at risk over your theories about the relative value of "nutrition, love and exercise" vs. centuries of epidemiology and medical science is no different than if I were to sell snake oil to sick people. The percent chance of doing harm may vary between the two, but you are endangering others to satisfy your pet theories about health.
"Vaccinations caused my first born son to have a fatal seizure four days after he was vaccinated. There were no other inputs, diseases, or abnormalities discovered despite running all the tests. Of course all the doctors circled the wagons and said it's inexplicable."
I am sorry for your loss...as the parent of a three week old I really cannot imagine the pain you must have felt. However, you simply cannot make the assertion that your child's death was caused by a vaccine. Well, you can make it, but it has not real evidentiary value.
"Vaccinations caused my first born son to have a fatal seizure four days after he was vaccinated. There were no other inputs, diseases, or abnormalities discovered despite running all the tests. Of course all the doctors circled the wagons and said it's inexplicable."
I am sorry for your loss...as the parent of a three week old I really cannot imagine the pain you must have felt. However, you simply cannot make the assertion that your child's death was caused by a vaccine. Well, you can make it, but it has not real evidentiary value.
George,
You're turning me away from the crazy libertarians here.
You must be a bad lawyer. Perhaps you have some insight on why Chip lost his son?
Evidence.
UGH.
George,
Read the literature which comes with vaccines. They ADMIT to a "one in a million" (convenient way of quantifying the risk, making it sound small, no?) risk of seizure. But when it's fatal or more than three days out they go into deep denial.
How many people here are even aware of the vaccination compensation injury system?
Vaccines are so dangerous they dare not let them face ordinary legal scrutiny. It's utilitarian calculus with babies.
Are the Amish, largely unvaccinated, unfit parents?
Posted by palmrita | March 24, 2008 11:56 AM
The myth that the Amish don't vaccinate comes from a UPI reporter named Dan Olmsted. He traveled through Lancaster County, PA, in the spring of 2005 looking for Amish children with autism. He then wrote an article called "The Amish Anomaly" where he said he only found one.
But Olmsted had not visited or even called the cryptically named Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, PA. The clinic not only has a well-attended vaccination clinic, but also see dozens of Amish children who present with symptoms of autism.
http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=29
Sez Mary:
I would posit that if you are so ignorant of basic statistics as to not even be able to apply Bayes' Theorem, you have little meaningful to add to the discussion. You certainly should not be allowed to sit on a jury where DNA evidence is being used.
"For those making points in regards peer reviewed papers and limited studies about vaccines and autism, please feel free to explain to me where autism comes from."
Please explain to me the underlying physics of quantum mechanics. Scientists can't do it, but your computer still runs. Just because we don't know everything, doesnt imply that we know nothing. Our understanding of autism says NOTHING about out understanding of vaccines.
You might as well be claiming that the moon landing was faked, because, hey, if we don't understand autism, there is no way we could understand space flight.
We dont know what trigger Alzhiemer's either. I believe it was the diphtheria antitoxin. Bother were discovered in 1901. Argue with that logic.
_"Read the literature which comes with vaccines. They ADMIT to a "one in a million" (convenient way of quantifying the risk, making it sound small, no?) risk of seizure."_
_"Vaccines are so dangerous they dare not let them face ordinary legal scrutiny. It's utilitarian calculus with babies."_
For the record, your odds of being killed in a lightning strike are 1 in 80,000. At least 12.5 times more likely than being killed by a vaccine.
On the other hand respiratory distress is one of the top 10 leading causes of infant deaths.
Human beings are notoriously bad at analyzing large numbers or long odds (witness the Lottery). This discussion is a perfect example. A doctor would be 100,000 times more effective telling a patient to drive home safe than to discuss the dangers of vaccinations.
Your odds of dying of sleep apnea are signifantly more likely than dying of a vaccination. But nobody asks why the mattress dealer doesnt have warning signs.
We all know if it was your child, you'd sing a different tune, but this is the case with most situations similar to this.
Posted by Richard Scott
You can't have it both ways. On one hand you say you want reliable studies done, on the other hand you acknowledge that one's evaluation of the evidence is related to one's personal circumstances.
You people sound like a bunch of Nazi's. Forced vaccinations on children? How did your parents ever survive to breed such idiots? You scream and cry about your child contracting measles while we are riddled with autoimmune disease in epidemic proportions. Kids are sicker today then they have ever been in the past. You wouldn't dare drink mercury, aluminum, or formaldehyde but you have no problem injecting directly into an infants bloodstream. This country is doomed. The vaccines have done their job. You're all brain dead!
Mercury is a poison to the human body. Yet we give it to children whose brains have not fully developed in those vaccines, and Big Science and Big Government tells us its safe!?! And if we don't give it to our children, under your philosophy, we don't get to use the roads we helped pay for?
Gonna have all your amalgam fillings removed?
Kids are sicker today then they have ever been in the past.
Once again I must ask if you have any idea what infant and childhood mortality were like before vaccinations?
"Kids are sicker today then they have ever been in the past."
An utter, complete, and dishonest lie unsupported by any serious evidence.
Actually government statistics show that combined diptheria, pertussis and measles mortality declined over 90% before the introduction of vaccines.
http://www.healthsentinel.com/graphs.php?id=14&event=graphs_print_list_item
Improved sanitation, living conditions and access to food was responsible for these declines.
Autoimmune diseases -- a group of about 100 conditions in which the body's immune system turns on the body itself -- are reaching epidemic proportions. In the past decade, 15 top medical journals have reported rising rates of lupus, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, Crohn's disease, Addison's disease and polymyositis in industrialized countries around the world. Over the past 40 years, rates of Type 1 diabetes have increased fivefold; in children 4 and under, it's increasing 6 percent a year.
From a Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/14/AR2008031403386.html
clusters of death
I'm no epidemiologist or statistician, but I've learned to be skeptical whenever someone uses the term "clusters", as if in the absence of other causative factors disease distribution will be completely random.
For every neighborhood where you can find "clusters" of breast cancer, for example, you can find a complimentary neighborhood with lower than normal cancer rates. Would you call that a "cluster" too?
I'm sorry for the loss of your child, but seizures are not exactly unknown in infants. I also know that doctors and nurses sometimes screw up. My youngest was in the NICU for ten days after the doc, clearing her airways from aspirated meconium, was mistakenly given a pressurized oxygen line instead of vacuum. Do I think they were callous or careless? No, someone made a mistake.
Also, my sister lost a child to cancer. There's a term in Yiddish, nebech, which means unfortunate. It's sometimes used as a description of people that have experienced tragedy. My sister once told me that she grieved for her daughter, Stacy, o'b'm', but that she hated it when people considered her "a nebech".
In spite of your tragedy I find it distasteful when you or other parents of tragedy use that as a trump card, as if the death of your child makes you more of an authority than anyone else. Frankly it reminds me of the handicapped guy who took up too parking spots for his van because there was already a car parked in the handicapped spot. I asked him what made him think he was entitled to two spaces and he tried pulling moral rank on me. I told him, "just because you're a gimp, doesn't give you special privileges".
If that makes me insensitive, so be it.
I love my children and granddaughter as much as you loved your infant child. I won't however, let your love for you child, trump my responsibilities to mine.
For the record, your odds of being killed in a lightning strike are 1 in 80,000. At least 12.5 times more likely than being killed by a vaccine.
Try 1 in 600,000 of even being struck much less dying, Mr. statistition.
I was a smart kid with some eccentricities, probably just due to the developing neurological system that small children have. That development, with all its quirks, has now been pathologized.
Smart kids by nature are eccentric and socially distanced from their peers. When you have an intellectually adult perspective you see things differently than most children.
Also, I think it was neurologist Oliver Sacks who said it, but some theorize that just about everybody who has exceptional intellectual talent or abilities also shows minor symptoms of major mental illness or disability.
God gives. God takes.
"a 1:150 incidence rate for autism is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Off by an order of magnitude, even with more sensitive diagnostic criteria in effect." - George
http://www.autismspeaks.org/press/ad_council_psas_year2.php
The PSAs contrast the odds of many things that parents think about each day – such as the dreams they have for their children and the measures they take to protect them - with the startling odds of a child being diagnosed with autism which are now 1 in 150, according the the CDC release in February 2007. The ads also communicate to parents “you know the odds of autism, now learn the signs”. Viewers are directed to visit www.autismspeaks.org to learn the signs of autism and to find out about early intervention.
The CDC's own numbers are bullshit? You guys just pull shit out your ass or what?
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Health/2005/12/07/the_age_of_autism_a_pretty_big_secret/6829/
CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- It's a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill.
But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don't have autism.
"We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we've taken care of over the years, and I don't think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines," said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst's medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated.
AMEN JIM!!!
You wouldn't dare drink mercury, aluminum, or formaldehyde but you have no problem injecting directly into an infants bloodstream. This country is doomed. The vaccines have done their job. You're all brain dead!
Actually government statistics show that combined diptheria, pertussis and measles mortality declined over 90% before the introduction of vaccines.
Improved sanitation, living conditions and access to food was responsible for these declines.
I couldn't agree more.
AMEN JIM!!!
You wouldn't dare drink mercury, aluminum, or formaldehyde but you have no problem injecting directly into an infants bloodstream. This country is doomed. The vaccines have done their job. You're all brain dead!
Actually government statistics show that combined diptheria, pertussis and measles mortality declined over 90% before the introduction of vaccines.
Improved sanitation, living conditions and access to food was responsible for these declines.
I couldn't agree more.
Sociopath, insane, stupid, crackpot, uneducated, superstitious, asinine, fools
Strong case you’re making!
We've got another joker suggesting you need a PhD in immunology before you can utter an opinion unless you're in agreement with him. THEN you're properly educated. Just amazing.
I don't think the pro vax folks here are as nearly concerned with their health as they are with insulting well meaning people. Something else has people on this thread getting very passionate about pro vax and I don't know what it is.
And for the record, there won't be any "quarantining" of families without vaccines because there are large numbers of illegal aliens in the nation without them. Any of the gifted minds think of that? You quarantine them you get labeled racist.
This forum is a really powerful salve to any sympathy I had with pro vaccine folks. I'm astonished by your responses, as if autism is no big deal and an acceptable casualty. And besides, drug company sponsored studies bolster your case so it MUST be true.
The fact is medical science is either in the dark or ironing out correlations on this subject and the story isn't finished. And anyone with common sense knows that institutions weren't filled with "dimwitted" kids a hundred years ago with no diagnosis whatsoever. If that's the case I'm afraid we're granting medical science more credibility than it's earned.
Something is causing higher rates period and the pro vax people are not expressing an interest in anything other than ad hominem.
You folks are in the running for persuasive gifts comparable to a used car salesman without the charm. Thank goodness your power is limited to a blog. Keep up the condescension!
By the way Meghan should people with higher insurance rates be limited to driving on roads certain times of day to minimize risk to people like you? Can people with Parkinson’s expect a sharp elbow from you for spilling coffee you might slip on? Life is risk, deal with it.
This guy sums up you and your argument perfectly: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/03/vaccininity.html
If numerous double-blind randomly controlled trials have objectively and consistently demonstrated that vaccination benefits children, why should anyone respect the contrary opinion of someone who lacks any form of scientific evidence to justify his argument.
Anecdotes and 'post hoc ergo prompter hoc' fallacies are all that's seen offered by the anti-vax crowd. They are not evidence.
The argument is not pro-vax v. anti-vax, it is objectively proven scientific fact v. ignorance and superstition.
Richard: I'm not arrogant. I've simply seen first-hand the human suffering caused by this type of ridiculous superstition.
If numerous double-blind randomly controlled trials have objectively and consistently demonstrated that vaccination benefits children, why should anyone respect the contrary opinion of someone who lacks any form of scientific evidence to justify his argument.
Ummm? Dr. Bill, that would be nice, if there was actually a double blind study ever done. If you know of one please do link it. You can't
If these people are unwilling to sacrifice for the public good, it's time the public stopped sacrificing for them. No more public schooling, police or fire departments. To hell with them.
Posted by Mike | March 24, 2008 12:10 PM
Cool. When can I stop paying for these services? I would sign without about 0.5 nanoseconds of consideration.
"Ummm? Dr. Bill, that would be nice, if there was actually a double blind study ever done. If you know of one please do link it. You can't"
Actually, I can. This is merely one of thousands demonstrating the benefits of vaccination:
A Randomised, Double-Blind, Controlled Vaccine Efficacy Trial of DNA/MVA ME-TRAP Against Malaria Infection in Gambian Adults
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0010033
Double-blind RCTs on children in the US focusing on the MMR vaccine are unethical. It would be wrong -- and dangerous -- to deny those vaccines to children who desire them.
There is some evidence that there is no increase in the number of autistic children. Many of those now labeled autistic would have previously been called retarded. The autistic diagnosis has only taken off in the last 15 years. The same period of time that shows an increase in the rates of autism.
Something similar happened when the ADD diagnosis came in vogue.
Since you people are so convinced that diagnosis is responsible for increases in autism than I'm sure you'll agree that criteria change of diagnosis for polio was responsible for the large decline cases after the vaccine was introduced?
I mean you can't have it both ways..can you??
Since you people are so convinced that diagnosis is responsible for increases in autism than I'm sure you'll agree that criteria change of diagnosis for polio was responsible for the large decline in reported cases after the vaccine was introduced? I mean you can't have it both ways..can you??
It seems to me that people are firmly entrenched in their respective camps on this issue. There are, however, some obvious and dangerous threats to public health that one cannot escape, and I don't know that those who are not vaccinating are taking this into account.
For example--what about polio? POLIO. Does anyone even know what it means anymore to get polio? Can anyone even imagine what would happen if it were to return in force in our population? I'm not trying be an alarmist--I think there is a practical middle way here that needs to be considered by both sides. We don't want to overmedicate or overvaccinate--I do see why people are anxious over the number of vaccines that kids are 'supposed' to get these days.
But come on--polio? Why would anyone want this disease to re-establish itself? It's ridiculously contagious and, if one survives, it can cause a lifetime of serious and disabling health issues.
I am at a loss to understand why one would leave one's children (and, by extension, other children and adults whose immunity to the disease may not be complete for various reasons) so vulnerable.
While I take issue with the pharmaceutical splatter approach to medicine that continues to intrude on our existence, we, as citizens of the world, do bear a responsibility to one another to take certain steps to prevent the recurrence of a disease we know to be easily spread between people, and capable of afflicting millions and millions, causing severe and savage harm in every aspect of our public and private spheres.
A resurgence of polio is entirely preventable, yet many are now choosing to forego the protection. Washing your hands and chlorinating the drinking water isn't going to stop the spread of polio. Good nutrition won't save you.
What will we do if polio returns? How will we protect children and unvaccinated or insufficiently immune persons then? My father remembers spending "polio season" indoors as a child, not being allowed outside, not being allowed to play with his friends, and not being allowed to go to school. Imagine that happening now? What would working parents do? What would adults do if they were stricken with polio and no longer able to work or even to breathe on their own?
I'm speculating, of course, but I think we have to take the long view with respect to certain diseases. We are terrified of the bird flu disrupting our entire nation, for pete's sake. When the means are at hand to prevent an even more dreadful plague, why would you scoff at it?
I'd like to slow things down a little here. Breathe....
(1) The morbidity rates of all of the childhood diseases were going well down before the advent of the vaccines for them - including diseases for which there was/is no vaccine. (Response to better hygiene (no open sewage), nutrition, etc.)
(2) The vaccines have a far higher incidence of adverse effects to them than we have been led to believe by the authorities who are invested in pushing them. These include allergies/asthma/anaphylaxis; arthritis/arthralgia; CFS/ME; convulsions/seizures; type 1 diabetes/MS & other autoimmune conditions; Guilllain-Barre syndrome; a whole range of Minimal Brain Damage/Disorder conditions, such as ADD/ADHD & dyslexia & dyspraxia & yes, ASD - I could go on, but the point is that a lower incidence of the childhood diseases has been bought at a price that some people are questioning: the price has been a huge amount of chronic illnesses and impaired immune systems (vaccines paradoxically suppress the i. system). If we had been told the truth about the full extent of the side effects of vaccines, a lot of the current angst would have been avoided; but the medical authorities chose not to. Obvious reason: many parents would have been put off offering their children for the shots. Thus the mantrum repeated for years: 'safe and effective...safe and effective...safe and effective' drum drum drum...
(3) Are vaccines the only cause of autism? No. But the mercury alone in them is a major suspect. (a) Amongst the early cases of autism in the early 40s were clear links to mercury. Not just in vaccines. Pesticides/herbicides are a link (some farmer families had autistic children who did not have the usual v. shots). So is the pollution from coal-fired power plants, getting into the environment including waterways and thus into fish. (b) When this potential of toxicity was noted, esp. with the major increase in the 90s of the number of shots in the v. schedule, the manufacturers began eliminating thimerosal from their shots. But there are reports of it still being on GP shelves as late as 2004 (& even a recent report to 2007); so its withdrawal has not been neatly cut and dried. Plus it has been replaced with - aluminum, another neurotoxin (already in many shots). And also, the flu shot (over 90% of which has thimerosal in it) has been added to the v. schedule, further obscuring the matter. (Recommended for pregnant women; thus a full, adult-amount of mercury going into the foetus's brain, & then topped up with some more as a baby and toddler...)
(3) It's not as if we would be helpless in the face of an onslaught of the childhood diseases without the protection of the vaccines for them. Scoutfinch2271: Polio was already being treated successfully by an American doctor with large doses of vitamin C before the advent of the vaccine took over. (Patented product for the allopathic medical profession to administer, & the pharmaceutical companies to make money on.) Which treatment would have avoided the SV40 monkey-virus contaminant of the vaccine; which approach would also have avoided the creation of over 60 conditions with polio-like symptoms (like CFS/ME), resulting from the suppression, but not total elimination, of the polio virus by the vaccine, to come out later under these other names. And there are a number of other natural substances w/anti-viral and -bacterial properties to deal with the whole range of ch. disease pathogens. Which approach would allow our children to have the benefit of natural, lifelong immunity, which the mother can then pass on to her child, through the placenta and her milk, to protect it until its own immune system can kick in. Point: Babies today get pertussis because of the vaccine, not in spite of it.
Am I anti-vaccine per se? No. I'm for the truth of matters.
Modern medicine has done a lot of good, and, has a lot to answer for. The main thing, IMHO, being the failure to institute long-term studies of its new vaunted medical modality with the advent of the mass vaccination programs. This is an incredibly invasive procedure. It should not have gone so long unquestioned seriously. It has taken the epidemic of autism* to get its, and parents', attention to this appalling oversight.
* (The numbers of ASD are not just due to an expanded definition. How many school districts are going bust financially because of the mass of numbers of children needing special care?)
P.S. Someone queried tv watching as a possible factor in the autism epidemic. Closer to the answer would be EMR including mobile phones and WiFi. Basically, some of our children are genetically predisposed to damage from a number of sources. One size fits all can no longer be the criterion for public health measures. We need to grow up in our awarenesses of what ALL is going on in our environment, and its effect on our children.
I'd like to slow things down a little here. Breathe....
(1) The morbidity rates of all of the childhood diseases were going well down before the advent of the vaccines for them - including diseases for which there was/is no vaccine. (Response to better hygiene (no open sewage), nutrition, etc.)
(2) The vaccines have a far higher incidence of adverse effects to them than we have been led to believe by the authorities who are invested in pushing them. These include allergies/asthma/anaphylaxis; arthritis/arthralgia; CFS/ME; convulsions/seizures; type 1 diabetes/MS & other autoimmune conditions; Guilllain-Barre syndrome; a whole range of Minimal Brain Damage/Disorder conditions, such as ADD/ADHD & dyslexia & dyspraxia & yes, ASD - I could go on, but the point is that a lower incidence of the childhood diseases has been bought at a price that some people are questioning: the price has been a huge amount of chronic illnesses and impaired immune systems (vaccines paradoxically suppress the i. system). If we had been told the truth about the full extent of the side effects of vaccines, a lot of the current angst would have been avoided; but the medical authorities chose not to. Obvious reason: many parents would have been put off offering their children for the shots. Thus the mantrum repeated for years: 'safe and effective...safe and effective...safe and effective' drum drum drum...
(3) Are vaccines the only cause of autism? No. But the mercury alone in them is a major suspect. (a) Amongst the early cases of autism in the early 40s were clear links to mercury. Not just in vaccines. Pesticides/herbicides are a link (some farmer families had autistic children who did not have the usual v. shots). So is the pollution from coal-fired power plants, getting into the environment including waterways and thus into fish. (b) When this potential of toxicity was noted, esp. with the major increase in the 90s of the number of shots in the v. schedule, the manufacturers began eliminating thimerosal from their shots. But there are reports of it still being on GP shelves as late as 2004 (& even a recent report to 2007); so its withdrawal has not been neatly cut and dried. Plus it has been replaced with - aluminum, another neurotoxin (already in many shots). And also, the flu shot (over 90% of which has thimerosal in it) has been added to the v. schedule, further obscuring the matter. (Recommended for pregnant women; thus a full, adult-amount of mercury going into the foetus's brain, & then topped up with some more as a baby and toddler...)
(3) It's not as if we would be helpless in the face of an onslaught of the childhood diseases without the protection of the vaccines for them. Scoutfinch2271: Polio was already being treated successfully by an American doctor with large doses of vitamin C before the advent of the vaccine took over. (Patented product for the allopathic medical profession to administer, & the pharmaceutical companies to make money on.) Which treatment would have avoided the SV40 monkey-virus contaminant of the vaccine; which approach would also have avoided the creation of over 60 conditions with polio-like symptoms (like CFS/ME), resulting from the suppression, but not total elimination, of the polio virus by the vaccine, to come out later under these other names. And there are a number of other natural substances w/anti-viral and -bacterial properties to deal with the whole range of ch. disease pathogens. Which approach would allow our children to have the benefit of natural, lifelong immunity, which the mother can then pass on to her child, through the placenta and her milk, to protect it until its own immune system can kick in. Point: Babies today get pertussis because of the vaccine, not in spite of it.
Am I anti-vaccine per se? No. I'm for the truth of matters.
Modern medicine has done a lot of good, and, has a lot to answer for. The main thing, IMHO, being the failure to institute long-term studies of its new vaunted medical modality with the advent of the mass vaccination programs. This is an incredibly invasive procedure. It should not have gone so long unquestioned seriously. It has taken the epidemic of autism* to get its, and parents', attention to this appalling oversight.
* (The numbers of ASD are not just due to an expanded definition. How many school districts are going bust financially because of the mass of numbers of children needing special care?)
P.S. Someone queried tv watching as a possible factor in the autism epidemic. Closer to the answer would be EMR including mobile phones and WiFi. Basically, some of our children are genetically predisposed to damage from a number of sources. One size fits all can no longer be the criterion for public health measures. We need to grow up in our awarenesses of what ALL is going on in our environment, and its effect on our children.
I'd like to slow things down a little here. Breathe....
(1) The morbidity rates of all of the childhood diseases were going well down before the advent of the vaccines for them - including diseases for which there was/is no vaccine. (Response to better hygiene (no open sewage), nutrition, etc.)
(2) The vaccines have a far higher incidence of adverse effects to them than we have been led to believe by the authorities who are invested in pushing them. These include allergies/asthma/anaphylaxis; arthritis/arthralgia; CFS/ME; convulsions/seizures; type 1 diabetes/MS & other autoimmune conditions; Guilllain-Barre syndrome; a whole range of Minimal Brain Damage/Disorder conditions, such as ADD/ADHD & dyslexia & dyspraxia & yes, ASD - I could go on, but the point is that a lower incidence of the childhood diseases has been bought at a price that some people are questioning: the price has been a huge amount of chronic illnesses and impaired immune systems (vaccines paradoxically suppress the i. system). If we had been told the truth about the full extent of the side effects of vaccines, a lot of the current angst would have been avoided; but the medical authorities chose not to. Obvious reason: many parents would have been put off offering their children for the shots. Thus the mantrum repeated for years: 'safe and effective...safe and effective...safe and effective' drum drum drum...
(3) Are vaccines the only cause of autism? No. But the mercury alone in them is a major suspect. (a) Amongst the early cases of autism in the early 40s were clear links to mercury. Not just in vaccines. Pesticides/herbicides are a link (some farmer families had autistic children who did not have the usual v. shots). So is the pollution from coal-fired power plants, getting into the environment including waterways and thus into fish. (b) When this potential of toxicity was noted, esp. with the major increase in the 90s of the number of shots in the v. schedule, the manufacturers began eliminating thimerosal from their shots. But there are reports of it still being on GP shelves as late as 2004 (& even a recent report to 2007); so its withdrawal has not been neatly cut and dried. Plus it has been replaced with - aluminum, another neurotoxin (already in many shots). And also, the flu shot (over 90% of which has thimerosal in it) has been added to the v. schedule, further obscuring the matter. (Recommended for pregnant women; thus a full, adult-amount of mercury going into the foetus's brain, & then topped up with some more as a baby and toddler...)
(3) It's not as if we would be helpless in the face of an onslaught of the childhood diseases without the protection of the vaccines for them. Scoutfinch2271: Polio was already being treated successfully by an American doctor with large doses of vitamin C before the advent of the vaccine took over. (Patented product for the allopathic medical profession to administer, & the pharmaceutical companies to make money on.) Which treatment would have avoided the SV40 monkey-virus contaminant of the vaccine; which approach would also have avoided the creation of over 60 conditions with polio-like symptoms (like CFS/ME), resulting from the suppression, but not total elimination, of the polio virus by the vaccine, to come out later under these other names. And there are a number of other natural substances w/anti-viral and -bacterial properties to deal with the whole range of ch. disease pathogens. Which approach would allow our children to have the benefit of natural, lifelong immunity, which the mother can then pass on to her child, through the placenta and her milk, to protect it until its own immune system can kick in. Point: Babies today get pertussis because of the vaccine, not in spite of it.
Am I anti-vaccine per se? No. I'm for the truth of matters.
Modern medicine has done a lot of good, and, has a lot to answer for. The main thing, IMHO, being the failure to institute long-term studies of its new vaunted medical modality with the advent of the mass vaccination programs. This is an incredibly invasive procedure. It should not have gone so long unquestioned seriously. It has taken the epidemic of autism* to get its, and parents', attention to this appalling oversight.
* (The numbers of ASD are not just due to an expanded definition. How many school districts are going bust financially because of the mass of numbers of children needing special care?)
P.S. Someone queried tv watching as a possible factor in the autism epidemic. Closer to the answer would be EMR including mobile phones and WiFi. Basically, some of our children are genetically predisposed to damage from a number of sources. One size fits all can no longer be the criterion for public health measures. We need to grow up in our awarenesses of what ALL is going on in our environment, and its effect on our children.
I'd like to slow things down a little here. Breathe....
(1) The morbidity rates of all of the childhood diseases were going well down before the advent of the vaccines for them - including diseases for which there was/is no vaccine. (Response to better hygiene (no open sewage), nutrition, etc.)
(2) The vaccines have a far higher incidence of adverse effects to them than we have been led to believe by the authorities who are invested in pushing them. These include allergies/asthma/anaphylaxis; arthritis/arthralgia; CFS/ME; convulsions/seizures; type 1 diabetes/MS & other autoimmune conditions; Guilllain-Barre syndrome; a whole range of Minimal Brain Damage/Disorder conditions, such as ADD/ADHD & dyslexia & dyspraxia & yes, ASD - I could go on, but the point is that a lower incidence of the childhood diseases has been bought at a price that some people are questioning: the price has been a huge amount of chronic illnesses and impaired immune systems (vaccines paradoxically suppress the i. system). If we had been told the truth about the full extent of the side effects of vaccines, a lot of the current angst would have been avoided; but the medical authorities chose not to. Obvious reason: many parents would have been put off offering their children for the shots. Thus the mantrum repeated for years: 'safe and effective...safe and effective...safe and effective' drum drum drum...
(3) Are vaccines the only cause of autism? No. But the mercury alone in them is a major suspect. (a) Amongst the early cases of autism in the early 40s were clear links to mercury. Not just in vaccines. Pesticides/herbicides are a link (some farmer families had autistic children who did not have the usual v. shots). So is the pollution from coal-fired power plants, getting into the environment including waterways and thus into fish. (b) When this potential of toxicity was noted, esp. with the major increase in the 90s of the number of shots in the v. schedule, the manufacturers began eliminating thimerosal from their shots. But there are reports of it still being on GP shelves as late as 2004 (& even a recent report to 2007); so its withdrawal has not been neatly cut and dried. Plus it has been replaced with - aluminum, another neurotoxin (already in many shots). And also, the flu shot (over 90% of which has thimerosal in it) has been added to the v. schedule, further obscuring the matter. (Recommended for pregnant women; thus a full, adult-amount of mercury going into the foetus's brain, & then topped up with some more as a baby and toddler...)
(3) It's not as if we would be helpless in the face of an onslaught of the childhood diseases without the protection of the vaccines for them. Scoutfinch2271: Polio was already being treated successfully by an American doctor with large doses of vitamin C before the advent of the vaccine took over. (Patented product for the allopathic medical profession to administer, & the pharmaceutical companies to make money on.) Which treatment would have avoided the SV40 monkey-virus contaminant of the vaccine; which approach would also have avoided the creation of over 60 conditions with polio-like symptoms (like CFS/ME), resulting from the suppression, but not total elimination, of the polio virus by the vaccine, to come out later under these other names. And there are a number of other natural substances w/anti-viral and -bacterial properties to deal with the whole range of ch. disease pathogens. Which approach would allow our children to have the benefit of natural, lifelong immunity, which the mother can then pass on to her child, through the placenta and her milk, to protect it until its own immune system can kick in. Point: Babies today get pertussis because of the vaccine, not in spite of it.
Am I anti-vaccine per se? No. I'm for the truth of matters.
Modern medicine has done a lot of good, and, has a lot to answer for. The main thing, IMHO, being the failure to institute long-term studies of its new vaunted medical modality with the advent of the mass vaccination programs. This is an incredibly invasive procedure. It should not have gone so long unquestioned seriously. It has taken the epidemic of autism* to get its, and parents', attention to this appalling oversight.
* (The numbers of ASD are not just due to an expanded definition. How many school districts are going bust financially because of the mass of numbers of children needing special care?)
P.S. Someone queried tv watching as a possible factor in the autism epidemic. Closer to the answer would be EMR including mobile phones and WiFi. Basically, some of our children are genetically predisposed to damage from a number of sources. One size fits all can no longer be the criterion for public health measures. We need to grow up in our awarenesses of what ALL is going on in our environment, and its effect on our children.
It was a military immunologist who, upon my taking my daughter to her clinic for her 2 month check up and shots, METICULOUSLY read through the ingredient lists of each vaccine with me, giving me a layman's definition of each, discussed the risks associated with thimerasol, its phasing out, and said, when I apologetically expressed my concerns, "You never need to apologize for being picky about what you put into your child's body. There are risks associated with vaccines. I always prefer a patient who chooses to educate herself."
So just to be clear-- if my child has a fatal reaction to a vaccine, or even a severe reaction, and I was required by law to have her vaccinated in order to attend public schools or be jailed for truancy, where would be the choice be in this equation?
If you're going to put such conditions on public school attendance, why not say that only children whose primary source of nutrition was breast milk for the first 12 months of life are allowed to attend? After all, the American Academy of Pediatrics says this is the best nutrition, passing on the immunities of the mother's fully developed immune system. Or we could go with the World Health Organization's model, if you're going to bring up Africa. Maybe only children who have been exposed to life-saving immunity through breast milk for the FIRST TWO YEARS OF LIFE should be allowed the privilege of public education.
For the record, my daughter's up to date on her shots. The real question here is who gets to make choices of children: Uncle Sam or the parents themselves. Do you trust elected officials to always do what's in your best interest? Your children's? Will we ever really know how vital the vaccinations are if there is an organization lobbying which stands to make BILLIONS of dollars if a new one is added to the schedule. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but if money is the root of all evil, you can't blame parents for being a little suspicious.
Vaccinated kids have just had diseases injected inside them. Then they shed them to others. I don't allow my kids to be around the recently injected. Vaccines are a religion. There is no science behind them. How could a bunch of toxic chemicals confer immunity? Oh and how does the immune system work? That’s right no one knows….
Vaccines are a religion. There is no science behind them.
Consdering some of the ridiculous, science-free ramblings I've seen on yours and other similar websites; I'd suggest that anti-vaccination is the religion.
Between the equally stupid "take what the doctor gives you on the official schedule, or be exiled," and "all vaccines are dangerous, unnecessary, and evil" positions, there is a broad spectrum of middle ground. The entire issue can't be covered by a blanket declaration, because there are so many components.
On suing parents of unvaccinated children for infecting your vaccinated child - why would you have any more claim against the non-vaccinating parents than against the manufacturer of the vaccine that failed? Civil liability advocates seem to be conveniently ignoring that second, necessary component of a vaccinated child contracting the disease, and the reality of how law is currently practiced that the doctor and vaccine manufacturer are the deep pocket targets of preference.
Similarly, in evaluating the draconian "vaccinate or exile" schemes suggested here, there needs to be a consideration of what the actual incremental risk is to the vaccinated population. Every outbreak can't necessarily be deterministically traced to unvaccinated individuals. If the theoretical patient zero is an unvaccinated child, how did that child get infected? If vaccinated children were infected, that means their vaccinations were ineffective, and they could have been infected by the same vector. The fact that ANYONE in the community can be infected means that anyone with an ineffective vaccine could be infected, and subsequently infect others, both the unvaccinated those with ineffective vaccines. It seems no one's attempted to quantify the incremental risk to the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. It's not a digital, all or nothing proposition, as much as the mathematically illiterate like to see it that way.
When I was in elementary school, there was a huge measles outbreak among vaccinated children. This was a largely homogeneous middle class community, lacking the typical vaccination exceptions. It's a safe bet everyone was vaccinated; the measles vaccine most school age children had at the time had recently been found to be ineffective, and everyone not infected received the new vaccine. My sister contracted measles in this outbreak and my brother and I were re-vaccinated, with a vaccine in use for 2-3 years at the time. The kids who contracted measles recovered quickly, thanks to modern treatment, and now have lifelong immunity with a century of empirical testing to back it up. The rest got an untested promise of immunity. Which group were better off?
Clearly, even the most passionate vaccine fanatic can't make a sound case for mandatory STD vaccines for newborns. A child under 5 faces a greater risk of being bitten by a rabid animal than of sexual promiscuity, yet we don't mandate rabies vaccination for infants.
Some diseases are more serious than others. Chicken pox in childhood is largely an inconvenience. Actually having the disease as a child confers far better proven immunity than the vaccination, and current data on the vaccine is only sufficient to tell us that its immunity lasts just long enough for the patient to reach the age where the disease gets truly dangerous. If the vaccine is 95% effective for 20 years, and then tapers off, and having the disease is 99% effective for life, then why should I expose my child to a 5% and rising risk in order to spare your child the same risk, when I could instead give him a 1% lifetime risk, in exchange for MAYBE exposing your kid to a 5% risk for a couple weeks?
On the other hand, while, for generations, it's been routine to expose kids to chicken pox and get it over with, no sane person.would suggest the same strategy for polio. Not all diseases are the same, and it's reasonable for people to choose some vaccines and not others.
Vaccination objections seem to have risen recently in lockstep with the adoption of the current "early and often" cocktail based vaccination grand prix schedule. Two generations had a schedule that took two or more years for kids to get all their vaccinations, delivered one at a time, and I don't recall bodies piling up in the streets. With all the autism debates, what I haven't seen here is anyone mentioning that, as we've gone to this rapid vaccination schedule, we've also seen an increasing incidence of asthma and allergies, which are essentially immune system disorders. It's very reasonable to wonder if that correlation doesn't have something to do with massively overstimulating a developing immune system early in life, and making it hyperactive. There's nothing unscientific about such speculation - our immune systems are the result of thousands of generations of evolution, most of which didn't have vaccines. To acquire the same number of immunities by contracting the associated diseases in such a limited time would kill anyone, so clearly, "learning" to recognize that many infectious agents on the current schedule is not something for which evolution would prepare our systems.
If you're really all that concerned about other people's kids infecting yours, then there's no reason to object to taking it slow and cautious, as long as they get all the important ones by kindergarten. That's five years, as opposed to the current regimen that takes what, six months? If you need to worry about other kids in your first grader's class being vaccinated for STD's, then it seems there are bigger problems you need to address, either at home or in your school.
As for the question of vaccine safety, there are definitely risks associated with vaccines, and they're sufficient that the extremely profitable manufacturers want the government to grant them immunity from liability. Thousands die each year in auto accidents, and I don't see the struggling auto industry asking for such protection.
As for SM's point, the reason there is little sympathy for these parents is not that they don't understand, but that they understand enough to behave in a totally cynical manner. They refuse to incur the tiniest potential risk to their child while increasing a greater risk to everyone
As I pointed out, no one has quantified that risk, because it likely can't even be proven. When a vaccine fails, it matters not whether the vector was vaccinated or not. The incremental risk to the vaccinated is likely miniscule, unless you can demonstrate spontaneous generation in unvaccinated individuals. Whatever the unvaccinated are exposed to, the vaccinated are exposed to, and the vaccine doesn't decide to fail because the vector is unvaccinated. Heck, if vaccine-based immunity is going to fail, it's much more likely to fail against a viral variant that's already adapted to infect a vaccinated host than one that's opportunisitically lucked out in finding an unvaccinated host.
they are wealthy and educated people who either presume they know more than health professionals (thus arrogant)
Who is more arrogant, the person who questions the assurances authority of the people who brought us thalidomide and Vioxx, or the healthcare professional who expects blind obedience with an industry track record of stonewalling and denial on such failures?
You still qualify as a bad parent if your unvaccinated child gets rubella no matter what bogus information you were looking at at the time, or how much you cared. You still qualify as a sociopath if your kid becomes a carrier for whooping cough and infects multiple classmates
Question - before the medical community recognized Rheis syndrome, when they were still recommending aspirin, were those parents who followed the recommendations bad parents and sociopaths? Were the people in the 60's who accepted a faulty measles vaccine bad parents and sociopaths? The prevailing wisdom from the healthcare industry changes constantly. The woman who let Pasteur perform the first vaccination on her son was considered a sociopath and bad parent. Does acting with good intentions on bad information always make you a bad parent and sociopath, or is it merely a matter of timing and what wisdom is currently in vogue?
But the antivax invite this. Having said that the combination shots are "too much" for a "developing immune system", do they then proceed to get single-disease vaccinations that cover the same illnesses?
Many in fact do, as evidenced by commenters here who describe having done just that. I note that, at least in this thread, more broadbrushing is coming from the pro-vaccine side.
I don't have a problem with doing either of the two things I mention above
But most pediatricians DO. If parents who ask for moderation are treated like pre-Reformation heretics, which way is that likely to push them?
Wouldn't the fact that mercury is no longer used in vaccines show a related decrease in autism cases?
One study says it has - http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=32&idsub=120&id=2771
However, since it's no longer used, this aspect of the issue is moot. Widespread publication of the fact that Thimerosol has been eliminated might be sufficient to calm many objections. Why hasn't any of the pro-vaccine crowd tried this approach. I suspect because their agenda involves more than just getting more kids vaccinated - they are interested in a triumph of authoritarianism.
And while palmrita's misguided application of 'love' isn't going to do the trick, a misguided application of 'hate' won't do it, either, yet several posters are advocating exactly that in loud terms
I think it's important to note that there's also a big difference between Palmrita's attribution to love and comments from other, more rational vaccine schedule skeptics here.
But your answer about AIDS shows you lack education. AIDS is largely a behavioral disease and CANNOT be caught from casual contact.
Fine, then amend her comment to say, when there's mandatory testing and the results are public information, so prospective partners, co-participants in contact sports, medical and emergency personnel, and blood donor agencies can know who's infected and who's not.
We're talking about jailing parents here, and yet, the mere SUGGESTION of even treating AIDs the way syphilis has traditionally been handled is like the third rail of politics. Sorry, but there's a big problem with according parents' concerns and beliefs less consideration than somebody's ability to have a sufficiently profligate and promiscuous sex life. It's getting tiresome that the right to an orgasm effectively trumps all others.
How is it hypocritical for a libertarian to wish to disincentivise behaviours that lead to negative externalities?
Using the coercive power of government to create incentives is inherently statist. Actually, full libertarianism would lack the public facilities to which you would deny access.
To put it another way, our Immune system relies on Natural Selection to train it for Acquired Immunity
And NATURAL selection is a very slow process. Trying to speed it up too much can have unintended consequences. Like an immune system that overreacts. We've had vaccines for decades, we just didn't make their administration a freaking horse race years ago. If you insist on a rapid and early schedule including STD vaccines for all infants, first show me the mass graves from the 1960's, 70's, and 80's that justify this approach.
As for the vaccines themselves, if the vaccines were giving people ASD, it's pretty likely that getting the actual diseases, as millions of children used to do every year, would have caused more
Not necessarily, if there's an autoimmune component, as with juvenile OCD. People whose immune systems were exposed to the equivalent number of antigens in the same short period of time as the current schedule demands couldn't become autistic, because they died. Thus, the rapid immune system "training" of the current schedule is something for which we've never observed the effects in a living person.
If this movement grows, tragedy will only be multiplied --
Will it? Will it be tragedy? I can't help notice many people have equated the vaccine debate with the evolution/creation debate, with the pro-vaccine side aligned with evolution. Seems to me, if this movement grows, all that will happen in naturalist, Darwinist terms is our species will be subject to greater evolutionary pressures. Why is that a tragedy?
Alright I admit that is in poor taste, but I agree with Megan that by not vaccinating your children you place not only them but other children at risk.
And free speech means the risk that the White Album might inspire Charlie Manson to for a mass murdering cult. Due process means some murderers go free to kill again. Freedom of religion means someone can form a Heaven's Gate cult that might infect your teenager's mind, even though you've done your best to "innoculate" them. Freedom is messy; it has risks. You don't like it, hop a boat to Havana.
A child who contracts Whooping Cough and is exposed to other children is a health risk to the entire group.
Why? Did he spontaneously generate the infectious organism? No, he got it from SOMEWHERE. There's no reason to think the vaccinated kids weren't exposed to the same source. The immune system of a vaccinated kid doesn't care whether the infectious organism came from an unvaccinated classmate, a vaccinated classmate who got it anyway, or a dog with kennel cough that he petted in the park - the vaccine-conferred immunity is either going to fail or it isn't. The kid who was unsuccessfully vaccinated is in the same situation as the unvaccinated kid, and faces the same risks from all the same vectors. The successfully vaccinated has nothing to fear from any of these vectors. So what is the incremental risk to the entire group? Don't confuse statistical incidence with probability.
This is the nub of the issue. And the answer is simple--you trust the professional, not the parent.
The parent is looking for an explanation.
And the professional is looking for a paycheck. That is the definition of professional. Synonyms include mercenary and whore. Medical professionals suffer from the dog food problem - the end consumer is not the one paying for the goods and services. The patient is not the hand that feeds the professional, and hence not the hand he is most wary of biting. Follow the money.
We live in world that would not exist if not for the success of amateur parenting.
Appeal to authority is one of the first fallacies they teach you about in a debate class.
I'm going to vote the actual doctors who've gone through YEARS of education and residency
So did Mengele. So did the clowns in Tuskegee. So did a lot of doctors who declared smoking safe. Yes, they were employed by tobacco companies, but those publishing studies saying vaccines are safe are employed by vaccine companies. Lawyers receive high level formal training in ethics. That includes Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Vested interest trumps training all the time.
And people keep bringing up the Poling case. The crux of that case was that the child was given NINE vaccines (half of which were make-up vaccines) on a single visit which effect a PRE-EXISTING condition.
Which only further indicates that she would have been better off if not for the slavish pursuit of a needlessly aggressive vaccination schedule.
Of all the valid points Palmrita makes, so many of you cynical, venomous 'sheeple' hone in on the fact she feels love is a component that makes her children healthy. In fact, love does promote good health. Check the stats.
I'd bet many of the vociferous dopes that parrot the 'science' of the CDC, FDA and all the other crooks, feed their kids junk, let them play the latest videos then think the poisoned shot makes them healthy. Too lazy, too stupid, too busy, too deluded or too narrow-minded to see that all the anti-vax info is valid.
Being immunized is the only smart choice for all to make. Even those who were immunized in the fifties and sixties still have the same protection as those who were recently immunized. Your body has a built in early protection system that will recognize a virus if and only if you have been immunized. That is the whole point in getting your shots, introduce the immune system to these radicals and it will build up immunity to the various strains of flu or virus'.
We are not introducing anything that is any different than you coming in contact with an infected person. Why take the chance????
In fact, love does promote good health. Check the stats.
I'm sure that a lot of us would love to see statistics on how love protects your child from polio, rubella, pertussis, measles etc. So please do give us links.
Mama 73,
ITP is devastating. However the article you linked to also states:
It is important to remember that the rate of ITP after natural viral illness is much higher (at about 1 in 3,000 for rubella and 1 in 6,000 for measles) and that the severity of illness in non-vaccine related ITP cases is much greater. Therefore MMR offers protection against this higher risk of ITP due to the natural disease, as well as the other known serious complications of measles, mumps and rubella.
Thus, the diseases themselves carry a higher risk of ITP than the vaccines.
BTW, I agree that screaming at them is not going to get through to the anti-vaxers. I wish I knew better what would. For starters. we need a population that better understands science and statistics. Most of the antivaxers are intelligent enough that they could understand the concepts if a. the concepts were explained in a non accusatory way and in layman's terms and b. if they were willing to listen.
Someone above used the best analogy I've seen to explain herd immunity. The description of the difference between what happens if just one or two people tossing their garbage in public and when everyone does so was vivid. That litterer is depending upon everyone else *not* doing the same for the area to avoid becoming Calcutta slums.
Most of the antivaxers are intelligent enough that they could understand the concepts if a. the concepts were explained in a non accusatory way and in layman's terms and b. if they were willing to listen.
I've got 3 autistic kids who are 12 years old, so we've been doing the autism thing for a long time. My kids are on the spectrum from extremely "high-functioning" to "low-functioning" enough that my son is in a group home now due to his aggression and self-injury. I detest the terms "high" and "low" functioning, but they are easily understood which is why I use them.
I have a great deal of empathy for the frustration and confusion that a lot of newly-diagnosed parents have who turn to anti-vaccination headlines. There is a period of grieving that you go through where you wonder why and how your child/children could possibly be stricken by this "horrible condition", and I think that the rage and confusion that a lot of parents feel towards autism is channeled into anti-vaccine hysteria, so I'm not sure that there IS anything that you can say that will cause them to take a second look at the actual science. Vaccines are a very easy thing to "blame" as they occur at the same time that a lot of autistic cases become "visible", especially when there is so much easily accessible bad information out there.
When my kids were first diagnosed with autism in 1997 the big topics of conversation were still ABA, and to some extent refrigerator mothers. Since then I've seen facilitated communication, hyperbaric chambers, GF/CF diets, and secretin come and go as the topics and "cures" of the year. All of those things have since been disproven, and for the last few years it's been vaccines.
You can't convince people of scientific facts when they're desperate to find answers. The sad part about the vaccine debate is not only the amount of time and energy that is being wasted on a disproven theory that not only could better be put into looking into research that can help to make our kids' lives better and help society to accept them, but the fact that they are willing to put other children and people at risk because of their own fear.
At this point I'm not sure that there is any way to "win" this debate. All of the credible scientific evidence has shown that there is no link between autism and vaccinations, but people will believe whatever makes them feel better, and to hell with the science. If people are willing to accept Jenny McCarthy, David Kirby, and Dan Olmsted as scientific sources, then
there's really not much that you can say.
Well said Jen.
Another factor is the willingness of people who look at things from a certain viewpoint to only seek corroborating "evidence" which supports that view, i.e. confirmation bias. This can affect anyone, but the antivaccine kooks take this to unprecedented levels.
Also anything they come across that they wish to disagree with, they can always conjure up a ridiculous excuse for ignoring, e.g. you can't trust doctors because Mengele was a doctor. (That logical fallacy has a name - I just can't remember which at the moment). Yes, bw - that's you I'm talking about.
I have a bunch of kids (over a half a dozen :-) - all vaccinated - slower schedule. I have friends that don't vaccinate due to the moral issue of aborted tissue in many of the shots along with a disbelief in the effectiveness (she believes in the cleaniness theory). So, (in spite of her cleanliness) her children contracted whooping cough. I had a new baby at the time, and was furiously trying to determine if he could have been exposed - I listened to her 3 months of woes as they recovered - sleepless night, heartbreaking coughing sessions with very young children. And, I prayed my baby wouldn't get it, he was too young for the shot.
A dear friend contracted polio as a child - again, clean family, middle class. Recovered and then in her 60's ended up back in a wheel chair - I believe it's called post-polio syndrome?
My SIL contracted german measles at 16 - and she was pregnant. Her baby had many problems, heart defects, blind and deaf. She lived until she was 10, very much loved and very missed. My SIL was in the generation where they realized we needed a booster shot.
My final story - I went to public school, lived through outbreaks of chicken pox yearly, but didn't contract it until I was 16 even though I had been exposed multiple times.
So, if there were no immunizations - you still can't guarantee that everyone will contract a disease like german measles as a child when it's more benign.
I don't know what parents are doing with their daughters when they refuse a vaccine - what happens when this growing population of unvaccinated children become adults and are exposed to the unvaccinated migrant worker or child? What happens if it's your daughter and she's 24 and pregnant for the first time and she's exposed?
Mom of many
PS
I am Catholic and am disturbed by the aborted fetal cell lines - and - I do want untainted lines to be more readily available. And, Catholic moral authorities have said it is licit to receive these vaccines. And, I do fully understand and appreciate when people do not receive them because of a moral belief.
And, for what it's worth - none of my children exhibit any signs of autism even though I have a brother in law and nephew who do have Asperger's. And, my children are extremely healthy - I probably have filled 2 Rx for antibiotics for the past 13 years - no ear infections, no asthma (even though I have asthma), no auto-immune diseases - it's all anecdotal of course.
The concept of "herd immunity" originally referred to 'natural immunity' not to vaccinations. The concept of 'herd immunity' was applied, in 1933 by Hedrich, to children who were exposed to measels and gained a natural immunity. The concept was, that if 68% of the population had natural immunity then that would be enough to control a disease empidemic.
"Vaccines", drugs that are experimental but make loads of money for lots of people, never had anything to do with the "herd immunity" concept.
Vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with no scientific justification as to why, and then stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programs.
I've never, ever read anyone trying to claim that *because* vaccinated kids are getting sick from the very things they were supposedly vaccinated against, that it must, somehow, be the fault of unvaccinated children. That's ridiculous!
More plausable is that the "vaccinated" kids are the ones getting sick and catching the diseases because theses diseases are being pumped directly into their bloodstreams. Duh!! Why is it such a mystery (to dumb people) that those being "vaccinated" are also the ones getting sick.
I haven't vaccinated my three children and their health has been very, very good, as I watch them grow older. Myself, on the other hand, I've had my childhood "vaccinations" and guess what? I came down with all of the diseases those vaccines were supposed to prevent.
In Africa there was a polio outbreak. Not from unvaccinated people, but from those who were vaccinated with the polio vaccine!! Why would they get polio from a shot if the polio virus was killed, you may ask? Because the polio virus wasn't killed!
"Inactivated" viruses arent' truly "inactivated." They are poorly, and partially, killed by formaldehyde. What this means is that you're still pumping these diseases directly into your, and your children's, bloodstreams.
This cocktail is further preserved through the use of mercury, but mercury is the *second most poisonous substance known to man*. (The most poisonous being uranium.) What's worst is that thimerosol-(mercury)free vaccines don't contain no mercury, they just have a low enough amount that the FDA says they don't have to label it (same thing they say about certain foods that contain transfat: 'you can say your product is transfat-free so long as the amount is under this number...0.5 grams of transfat in this case, I believe).
Additionally, to make sure that the child has an "immune response" they will put in things like aluminum (another poison that doesn't belong in our bodies, much less directly injected) because often the "inactivated virus" won't be enough to generate an "immune reponse" (which just means, that there's a higher white-blood cell count, which just means that a bunch of crap that doesn't belong inside the body has caused the body to react; there's no proof of immunity, only proof of an "infection").
There's no proof that vaccines are anything more than a haphazard health experiment. The statistics show, one of which you used, spuriously, to try to 'prove' that non-vaccinated persons are causing disease. It's apparent that quite the opposite can be show with the same statistics that you tout as proof.
These stats just show that vaccinated people aren't really vaccinated. Their immune systems are compromised, they get the diseases anyways, and these snake-oil poisons are doing nothing but creating a problem.
What exacerbates the problem even further are crazy people insisting, even trying to use the law, to force their own beliefs (however ignorant and uninformed they may be) onto other people.
If you don't want your children to get sick then take care of them, feed them well, make sure they stay clean. Oh, and don't inject dangerous, unprove poison cocktails into them because someone who stands to make money from it (doctors get commissions, pharmaceutical industry, politians, etc.) told you that it's good to do and is the "right thing."
I've never, ever read anyone trying to claim that *because* vaccinated kids are getting sick from the very things they were supposedly vaccinated against, that it must, somehow, be the fault of unvaccinated children. That's ridiculous
More plausable is that the "vaccinated" kids are the ones getting sick and catching the diseases because theses diseases are being pumped directly into their bloodstreams. Duh!! Why is it such a mystery (to dumb people) that those being "vaccinated" are also the ones getting sick.
I'm glad you pointed this out. It's sad pro-vax people seem to forget the many cases of people contracting the very thing they were supposedly immunized from.
In Africa there was a polio outbreak. Not from unvaccinated people, but from those who were vaccinated with the polio vaccine!!
"Inactivated" viruses arent' truly "inactivated." They are poorly, and partially, killed by formaldehyde. What this means is that you're still pumping these diseases directly into your, and your children's, bloodstreams.
I'm also glad you pointed this out. I guess the pro-vax camp has forgotten what is actually being injected into them.
Thus far my two daughters have been vaccinated and my son has been vaccinated up to about 1 year old. He's almost two now and my daughters are almost 5 and almost 3. I thank God nothing has happened to either of them.
I find it disturbing that many people here who have not experienced the horrors some parents have experienced and even some people who have gone through the trials and tribulations of autism still have the audacity to tell people,"you're just greiving." Some of you have taken a large dose of, "I know it all," and "arrogance," and you're full of yourselves. This one-sided "I know it all because the experts are ALL MIGHTY and you're too primitive to think for yourself" philosophy/ideology never solves any problems OR answers any honest questions. This philosphy is just a distraction from the real issue.
This lack of fully researching a subject and quickly submitting to the people with the long list of paper degrees attached to their name also called, "experts," is causing a society of people used to being spoonfed their knowledge on certain subjects. People fail to THINK outside the box or for themselves these days. I'm appalled at the people coming on this blog telling parents they're stupid, ignorant, dumb, demoralized, anti-social, society threats if they logically conclude their child contracted a health issue after taking their child to get vaccinated A DAY OR FEW BEFORE the issue POPPED UP OUT OF NOWHERE!
This is ridiculous. Truly. People quote bias studies as if they are Gospel. As to say, "sit down and shut up...you're personal testimony is worthless because the pharmaceutical companies say so." It's silly. It's irrational in my humble opinion.
As for calling for the government to further infringe on our civil liberties because you feel your child may get sick I only have this to say...in the words of Ben Franklin, "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither"
It is about time we learn the truth about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Until compulsory vaccinations we did not have autism or attention deficit disorder. Now one out of every 150 children is autistic. If anyone thinks that injecting your child 39 times before they are adults is "safe and effective" do some research on the internet and read the anguished parent's stories about their healthy child who after a routine shot became severely damaged or dead. Follow the money. Who is profiting from these tragedies? Why does our government protect drug companies from lawsuits? I am not a doctor, but I am a lawyer and the way I read the Constitution I have a right of redress in a court of law with a jury of my peers. We don't know if vaccines are safe because the government pays out up to $250,000 for a vaccine injury and it never goes to a trial by jury where all evidence is presented. Until all the unfiltered evidence is in, I would not risk my child. Megan is probably suffering from a vaccine induced brain injury or else she is genetically shortchanged intellectually. Do not listen to her ignorant ramblings! The history of of the world has taught the lesson that one should never trust your government. Long ago Megan would have been the propagandist that told you the earth was flat. Before condemning parents that choose not to vaccinate do some research!
It is about time we learn the truth about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Until compulsory vaccinations we did not have autism or attention deficit disorder. Now one out of every 150 children is autistic. If anyone thinks that injecting your child 39 times before they are adults is "safe and effective" do some research on the internet and read the anguished parent's stories about their healthy child who after a routine shot became severely damaged or dead. Follow the money. Who is profiting from these tragedies? Why does our government protect drug companies from lawsuits? I am not a doctor, but I am a lawyer and the way I read the Constitution I have a right of redress in a court of law with a jury of my peers. We don't know if vaccines are safe because the government pays out up to $250,000 for a vaccine injury and it never goes to a trial by jury where all evidence is presented. Until all the unfiltered evidence is in, I would not risk my child. Megan is probably suffering from a vaccine induced brain injury or else she is genetically shortchanged intellectually. Do not listen to her ignorant ramblings! The history of of the world has taught the lesson that one should never trust your government. Long ago Megan would have been the propagandist that told you the earth was flat. Before condemning parents that choose not to vaccinate do some research!
Thankyou, Elaine, for defending us that would chose, or would have chosen not to immunize our children. I have an 8 yr old son that has ITP, an auto-immune disorder due to the MMR vaccination. He was diagnosed when he was 3, but probably had it since he got vaccinated with MMR. He had treatment, and went into remission for 2 yrs. But, due to school regulations, made him get his booster of MMR to continue with public school education. He now has had a relapse of this horrible disorder, and will have to live with this the rest of his life. If no one knows what ITP is, it is an auto-immune disorder where his body attacks his own platelets that help clot his blood, and is in high danger of brain hemorage, and other dangerous bleeding issues. It is a constant battle, and has caused him to be depressed. I have found out, through research, that the Ruebella in the MMR vaccine, caused major blood immune disorders, and can cause ITP. Now, my son, has to live with this awful disorder, as well as many, many other children!
I have never had an issue with vaccinating my children - however, my five year old daughter (my second child) had ALL her "baby shots" by age 2 years (following our doctor's normal vaccination schedule). She has been in preschool for two years at a Catholic school, but will be starting kindergarten at a public school this Fall. I took her for her normals kindergarten boosters - she ended up with FIVE injections...talk about traumatic!! - and I had the doctor's office fax her immunization record to the school.
NOW the county nurse called the doctor's office and said my daughter will not be allowed into the school until she goes back for ANOTHER polio vaccination! Apparently, my doctor's vaccination schedule (three polio's by age 2 years) is now out-dated (she needs three polio's, but one must be given AFTER age 4 years). However, we go to a fairly large clinic in our city and I find it very hard to believe that NO ONE at that clinic would have known what this county nurse is claiming.
I realize this may sound like a very small complaint - but my daughter goes into MELT-DOWN when we even MENTION the doctor now. Those five injections were a BIG DEAL to her - and when I told her she has to go back for another shot, she got so upset that she vomited (which is NOT her normal M.O.).
SO - I have done a bit of research and found out that certain exemptions ARE allowed, but I don't know if this fits. I have no problem with the vaccinations, but I truly do NOT want to make my daughter get this last polio (and, no, my doctor's office does NOT offer the oral polio) injection...is it worth the fight?
The county nurse stated during kindergarten round-up that PROOF OF IMMUNIZATIONS is REQUIRED on the 1st day of school, or the child will be SENT HOME! I now know she was LYING about this...why should I now believe anything she says - and why should I further traumatize my child for NO REASON?
Someone PLEASE tell me what you would do - I know some would say, "Tell your kid to suck it up"...but if you knew her, and knew her bravery and strength, and knew how much the supposed "benefit" of what I feel is an unnecessary repeated vaccine is outweighed by the incredible "risk" involved - primarily to her ever trusting the doctor (or me!) again...you would understand.
sigh...being a mom is hard
I understand everyone is UP IN ARMS over the great immunization debate. However as I read through all of the messages on this page...the only thing that seemed to stick with me is the nasty way some of you choose to us to get your point across. Name calling and insults are unnecessary...this is a diffucult subject that should be approached carefully from all sides.
It's that attitude and the distain in people that sickens me most. Just because people aren't doing things your way you have to be abusive.