I was expecting all the fly-over states to be dark blue! Look at all these sparkles of hope in Colorado and New Mexico!
I think this is precisely a media issue, because the media in general like āpresenting both sides of the issueā, so someone in a minority against an arrogant[1] consensus finds it reasonably easy to get a hearing.
[1] and correct
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Firstly I have 2 children. Both are vaccinated for various things but not the full spectrum of what is on offer.There was a different cost benefit analysis between the two so while most of the vaccines they have are the same, they arenāt identical. One has only 1 kidney.
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Whooping cough is horrible and I would consider anyone looking at vaccinations to really consider what exactly they and their child WILL be subjected to should they contract it.
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The current immunization program in my country is designed for convenience rather than for optimum efficacy or harm minimisation. At the very least, those who are in favor of a given vaccination should look into the particular vaccines they are looking at getting and when they should get them and the components of the vaccination.
For maximum efficacy and least risk of adverse affects the MMR for example would actually be split into 3 separate shots delivered at different intervals. That would mean going to the Drs 3 separate times. Because the individual shots are less popular and have a shorter shelf life they are a lot more expensive. Definitely worth looking into if only to be aware of the differences.
- My youngest had her Rubella vaccination at the optimum time. All of her child care group were also vaccinated (probably along the convenient) schedule . Out of 15 children, 8 contracted it. There was 1 family who suffered complications. Apparently (from the family) the reason she had complications was because they didnāt take their child to the hospital soon enough because they (and the nurse) dismissed Rubella as she was vaccinated against it.
N.B I would be curious what % of the āsevereā complications mentioned in the show were
a) in young children and near good medical facilities and unvaccinated and sought medical assistance in a timely manner.
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As hinted above, not all vaccines are manufactured in the same way and contain the same components. The single shot vaccines rarely need to include the metals or many of the preservatives which are the most common causes of adverse reactions to the vaccines.
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The plasmid / toxin / the bit your immune system reacts to typically requires a delivery mechanism. This usually involves being grafted to part of a protein from another source. For a lot of vaccines these proteins are taken or manufactured from known āsafeā sources like eggs.
There is no guarantee that your immune system will develop antibodies to_only_ the ābadā part of the antigen. Itās entirely possible to develop an allergy to the safe portion or even just a protein which has a similar āshapeā in general.
While studies have shown the above is possible, Itās almost impossible to determine the rate if any of sensitivity across a population because you cannot de-vaccinate someone.
There are acute risks associated with vaccinations and there are chronic risks. There are very few studies that look at chronic risks. These studies are extremely difficult to do, very error prone and we donāt yet have a good idea of the long term risks.
There are currently studies which at a preliminary stage show that itās possible in a lab environment for components of a vaccine to negatively affect methylation within the body. This can affect gene expression, processing of heavy metals and cell metabolism. Does this affect a person in the real world?..again we donāt know. Many of our common diseases are a result of incorrect gene expression, metabolic dysfunction etcā¦ Could a vaccine make someone more susceptible to xyz 40 years down the track.? We have no ideaā¦
- @sil as a person who has views that often donāt align with the general consensus, it horrifies me to think that you would advocate a person be forced to inject their child with something that they know has the potential to do harm to their child. As I am sure you are aware being a parent is difficult at the best of times. If the government tried to force you to administer something to your child which you felt had unacceptable risks, I do wonder how you would feel in that scenario.
Driving a car is a privilege not a right. If you wish to do X you must do Y is different from saying if you wish your child to exists they must have this injection.
Decline admission at a school, keep them away from other studentsā¦fineā¦I donāt necessarily think that it will achieve the desired outcome but if you want to set up a leper colony then fine. If itās really that bad natural selection will sort it out right ? I donāt think itās reasonable to forcibly inject anyone with anything for the crime of just existing.
For reasons outlined in point #7, if someone were to try and force me to administer (specifically) a varicella vaccine to my child I would promptly stab them repeatedly in the eye with the needle.
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Regarding the āHerd protectionā, itās entirely possible for people vaccinated against some of these diseases to be carriers even if they are not affected by the disease themselves. So if you havenāt vaccinated your child or the vaccine is ineffective in your child, then for around 40% of these diseases it does not reduce the chances that your child will get the disease. It only reduces the overall rate of symptoms in the group. The CDC or whatever cares about the groupā¦most people care just about their kid.
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There is a cost benefit analysis to each individual vaccination. If you were to enforce mandatory vaccinations where do you draw the lineā¦?
- Whooping Cough
- Measles
- Mumps
- Rubella
- varicella
- Hep B
- Influenza
- Tetanus
- HPV
- J -random other thing Iāve never heard of ?
If you look at the contents of an influenza vaccination and itās actual real world benefit, I would argue youāre not getting a good deal.
Also Hep B is very very very very unlikely in a 6month old baby unless you know you are in a risk category. Again thatās a pretty raw deal. Whooping cough just fucking sucks regardless of how mild your case is. My eldest had a very severe reaction to a varicella vaccination but neither I nor the mother had any real symptoms for the virus itās self when we were younger. So for us we chose to avoid the Varicella vaccination for our second.I donāt care about everyone else, I am not placing my child at risk and our doctor was fully supportive of that decision.
What Bryan is advocating for is for everyone to make their own decision about each and every vaccination on offer.
For those people like @sil that are all on board, there are more effective schedules and combinations than are currently offered, at least in Australia. I canāt emphasize enough that the current recommendations are geared around minimizing trips to the doctor and jabs to your child. If your aim is protection then the default isnāt the best you can do.
EVERYONE should understand what exactly they are doing regardless of which opinion you have.
- Since the 1970ās we have been told that saturated fat is bad, causes heart disease etcā¦
Assuming there is no corruption in the system, it turns out that the science was just really really shit.
I think Bryan has every right to not blindly trust the word of people he has never met.
Also FWIWā¦ the term science gets misused a lot. Donāt automatically assume a report by the CDC has ever actually crossed the desk of a scientist, let alone been authored by one. A lot of government policy is based on summaries of studies which have been hand picked, often by a policy officer rather than anyone with scientific background.
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I had shingles a bit ago. That was brutal. I wish I had the chicken pox vaccine.
I see this as no different than how a person is forced to educate their child even if they donāt want to, or is forced to not physically assault their child even if they think enforcing ādisciplineā through violence is important. Maybe educationās a bad thing; I donāt know, Iām not a expert. I trust experts who, in general consensus, tell me itās a good idea and that a vaccine is extremely unlikely to do harm to my child, and the diseases are considerably more likely to be harmful. Why is forced vaccination worse than forced education? Just because needles have sharp points?
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As far as the two are concerned (education and vaccinations), the desire of one is to achieve a potentiality, whereas the other is the desire to avoid a potentiality. One the two can be confused, there is a difference.
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That is, in my opinion, a meaninglessly semantic distinction; āI think that doctors are wrong and what theyāre forcing me to do exposes my child to a risk I think is serious (they might catch a disease from the vaccine, or be otherwise harmed medically by it) so I wonāt do itā and āI think educators are wrong and what theyāre forcing me to do exposes my child to a risk I think is serious (they might be indoctrinated by how the Ruling Classes think, or a bunch of useless math which wonāt help them be a shopworker) so I wonāt do itā seem very similar to me. Vaccination isnāt a negative liberty. With proper work we have successfully entirely eliminated some diseases in the past, or at least made them exceedingly rare. Thatās a positive thing thatās available to everyone; almost nobody gets polio now, and nobody gets smallpox. Complete elimination of a disease is possible. But not without comprehensive vaccination. There is a positive externality here as well as just the benefits for the individual person, which is precisely why there is public policy on this, and indeed why the whole concept of public policy exists at all; to do things which are correct for society as a whole even if theyāre a net deficit to individual people within that society in the short term. Iām basically OK with opting out of society (there are many small islands to go live on like the Swiss Family Robinson). I am less OK with considering the benefits of public policy as oneās birthright but claiming itās OK to opt out of the duties.
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Frankly, as the track record of medicine indicates, and that since mankind is as sick as ever, even in developed countries, the thought that the elimination of disease is possible is, at the very least, an illusion. Yes, some diseases have been greatly diminished, even almost to the point of elimination. But, most non-microbe disease is as big as ever. And in the case of some bacteria, itās getting worse.
I will not diminish the results and benefits of vaccination. I will not encourage anyone to avoid them, or, for that matter, to get them. That is none of my business. If I choose to receive a vaccination, then I am willing to face the known possible consequences, side effects, in the hopes of protection against harmful microbes. If I choose not to, and, subsequently get sick from such microbes, well, I made that choice and am living with it. My impression is that a good portion of children get vaccinated in developed countries. Should a parent who has chosen to vaccinate their child be worried about the microbes that the vaccination addressed? The media frenzy over the topic has raised awareness, but when there is an āoutbreakā of something, shouldnāt the ones vaccinated just give a sigh of relief that they are protected?
Parents who choose to not vaccinate, for whatever reason that may be, are being demonized for the choices they make. It is, at best, unkind to insinuate that they are unloving when they, probably for the most part, acting in what they believe to be the best interests of their children. I donāt think that insinuation has been necessarily made here, but it is being made. But insinuations that those opposed in any way are ignorant fools have popped up here, and that was disturbing to see here.
@bryanlunduke said that this has become like a religious issue. He is right in that there is so much emotion that is driving both sides.
The reason that this gets emotive is that people choosing to not vaccinate are putting others at risk. You wanna jump out of a plane skydiving without a parachute, go for it; I have no problem with that. But if you drive a car, the law says you have to prove you are competent and you have to have insurance, because that way any side-effects of your bad decisions on others are reduced.
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But the question remains, you have chosen to vaccinate, should you be worried about what you have been vaccinated for?
Some governments (a way higher number than zero) advocate (and, in some cases, force) things like : genital mutilation of little girls, murder of women who get a bit too uppity with a man, and girls be forced to not be educated past a very young age.
As you pointed out, @silā¦ the government probably knows best right?
I would assume that you would (rightly) say the governments that do those things are wrong. Which means that either:
a) Only one government, on Earth, can be 100% right about everything (because no two are exactly the same). Which means taking a very religious stance about a government.
b) All governments are, at the very least, wrong some of the time.
If you think the government doesnāt know best, vote them out.
I freely admit that this approach does not work anywhere where that isnāt an option: where the government is hereditary or dictatorial. But Iām not proposing it to people in such environments. Those are a serious problem, but theyāre not your serious problem. Vote them out. And if you canāt find enough people to stand with you to do that, move somewhere else.
That only solves this particular issue if:
There is a party that is both:
A) Always right (read: does everything in your best interest) about everything and
B) Always in power
Okay, a few personal views on vacination and anti-vacers.
I am really mad with the ignorant people who claim their child might get autism from vacines. I am autistic and I feel desciriminated by those people. I like to slap them in the face with a books filled with actual science about autism. (This kind of shows how many uneducted people there are in America and how quickly they believe things that are utter crap. Like also proven by this example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax But that could be a topic on itself.)
However, Brian, I do think it is great you have sceptisism about vacin. We once believed the earth was flat. That changed because people were sceptical. But, I think you might need too look at a bit of a bigger picture, because there are some aspects that I feel got overlooked a bit in the show:
- The prevention of spreading a disease by vacins
- The possible side effects of a treatment
- The costs of keeping up a system in which we fix instead of prevent
So what I am trying to get is. If nobody would use vacins right now all of these diseases would spread rapidly giving an epidemic. You would need to treat lots of people at the same time, but are the chances of bad stuff happening with the treatment so much better compared to vacins? Next to that I assume it is way more expesive to have all these people in the hospital. This would make health care costs rise to levels where it just becomes a mayor scocial issue. Leading to a great big deal of more health risks.
This is just a general idea I have. I can not back this up at this moment, and I donāt mind if it is wrong. As long as you thought about it and took a look at the big picture.
On the other hand I think forced vacins is bad too, because we have seen times when the vacins failed. However do realize the possible impact on scociety.
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With all due respect, sir, this is so much unfiltered, pure, grade A organic BS.
You donāt get to say you are in favor of vaccines in general when your four-year-old child hasnāt been given any vaccines. Your argument that you have looked at each vaccine and made a decision, case-by-case as to which one(s) are appropriate for you and your family similarly does not pass the sniff test.
A few examples, if you will indulge me ā tetanus exists in the soil. It is a disease that will never be eradicated, to which one is exposed with cuts, frostbites, burns or any trauma that damages the superficial layers of the skin. Even if you are an especially careful, hygienic fellow and even if you perfectly pass on that trait to your child, the odds you or someone in your family will be exposed at some point in your lives approaches certainty. And tetanus is no walk in the park ā have a look at the poor gentleman in the picture on its wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetanus).
Pertussis is similarly nasty. The sickest baby I ever took care of was a six-week old daughter of two physicians who was too young to have been immunized. The baby was coughing too hard to breathe. Artificial respiratory support in that situation is ridiculously complicated because ventilators try to push oxygen into the lungs while the patient is coughing air out for dear life. This baby went on like this for weeks. And pertussis bacteria are reasonably prevalent in virtually all communities as itās thought that adults, who can have much milder symptoms are reservoirs for the disease. So the idea that there is a circumstance where a child - any child, anywhere would be well-served by the recommendation that he or she not be immunized against pertussis is - whatās the word? - boffins!
Oh, and measles. The disease thought to be eradicated from the US in 2000 but which is now endemic thanks to people doing their own bloody āresearchā is much less likely to kill people than it did a hundred years ago, but whatever number that is is infinitely greater than it was in 2000 (zero!). And if it doesnāt kill you, it can cause subacute sclerosing pan-encephalitis, which is about as bad as it sounds. But the really scary bit about measles is how contagious it is. If you are in the highest, cheapest seats in a baseball stadium, and one person with measles walks on to the field and walks right off, thatās enough exposure to get you sick. I wish this on no one. Not even on people I donāt like.
One last point, please. This segment on vaccines should in no way be construed as a debate. There is no balance between competing viewpoints. The science regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines had been done. And doneā¦ And done. This is an argument; with some entertaining nuggets, as usual, but with quite a bit less substance than Iām accustomed to.
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In a proper democracy, the government is us. If the government is doing ābadā, then you either vote the bums out or run for office yourself and convince the people voting that your way is better. Anything else is just putting your head in the sand.
How was there less substance? There was lots of data cited in the discussion.
I just looked and saw more studies that cannot find any link with the measles vaccine and autism.
I hope that you are able to cope well with the challenges you face. We have this comic taped to our refrigerator. Itās a saying that is often heard in our household.
That must have been heart wrenching to watch. I know, by just reading, that the tear ducts of this old man still work.