C/D: being anti-vaccine, specifically when it comes to not vaccinating your children

good balanced nytimes article summing this up

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/21vaccine.html?hp

awful trend, makes me weep for humanity

wait wrong article i meant this http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/science/25autism.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

My kids had all their shots, statistically that ought to be very much safer than not being vaccinated. It's difficult to completely blame worried parents however, considering the generally terrible level of science coverage in the popular media, and the drug companies' track records on being amoral, public health endangering, money-grubbing scum.

maybe if it was only the drug companies alone saying vaccines were safe and dont cause autism, but its the world health organization, the cdc, the fda, the institute of medicine, the american academy of pediatrics, any non-crazy doctor, basically - i think its fair to "blame" aggressively, willfully ignorant parents rejecting modern medicine and endangering their own and other children, yeah

if youre looking for anti-science batshittery this is like creationism x100000 - unlike with modern evolutionary biology, people's refusal to acknowledge the safety of vaccination actually threatens lives

Sure, and I'm sure there are plenty of them out there, but to account for a significant drop-off in vaccinations I think there must be a large group of parents who simply don't understand what good or bad evidence is, or how to assess risk, and the drug companies have played a part in that mystification too.

I come into contact with a fair number of families of people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and I think the paucity of medical understanding of ASDs is another problem here, parents sometimes are casting around for something to blame.

Jenny McCarthy is a hueg booster of this! And she claims to have cured her child's autism.

I think the anti-vaccine stance is insanely, insanely foolish and short-minded. Vaccine creators such as Dr. Jenner and Louis Pasteur have always been my biggest heroes. Vaccines have done a world of good for this world!

A thing I dislike about it, too, is the suggestion (on whatever level) that having a child with an autistic spectrum disorder is the worst thing that could happen to a parent or their child. It's really dehumanizing toward people with autism, just biased in this way that hurts me.

There are different kinds of interventions that can help children with autism overcome some of their learning/social difficulties, but since it's likely that there's no one cause and no one version of neurodiversity I wouldn't hold out much hope of Jenny McCarthy discovering a "cure".

Seems weird and stupid, but I'm accustomed to people being weird and stupid. If hippy parents wanna reject vaccination, more power to em. Hope they don't expect much sympathy when their kids turn out all wheezy and assymetrical though.

“The very success of immunizations has turned out to be an Achilles’ heel,” said Dr. Mark Sawyer, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. “Most of these parents have never seen measles, and don’t realize it could be a bad disease so they turn their concerns to unfounded risks. They do not perceive risk of the disease but perceive risk of the vaccine.”

OTM x a billion

That is a good article, ethan.

pretty sure jenny mccarthy is talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

Yeah, for real, and there isn't mercury in vaccines today anyway...

Whole thing is f'ed up.

ex-mormons make the best rationalists <3

If hippy parents wanna reject vaccination, more power to em

Except that by rejecting vaccination they're not just increasing the risk to their own childrens' health.

It's not just 'hippy parents,' either, it's a pretty wide spectrum of somewhat-reasonable-most-of-the-time adults who hear a lot of the fucking ridic press on not vaccinating.

Except that by rejecting vaccination they're not just increasing the risk to their own childrens' health.

And yeah, the "hippy parents" thing was a joke. No offense to hippys.

Oh, I don't give a fuck about offending hippys, it just makes it sound like this phenomenon is a lot more marginalized than it is.

The current zeal to legislatively mandate perfect, risk-free parenting

What are some examples of this?

Here is way, way, way too much reading w/mad lnkage from a man who is the "Amazing Randi" to the world of antivaccination peeps.

The point of a vaccination programme is to vaccinate as many people as possible. More people vaccinated = less chance of disease spreading/mutating. So there's an element of social responsibility in having vaccinations. All that is besides the argument about children having a right not to be subjected to unnecessary risk by idiot parents. I am all about kids taking appropriate risks as an essential part of their development. But measles can fucking kill you.

What are some examples of this?

And give you encephalitis if it doesn't.

xp

Contenderizer I don't think those kind of charges happen that often, and those parents aren't at risk for letting their kids inadvertently spread disease to a lot of other kids. (This said by a person who had to take care of my bros/sisters when parents were out since age seven and consequently thinks that isn't really a big deal.)

The point of a vaccination programme is to vaccinate as many people as possible. More people vaccinated = less chance of disease spreading/mutating. So there's an element of social responsibility in having vaccinations.

abbott, a.w., and n.v. otm. this is scary.

xpost - in this situation, though, it has everything to do with the parents. they believe that vaccinations cause asd and are attempting to influence public health policy.

I was really surprised to hear Leonard Lopate attack someone he had on his show for dismissing the anti-vaccine movement -- apparently Lopate has a child with autism and he's casting about for someone to blame too. It didn't change my mind, but it did kind of remind me how irrational a rational person can get about his/her own child.

This whole thing has the modern air of treating science as democracy to be voted on by the public, which just isn't how science works.

Why not just establish a dictatorship.

Then everyone will have to buckle under to these ego driven political nonentities and obey every diktat and so called "expert" opinion.

I want my country back NOW, United Kingdom

Recommended by 177 people

Why dont the fabian society make all children and parents who refuse to have the MMR/AUTISM jab to wear a yellow star. So they will be easier recognisable to thier gestapo agents. If they are that concerned why dont the facist fabians offer the SAFE alternative of singular jabs (like Tony Blair gets for his kids) and not the combined one thats not safe?????????????????.

Chris, Runcorn
Recommended by 154 people

This is just another case of some people wanting control over other people, plus Labour's obsession with producing G Orwels 1983 society. Ken Livingstone was known as the Looney left and Im sure its spread to the rest of the labour party.

And what will happen when a child is refused education? Will labour lock up the parents and take the child into Care?

I suppose if the child is a welcomed immigrant this proposed rule would not apply?

wizmyrddin, poor and taxed, United Kingdom

Recommended by 92 people

i remember that, hurting - it was the author of a book about society's increasing ignorance. i can't remember the title now, of course. she apologized for offending him but not for her views on the subject, and iirc she implied that he was an example of how irrationality can take hold.

Dud.

I'm a public health nurse who worked for a time in lefty ol' Boulder, Colorado. Lotsa parents there think it's very progressive to allow everyone but their precious little angels to assume the small risk that vaccinations pose. I never knew people still got whooping cough until I moved there; it's practically endemic during the winter.

Measles outbreaks continue in U.S.

Fuck, see, I think that's the exact opposite of what the 'left' is in my mind, ie being "socially responsible."

So dud, for all of the reasons cited by others above.

I understand the need to understand the cause of autism (one of my children has mild form, probably - we're just getting it diagnosed officially by a psychiatrist at last). But there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that vaccines (or anything in them) are a causative agent.

Not vaccinating your kids increases everyone's chances of getting these diseases, and measles, diptheria, whooping cough, etc. are serious diseases. It doesn't just affect the child who isn't vaccinated.

The other thing that pisses me off is that blaming vaccines just distracts from looking for the real root causes of autism spectrum disorder.

People don't understand how peer reviewed, scientific studies work, and apparently people don't understand that correlation and causation are two different things.

What is really extra fucking dud is airhead Jenna McCarthy going ballistic-rabid when anyone so much as questions the validity of her crackpot vaccine-autism-link beliefs. Reason #9842 against breeding: It gives parents "justification" to act holier-than-thou with regard to any goddamned perceived threat to their oh-so-precious spawn, no matter how outlandish.

Er, Jenny, not Jenna. Like I have any idea who the hell she thinks she is.

ts: anti-vaccine vs anti-fluoride zealots

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2007/11/386308.jpg

Oh, I'll take anti-fluoride peeps any day. Willingly exposing your children to all sorts of horrible diseases is way worse than being like "this drinking water is making us (whatever it is they say)."

true, the stakes are quite different, but the annoyance factor is about the same

fluoride in water just tastes bad. which is why i drink bottled water.

That picture is kind of awesome, gershy.

George Orwell warned us about the dangers of government trying to pass some rules that say you have to do some stuff

I saw a joek bumper sticker today that said

BUSH/ORWELL '04

which is a little confused.

unless he really likes Bush and Orwell.

Or maybe it was short for ORson WELles.

orson welles wanted to put shitty wine in our water supply

We will deploy no flouride
Before Telluride

We were going back and forth on getting the jab since we're planning on sheltering in place indefinitely and didn't really want to fuck around inside a public place to get it but thankfully our town had a drive-thru flu shot event a couple weekends ago.

While wating for my jab I did notice that the back office of our local GP surgery has a piano in it for some reason.

I got mine done outside at the hospital parking lot, didn’t even have to get out of my car

We always get a flu shot, but this year they've stressed it's more important than ever. First of all, it's possible to get the flu *and* covid at the same time, and you don't want that. Second of all, if you get a flu shot but then develop flu-like symptoms, you might have more of a hint you might actually have covid. Third, each year millions of people go to the hospital for the flu (and thousands die), so getting vaccinated means you might not be one of the people taking up space in the hospital that could be going to someone more sick, ie with covid.

Yeah, don't see any connection between that and Guillain-Barré

This was the issue with the 1976 vaccine in response to a pandemic some predicted would be on par with the Spanish Flu, and which helped set in motion the anti-vax movement. As posted on the CDC site:

In 1976, there was a small increased risk of GBS after swine flu vaccination, which was a special flu vaccine for a potential pandemic strain of flu virus. The National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as Institute of Medicine, conducted a scientific review of this issue in 2003 and found that people who received the 1976 swine flu vaccine had an increased risk for developing GBS. The increased risk was approximately one additional case of GBS for every 100,000 people who got the swine flu vaccine. Scientists have several theories about the cause, but the exact reason for this link remains unknown.

There have been several studies of the risk of GBS after flu vaccine and CDC monitors for GBS during each flu season. The data on an association between seasonal influenza vaccine and GBS have been variable from season-to-season. When there has been an increased risk, it has consistently been in the range of 1-2 additional GBS cases per million flu vaccine doses administered.

Studies suggest that it is more likely that a person will get GBS after getting the flu than after vaccination. It is important to keep in mind that severe illness and death are associated with flu, and getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent flu infection and its complications.

It became such a big issue after 1976 because that marked a big government push for mass vaccination, but the handful of really bad reactions overshadowed the effects of the flu itself, whose potency I think they overestimated.

When there has been an increased risk, it has consistently been in the range of 1-2 additional GBS cases per million flu vaccine doses administered. Thanks, I'll take the risk of that over another really bad case of the flu. Locally, as well as drive-through, drug stores administer shots just outside and/or inside front doors.

it's always weird to me that people who aren't anti vax don't get the flu shot

xp(Although I did first have to take my insurance card back in there to the CVS pharmacy register, not the gen. register at the front counter, but I was masked up pretty good, as were all the workers, and didn't take long.)

I suffer from a mild case of needlephobia so I don't get them as often as I should. That certainly won't deter me from getting the anti-covid vaccine tho.

xp

my lack of getting flu shot has largely been due to forgetfulness. I was told I had to wait for one month after my last trial vaccine, and since then have been so busy that when I finally can take a breath, it's the last thing on my mind.

maybe this weekend!

What's bad is when you very belatedly discover that relatives who have been at family get-togethers on reg basis for decades, incl. w octo-nonogenerian members, have stopped getting flu shots, even though their ins. covers it, but they thought it didn't?? County Health Depts. around here charged maybe $15.00 max. Oh well, they've been good about isolation, masks, but this is an example of why I'm going to keep on w those things even after I get that vax.

$15.00 max That's without ins., which I know from when I didn't have it, a few years ago.

it's always weird to me that people who aren't anti vax don't get the flu shot

I've never had the flu, that I know of, so getting it is not something I ever think about and, likewise, getting vaccinated against it. Plus iirc they're forever running out of it in the UK so, at the back of my mind, is the idea that the good old NHS only has so muhc to go round, best give it to some auld fella who needs it. This year I'm the auld fella.

There are plenty of wholly inadequate reasons why people skip flu shots. I expect the number one reason is they hate needles. Also because people misidentify many brief ailments as "flu", they don't understand that influenza is much nastier, hits much harder and lingers much longer than the pretenders they think of as "flu", and it leaves you weakened for further opportunistic infections that can kill you. Add to that, people easily rationalize away anything that seems inconvenient. Plus, the ever popular laziness. Lots of inadequate reasons.

I always get a flu shot bc the flu sounds bad and I don’t want the flu

it's always weird to me that people who aren't anti vax don't get the flu shot

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, December 9, 2020 5:49 PM (thirty-five minutes ago)

I think the previous calculus of "I've never gotten the flu/I'm young and healthy so the risks of arm soreness for a day or two outweigh the smaller risk of getting the flu" has failed to adequately take into account the fact that immunizing yourself helps prevent the spread of the flu to more vulnerable people. I am hopeful that the covid pandemic will help people realize this is just no longer tenable

the other silly argument is that well, it's not 100% effective. I have some bad news about literally every medical intervention

I really can't believe there's anyone who hasn't had the flu, sorry

Yeah, that seems really implausible. If so, congrats on your immortality?

I got it at 30 for the first time since I was a kid, and I felt weaker than fuck. it sucks so bad as an adult

I may have had the flu before as a child but I dunno honestly. I’ve gotten a flu shot every year from age 18 or so I think and I haven’t had the flu in that time. I guess I’d remember because it sounds like the flu is bad. Anyway that’s why I get the shot, because I don’t want the flu.

Don’t want other people to get the flu either!

I've never had the flu, that I know of, so getting it is not something I ever think about and, likewise, getting vaccinated against it.

This is what I hear from too many people, with the exception of people who used to say this and then got the flu and wished they never got it again because it knocked them on their ass for 10 days. I know two specific people who went from "I never get the flu" to "everyone should get a flu shot, the flu suuuuuucks" proselytizers.

Also, even if not 100% effective, even an "ineffective" flu vaccine has been known to at least reduce symptoms.

I mean the flu can be mild too...like I'm not a doctor - but i mean if you were sick and running some type of fever and it wasn't clearly a cold you probably had the flu

if someone got through their childhood without getting the flu once i will eat my hat

dud

That's just what our lizard overlords want you to think.

"There are plenty of wholly inadequate reasons why people skip flu shots. I expect the number one reason is they hate needles"

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Wednesday, December 9, 2020

seems otm to me

This thread has a lot of early days I miss.

It seems that with vaccines and some other big ticket science topics that scientific method and rigour is losing the fight against (not sure if I'm phrasing this correctly) the democratisation of opinion, where a thousand scientists are drowned in the noise of million comment boxes and online space fillers.

I'm not sure how science wins that space back.

Sorry first paragraph should say early days ilxors

xp I think that's very well said

I really can't believe there's anyone who hasn't had the flu, sorry

Not as described. But a mild case is possible. I get colds constantly, though not this year of course!

I really can't believe there's anyone who hasn't had the flu, sorry

Your certitude on this point is interesting. I've lived and worked in a densely-populated urban area my whole life, and have reached my late forties without ever catching the flu. I've never had the jab either - I'm extremely pro-vaccination, but I grew blasé about flu season.

Never had it either as far as I know.
When I was a kid everything was called 'the flu' but I've not had the 'can't get out of bed to pick up a £50 note' bug.

I somehow managed to catch a cold last week and I hadn't seen anyone. I'd been in the post office briefly, masked of course, I guess I got it in there.

have had actual proper flu once, when I was 14, after I'd had the flu jab. I think that's why I never got it again for years, thinking well it doesn't work anyway. I didn't properly understand the idea that getting it helps other people who are more vulnerable, and I never got the flu again anyway. I started getting it when my wife got cancer. Haven't had it this year yet but I get the impression there is a shortage of it atm in the UK.

i have had the flu like 5-6 times in my life, mostly under age 21 but once at about 30, and i consider myself someone who "never gets sick." i learned for the first time this year that 14% of cases are asymptomatic (# could be different, of course). CDC says 5-20% of people get it each year, with or without symptoms. you can definitely have it and not know it.

In the UK you have to be over 50 and tick various boxes before you can get the vaccine on the NHS, I think that has led to some of the differences in attitudes I've noticed on here between the UK and the US.

had it once in my early 20s, not sure how many days i spent immobile on the couch but when i recovered i had bruises across my back from the pattern of my couch upholstery. also had a fever of 104, which i just rode out bc i didnt know it was super dangerous bc i was a dumbass in my early 20s

I've never had a serious, collapse-into-bed-for-a-week flu, but I get a sniffling cold every single year, and some years I get a rattling, hacking, spitting-out-neon-green-phlegm chest cold. I still get the flu shot every single year because my doctor tells me to. I'll probably get the covid vaccine when/if it becomes available to plebs in my state.

In other news...another hero down.

Vaccine shit is real stupid. How you giving vaccine to people who arent sick??? 💉🚫

— PETEROCK.COM (@PeteRock) December 10, 2020

I've been trying but failing to get the flu vaccine this year because there's a shortage & I'm not considered yet to be enough at risk to be high priority, but I think even at-risk people haven't all been able to get it yet. I talked to my pharmacist about it & she insisted that we could still ask for it but it wouldn't necessarily be covered by insurance, so I asked, how much would it cost, then? apparently 10 € ? she was so apologetic!

I've only gotten the flu vaccine once before, but I wanted to start to participate more regularly now seeing how the pandemic's gone. I have had the flu before; the swine flu year, 2009 I think, I had it pretty bad, was sick for like three weeks.

there are groups of ppl under 50 who are also eligible for the flu jab on the nhs.

As I said, you have to tick certain boxes.

... oops, just noticed I said and not or.

had never heard of people who are not old or part of a vulnerable population getting a flu shot when I lived in the uk.

I have had the flu on various occasions. once I was in bed for about 5 days and had a day or two of hallucinatory dread during which time I was too ill to go the bathroom or get a glass of water from the kitchen. only bothered to get the flu shot once since moving here, it's available to everyone readily, and only costs $20 or so but I just cba.

Get your flu shots folks

I nearly said that's 'or' not 'and'! Just in case anyone reading thought they couldn't get one.

last year my entire household (three roommates I didn't like much) all got the flu, still sat in the common rooms, coughed in them, laid on the common couch, throughout the weekend. it was a day and a half before they let me know "oh btw we all have the flu".

was frankly a shock that I didn't get it. I got my flu shot shortly after but way too late to stop them infecting me.

So funny, I was just at the doctor for something else and he asked me, "Have you ever had a stomach infection?" I said, "How would I know?" and he said, "You would have a fever and vomiting and diarrhea but it wasn't the flu" and I was like, that's literally the symptoms of ever flu ever so again, how the hell would I know?

Idk why doctors think everyone goes to the doctor--most ppl I know just take some Tylenol and go back to bed.

I pretty much run to the doctor if I have a fever of 101 or higher. only time I didn't was when I knew for a fact I had bronchitis, and just did a lot of sleeping. unfortunately was in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar and they couldn't afford to excuse me from more than 1 rehearsal so I infected Jesus and Judas

So funny, I was just at the doctor for something else and he asked me, "Have you ever had a stomach infection?" I said, "How would I know?" and he said, "You would have a fever and vomiting and diarrhea but it wasn't the flu" and I was like, that's literally the symptoms of ever flu ever so again, how the hell would I know?

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, December 10, 2020 6:09 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

a common misconception, related probably to the colloquial term “stomach flu” (which is not caused by influenza viruses). if you had vomiting/diarrhea and a fever you probably had viral gastroenteritis, not the flu, is probably what your doctor was trying to convey