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Thanks Anti-Vax Loons: The Return Of The Measles And The Backlash Against Jenny McCarthy

from the endangering-us-all dept

Wed, Mar 19th 2014 2:52pm — Timothy Geigner

For all you people out there still going on about how horrible vaccines are for children, still ultimately relying on a thoroughly debunked fraud of a research paper put forth by a quack paid for his quackery by a law firm planning on suing vaccine-makers, thanks a lot. Measles is back. And it's your fault. What was once limited to some worrying reports in rural areas, often times due to either conspiracy theorists or those practicing an unfortunate brand of theology, measles is now back in populated areas like New York City. Oh, and whooping cough. And mumps.

Measles is spreading in upper Manhattan and the Bronx, according to public health authorities in New York. About 16 cases have turned up, including two that involved contagion in doctors' offices. Outbreaks have also been reported in the Boston area, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Much of the current outbreak is traceable to the Philippines, where the disease is raging and easily spread to unvaccinated travelers. They come home to the U.S., where the virus is finding a surprising welcome. Health experts add these to the tally of the anti-vaccination movement, which is based almost entirely on a long since debunked and withdrawn paper published in Britain in 1998.

Measles, should you not be aware, was at such low levels as to be officially considered obliterated. It was essentially gone, removed from our daily list of dangers thanks to the power of vaccines. Thanks to the unvaccinated in America, however, when foreign pathogens are brought here, they are allowed to find hosts in which they can mutate such that the vaccinations everyone was supposed to have are no longer as effective, or effective at all. Driving the point home, children too young to be vaccinated often find themselves the victims of the spread of these mutated diseases, resulting in sick children... and dead infants.

And, lest anyone attempt to argue that the vaccinations themselves are more harmful than the diseases they control, or for those that argue that our natural immune system is better suited to fighting off these pathogens:

During a similar outbreak last year, the national Centers for Disease Control concluded that 82% of the cases occurred in unvaccinated persons, and of those, 79% said they deliberately shunned vaccination on "philosophical" grounds.

And, from there, the disease mutates and spreads, mutates and spreads, rinse and repeat until we reach the point where we now have outbreaks in major cities. Fortunately, many folks are looking at this as a teaching moment for the portion of the American public that is endangering the rest of us. Chiefly in the cross-hairs has been Jenny McCarthy, who has been the spokesman for the stupid when it comes to the anti-vaccination crowd for a long, long time. Recently, she asked her Twitter followers "What is the most important personality trait you look for in a mate?" The responses were less than kind.

They vaccinate their kids RT @JennyMcCarthy: What is the most important personality trait you look for in a mate? Reply using #JennyAsks

-- Jen (@oneninjen) March 14, 2014

Someone who vaccinates, b/c I'd want our kids to survive. @JennyMcCarthy: Most important trait you look for in mate? Reply w/ #JennyAsks

-- Seth Mnookin (@sethmnookin) March 15, 2014

While I do love getting diseases that were eradicated in the last century, I would say vaccinated is a trait I look for #JennyAsks

-- Jennifer Lott (@JennLott) March 14, 2014

Now, it's worth noting that McCarthy has been relatively quiet on the anti-vax topic the past couple of years, as these long-dead diseases have reemerged. Were I her, I wouldn't want to be spouting off as children get sick either. Maybe she's learned how wrong she was. If she has, she may want to inform her co-celebrities Katie Couric and Kristen Cavallari and Jay Cutler, because they apparently haven't gotten the memo yet.

Look, to be clear, if you don't want to vaccinate your children, you have that free right, but only because I haven't attained enough power in this country yet to have you summarily arrested and to take your children away from you so that they can live with someone with whom they'll be more safe, like, say, a family of rabid wolverines. Vaccinate your damned children. It isn't about you or your kids, it's about all of us.

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Filed Under: anti-vaccination, health, jenny mccarthy, measles, public health, vaccinations

304 Comments

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Reader Comments

The First Word

“

vaccine

This may just be a simplified viewpoint but the minute amount of adverse reactions to vaccination has to be offset by the lack of diseases in the community. Some people react badly to peanuts but shops still sell peanut butter. By deliberately not vaccinating your kids you are putting the community at risk, and that is an incredibly self centred view on life.

—stu

”

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That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 1:36pm

Time for the Darwin Awards?
While obviously I wouldn't blame the children who aren't getting vaccinated due to their brain-dead parents, I'd say those old enough to know better, who can get vaccinated and instead choose not to, deserve to be, as a group, nominated for a Darwin Award, or at least an Honorable Mention should they not die from their stupidity.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:28am
  
  Re: Time for the Darwin Awards?
  You can only win a Darwin Award by removing yourself from the gene pool before you procreate.
  
  If you have children, you cannot win one because you have already passed on your genes. If you remove someone else from the gene pool, no matter how noble that act might be, you cannot win one nor can your victim.
  
  If you died as a result of a preventable-by-vaccine disease that you caught from your un-vaccinated child then I think you would be worthy of an honourable mention.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:29am
    
    Re: Re: Time for the Darwin Awards?
    If you remove someone else from the gene pool, no matter how noble that act might be, you cannot win one nor can your victim.
    
    Right, those are the "Intelligent Designer Awards" ;)
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
silverscarcat (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 2:48pm

Don't forget Bill Maher...
Serious, that nimrod is also one of the biggest reasons for this stuff coming back.

"The science of vaccinations isn't settled yet."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Bergman (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:12pm
  
  Re: Don't forget Bill Maher...
  Neither is it settled that the universe will exist tomorrow...and yet they make plans as if it will anyway.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:17am
    
    Re: Re: Don't forget Bill Maher...
    Don't you know? We broke the universe already by our mere existence!
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 2:57pm

The difference...
Between people who deny Evolution or Global Climate Change/Warming and the Anti-Vaccination group is that at least people of the first two groups don't put entire societies at risk.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:08pm
  
  Re: The difference...
  If you think denying climate change isn't putting entire societies (including our own) at risk, you're not paying enough attention...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:26pm
    
    Re: Re: The difference...
    This. The morons who do not grasp that global warming is real, is human-driven, and presents the very real possibility of inflicting serious damage on our species are just as much a danger, if not more, than the anti-vaccination idiots.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - PRMan, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:40pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: The difference...
      Global warming is so real that the entire Bering Sea, all of the Sea north of Canada and even the Great Lakes are completely frozen...
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - PRMan, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:44pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        The earth has been changing temperature for all of recorded history and before that, including going into and coming out of ice age(s) (the parens for those that deny evolution).
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:46pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        You have just revealed that you do not know the difference between "climate" and "weather". This is a reflection of your profound ignorance and your complete unworthiness to participate in ANY discussion of either. You should remain silent while those who are superior to you (which is pretty much anyone with a college degree in science) discuss matters far beyond your pathetically feeble comprehension. Perhaps once you have listened and PAID ATTENTION for long enough, you will somehow absorb enough to master this relatively simple concept and grasp just how amazingly, incredibly stupid this remark of yours truly is.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:00pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        And just like that, you have proven that you should not take part of any conversation either.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Paul Renault (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:27am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Me, what I'm dying to see is a comment thread where five or six commentators, all of whom are called 'Anonymous Coward', get into very heated, name-calling, passive-aggressive, and fact-free argument thread and then the whole thread collapses into a smoky pile of ash when one of the many 'Cowards' realizes he was unwittingly arguing with himself.
        
        I'd pay money to see that, I really would.
        
        /I'd pay even more money if, instead of measles infecting Upper Manhattan, the measles were actually infecting Upper Class Manhattan instead.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:28am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        No. What I've proven is that I don't suffer fools gladly. There is far too much tolerance for outright stupidity -- like this nitwit's vapid, pointless observation about the Bering Sea -- in the name of tolerance and anti-bullying and all kinds of other feel-good nonsense.
        
        Well. Fuck that. Idiocy, in all forms and manifestations, deserves to be slapped down. HARD. (Which I believe I've done here, although frankly, I was more kind and gentle than I'd intended to be.) Idiocy, in case you haven't noticed, gets people killed. Like the anti-vaccination nut cases, who are getting people killed because they're selfish, stupid assholes.
        
        So let me clear: anyone who doesn't think anthropocentric global warming is real is a full-blown moron. Anyone who thinks vaccines cause autism is a moron. Anyone who thinks creationism is real is a moron. They should all STFU.
        
        No, that's not very nice of me. In fact, it's kind of mean. But it's not even remotely CLOSE to as mean as they are: these people, via their stupidity, are endangering the future of the entire human race. They're trying to kill every last one of us. So as mean as I might be here by saying these things, that's a mere pinprick compared to the brutal, vicious, unending assault on humanity conducted by these idiots. (To put it another way: my words might piss some people off. But nobody will die as a result of them. Contrast with Jenny McCarthy et.al. who are killing children.)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Derek Kerton (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:21am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Nice.
        
        You, sir, are a member in good standing on the side of reason.
        
        I feel like every "movement" needs many voices. Some explanatory, some kind, some tolerant, and some shrill. These different voices are like different tools in the toolbox.
        
        It's funny. You don't see theists complaining that preachers run the full gamut of styles and methods. But put forward ONE vocal atheist (say Hitchens), and he is promptly demonized for having and talking about his own point of view, because it smacks them with cognitive dissonance.
        
        My voice is usually more explanatory, with a hint of condescension. Yours is more of a smackdown. Dawkins is explanatory and in your face, Hitchens was demeaning, the Amazing Randi challenges the other side. Bill Nye is compassionate and explanatory.
        
        On another topic, similarly, we need some Ron Wydens, AND we need some Ed Snowdens. Each fight for justice in their own way.
        
        There is no "right" way to argue the side of reason. We need all of the tools in the toolbox.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        RadialSkid (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:39pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Anyone who tries to shut out any form of debate with self-righteous ad-hominem has nothing worthwhile to say.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:46pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Anyone who tries to shut out any form of debate with self-righteous ad-hominem has nothing worthwhile to say.
        
        One wonders if you see the irony...
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:16pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Better question based on your history, do you?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        RadialSkid (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:03pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Had I said "Anyone who tries to shut out any form of debate with self-righteous ad-hominem is a moron," then yes, hopefully I would see the irony.
        
        But since I didn't say that, no, I don't really see any irony in what I said at all.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:12pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Yawn... Great another trumped up turd with an opinion (that he thinks is more valid than any other)... Least you have proven the Hypothesis: Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink...
        
        Congrats you have failed entirely and proven your a quack, so therefore all future points you may provide which may even be correct will be discounted and tossed into the rubbish bin...
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Fushta (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:00am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        I'll just leave this hear for you to ponder: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Rich, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:20am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Calling someone a moron for being a moron isn't an ad hominem. These days, people seems to think the term means "to call names." It does not. An ad hominem is a tactic used to "win" an argument by attacking the arguer and not the argument. Calling someone a moron because you believe them to be is not an ad hominem. Saying, "He doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't even have a degree." is one.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:30am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        An ad hominem is a tactic used to "win" an argument by attacking the arguer and not the argument.
        
        That's exactly what AC was doing in response to PRMan. He provided no evidence or reasoning to demonstrate PRMan is wrong other than maybe the first sentence, and spent the rest of the paragraph attacking his intelligence and suitability for debate.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Hibby the Hoovy (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:31am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        It's still name-calling and name-calling is always uncalled for. You can disagree with someone without resorting to outright insults.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:49am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Disagreement is much more powerful and effective without the name-calling as well. It's why I don't understand why people do it -- even when they have a good argument, it detracts from it and makes them look like idiots.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        jjmsan (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:22am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Not if the insult is true. There are people who lie. They are designated liars and should be called that. The anti vaxxers fall into that category.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:46am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Calling a liar a liar is not an insult. But most of the rank-and-file anti-vaxxers aren't liars. They really believe what they're saying. They're just wrong.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:19am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        To a point. But depending on context, sometimes there's something to be said for not justifying a ridiculous position by offering it a reasoned response.
        
        If an anti-vaxxer stands up at a serious medical conference and starts pushing their agenda, should all the doctors put the real conversation on hold so they can go over all the same vaccine evidence and arguments again in an attempt to convince them? Or should they all laugh and say "sit down, moron" so they can get on with real science?
        
        I vote the latter.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:23am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        As an example: the Flat Earth movement, though it amazingly does in fact exist, has never gained any genuine steam. And if you ask me that's because people rarely let it get to the point of a bunch of circular arguments and logical fallacies that trick people into thinking it might be true -- they stop it dead the moment it's brought up by looking at the person who said it like they are a complete idiot, and calling them one too.
        
        But if news shows and science journals started regularly covering Flat Earthers and treating them with respect, bringing in experts to calmly refute their theories as though they are worthy of refute, and never ever mocking them because of the sanctity of "balance", then how long would it be before the movement started growing?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:53am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        This is a really excellent point.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:25am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        I don't see the benefit of calling the person a moron (even if he is). Ignore him, tell him he's in the wrong place and he should be quiet or leave, have security escort him out, whatever. But who is helped by calling names? And that's the part that I'm referring to. There are other options besides "serious debate and engagement" and "ad hominem attacks".
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:36am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Knowing more about what is true means knowing more about what is untrue. Valuing truth means finding untruth ludicrous. Passionately pursuing truth means passionately rejecting untruth.
        
        Ridicule, like it or not, is part of this process, and a tool by which society increases its standard of truth and knowledge. When David Icke proposes that the royal family is all lizards, his ideas remain on the fringe -- not because most people consider them seriously and collect evidence to reach the conclusion that they are incorrect, but because most people have a kneejerk reaction of "that guy is clearly insane or stupid". If someone claims the world is flat or revolves around the sun, we don't need to run through the the evidence in our heads to remember it's untrue -- we simply think "that's dumb".
        
        We're reaching that point now with people who claim the earth is 6000 years young -- people are feeling less and less inclined to explain why that's not true, and more and more inclined to simply roll their eyes and tell the person making the claim to get some education. General denial of evolution isn't too far behind. And, in time, those who deny climate change or who claim vaccines cause autism will join the same camp.
        
        Knowledge would never grow at all if every point had to be re-proven every time anyone questions it, and every fringe theory had to be addressed with respect in perpetuity. But you don't have to argue with morons -- and that's why we need to label some views as moronic.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:39pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        This is brilliant, and spot on. I wish I could modify my comment @ 7:49 to include room for ridicule.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:04pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        "Ridicule, like it or not, is part of this process, and a tool by which society increases its standard of truth and knowledge."
        
        the act of making fun of someone or something in a cruel or harsh way : harsh comments made by people who are laughing at someone or something
        http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ridicule
        
        Few stories back. everyone had a problem with a boy being ridiculed for a My Little Pony backpack, where was your defense of the boys doing the ridiculing?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:25pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        I see you are voted insightful Leigh, maybe those voters too can link back to their defense of the boys doing the ridiculing? Thanks in advance!
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:52pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Didn't really read much about that story, not sure of the details. Certainly didn't write it. But, as far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about here, which is the ridicule of bad science. And, er, at no point did I say "all ridicule of anything is always wonderful". So honestly I don't see what you're trying to get at here.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:05pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        "Ridicule, like it or not, is part of this process, and a tool by which society increases its standard of truth and knowledge."
        
        "And, er, at no point did I say "all ridicule of anything is always wonderful"."
        
        Sorry, I assumed increasing our standard of truth and knowledge is always wonderful. So, being harsh and cruel can be wonderful? Just not always?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:13pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Sorry, are you being willfully difficult?
        
        To say something is a tool for something else is not the same as saying it's always great to use it in every situation indiscriminately.
        
        A hammer is a tool for hitting things hard. It's great when used on nails; kind of a shame when used on skulls.
        
        So, being harsh and cruel can be wonderful? Just not always?
        
        Yup!
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:27pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        "Sorry, are you being willfully difficult?"
        
        So, being harsh and cruel can be wonderful? Just not always?
        
        "Yup!"
        
        I'm done with your games for now.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:22pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        "But, as far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about here, which is the ridicule of bad science"
        
        Sorry again. I was replying to you, who was replying to nasch, who said "But who is helped by calling names? And that's the part that I'm referring to." I didn't realize moron only referred to bad science.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:12pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Having now brushed up on the story -- which was really about the school's actions -- I will indeed take this opportunity to defend the bullies:
        
        Sounds like kids being kids. In such situations I hope someone intervenes if they go too far into seriously abusive territory, but not before. I'm not in the camp that thinks we can create a world where no kid is ever teased by another kid. (And as the former perpetually-smallest-and-weirdest-kid-in-every-class, I'm not saying that as someone unfamiliar with being picked on.)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:42pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        While I agree with your opinion, this is not your opportunity to defend the bullies.
        
        Here it is:
        http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140317/13503526601/kid-bullied-my-little-pony-backpack-told-no t-to-bring-it-to-school-anymore.shtml
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:15pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        What point are you trying to make, exactly? That because I didn't happen to comment on a random other post that is not even slightly related to what we're discussing here, I somehow lose credibility?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:20pm
        
        What is true and what is untrue
        Leigh,
        
        Standard accepted ideas (such as evolution, big bang, standard model, quantum theory, etc) unfortunately have some very large holes in them that are currently being highlighted by various people who do research in those areas. yet they are being treated with the same contempt as those who are completely off the rails. Political correctness at its best - sorry to say. Now some of these ideas may well be useless, but others do have the beginnings of significant advancement.
        
        You can roll your eyes as much as you want, but it doesn't change the problems within the various models that are being promulgated as true. It is getting close to forty years of looking at the various fields and what is being promulgated as "the facts" and all I am seeing is the things that are being ignored.
        
        Just some simple examples.
        
        Big Bang Theory - if you do not believe that gravitation is the fundamental force controlling the universe, then you are flake, fruitcake, etc. Yet some of the alternative models give better predictive results with less arbitrary additions.
        
        Standard Model Subatomic Physics - some alternative models have significantly less arbitrary features and give much better predictive values for the binding energy of nuclei. Yet if you look at these then you are an ignorant buffoon.
        
        Old earth - different dating techniques put millions of years onto the age of rocks that are known to be formed in the last 100 years. Assumptions that dating method use are known to be wrong, but are still accepted as correct. If you raise that the dating methods have problems and give quite different results, you are an idiot for not believing.
        
        I have some partial papers dealing with a model of sub-atomic physics that was developed by one man in the 1960's. The interesting approach was that instead of following the accepted process which started from a simple model and increased complexity, his development included those additional elements at the start. His resultant model was quite different and included explanations for all the stable sub-atomic particles and fields without having to add in arbitrary entities. His full set of papers are in one of the national archives in Canada. Part of his model was a procedure for calculating the binding energy of any nuclei using a form of geometry. Yes I know - geometry. However, as he states in his document, that this is only a model and must be treated as such, his calculation process was generally less than 1% away from the measured value compared to the techniques used by the standard model (which can be 5, 10, 20, 30% or more of a variation from measured value).
        
        Whether or not his approach is correct needs investigation, but to do so these days is career suicide.
        
        I personally accept that climate change is real. However, I have very serious doubts about anthropogenic climate change and I have a simple question that I have asked of the "climate change experts" over the years and not a logical response from any of them.
        
        One respondent who actually discussed a possible solution (as in for the anthropogenic standpoint) was himself not a climate change expert.
        
        Anyone is capable of doing science, it is not something for the elite.
        
        So you response, in itself is moronic. Questioning a prevailing view is not of itself wrong, and not answering the questions in a reasoned manner is not right. If the details of the discussion have been dealt with and documented clearly, then the response should at least be, here is the reference document explaining the prevailing view.
        
        Rolling your eyes and calling them morons does not win you a friend but just increases the enmity of your opponents.
        
        If you can demonstrate to an enemy that his viewpoint is wrong while treating him with respect, you are more likely to gain from this than lose.
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        Leigh Beadon (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:00pm
        
        Re: What is true and what is untrue
        I think you are straying rather far from what we're talking about here, and taking my comment to mean things it doesn't.
        
        I'm not saying nobody should ever question the prevailing view. Nor am I saying it's always easy to determine what's worthy of consideration. Nor did I say that only experts or elites can have valuable ideas.
        
        I'm saying that when a particular point of view has been disproven over and over again, but is clung to by some people for patently fallacious reasons, the world is better off dismissing -- and yes, even ridiculing -- those people than continuing to pay them any attention. But if you want to continue respectfully arguing with people who think the earth is 6000 years old, or who deny evolution (or if you in fact are one of those people) then that's your prerogative.
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        The Old Man in The Sea, 21 Mar 2014 @ 7:06am
        
        Re: Re: What is true and what is untrue
        Evolution as far as I am concerned is a load of crock. This is a considered belief based on the extensive research of geneticists such as Richard Dawkins from the mid-70's to the late 80's. It was studying their results that lead to the conclusion that the Darwinian evolutionary model and its ilk were fantasies. The specific results published in the various scientific journals of the time put a serious dent in my view and belief of evolution.
        
        The interpretation that the researchers may have come up with was in many cases at odds with the results that they presented. From my point of view, when the theory doesn't match the results obtained, one needs to look at a modified or even different theory that can explain the results better.
        
        There have been a number of areas in which I have found the prevailing ideas are at odds with the experimental results. So, I have looked at alternatives, as befitting the science and engineering training that I underwent.
        
        Some of those alternatives appear to be the result of some drug induced brainstorm, while others are simpler and more coherent (even if less developed in detail) than the prevailing models.
        
        To get back to the topic in hand - vaccinations - there is evidence to say some are mostly effective, some are ineffective, some have minor side effects and some have major side-effects up to and including death for some recipients of the vaccination.
        
        As I have said earlier, me and my own are vaccinated for a number of diseases. So if someone isn't vaccinated, that's their choice. I have taken my considered precautions. But there are some vaccinations I will not take and this is based on the ineffectual results obtained or the known hazards in taking them.
        
        If you think that vaccinations are a must for all people, that is your view, but don't try to force that view on everyone. I for one will stand against you. There are many things done in the name of "public health" and it has become as much a tool as "for the children".
        
        My observation is that the "public health" issues are about money, control and power more than actually looking at truly improving the well-being of people.
        
        Your country has a major public health issue and its your health system. From someone who lives outside of your system, your country has to be lumped in with much of South East Asia, don't get sick there - you'll probably die there. That's a cynical viewpoint I know. It's one of the major reason why it is always recommended to get travel health insurance before you leave the country.
        
        I consider those who rail against those who don't take vaccinations as no less extreme than those who say all vaccination are evil and a plan of the devil.
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        Leigh Beadon (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 8:27am
        
        Re: Re: Re: What is true and what is untrue
        Evolution as far as I am concerned is a load of crock.
        
        This is where I practice what I preach, call you a moron, and end the conversation.
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        The Old Man in The Sea, 21 Mar 2014 @ 2:45pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: What is true and what is untrue
        That's so sad. Such a politically correct and indoctrinated mindset means that the investigation of the world around us will be set back another 1500 years. Ah well, don't learn from history, have to repeat history.
        
        The problem for you Leigh, is that you see a statement that you don't like, you immediately reject everything without looking at the full context.
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        Niall (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 9:27am
        
        Re: Re: Re: What is true and what is untrue
        Well, if the most recent science you look at is 30-40 years old, then you're not very up-to-date. If you read any theories in the last 50 years that made evolution sound like a fantasy, then you were probably reading Answers in Genesis.
        
        Plus, if you notice, anyone you see like Dawkins STILL believe in evolution, as do an immense proportion of life scientists, astronomers, geologists and basically anyone who has to deal with real world science.
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        The Old Man in The Sea, 21 Mar 2014 @ 3:06pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: What is true and what is untrue
        Dawkins has to believe in evolution, his religious beliefs mandate that. I'll make a comparison, look at the ascendant belief system regarding the planets that existed from around the time of Plato (ancient Greece). There was a contemporary at the time, who had proposed that the earth orbited the sun, had calculated the size of the earth, the distance from the earth to the sun and considering the lack of precision devices was reasonably accurate. He became the crackpot of his time.
        
        So saying that immense proportion believe in a particular idea doesn't cut butter, if the view does not match up with reality and there are alternative views that explain the anomalous information.
        
        There is claim made by those who promulgate the "Big Bang" that the model has only had to have a small number of enhancements to make it match what they see today. Super-expansion, dark energy and dark matter are two of them that either can't be tested or have not been actually observed. Alternative models without these items, give significantly closer predictions to what is actually seen. Go figure.
        
        I do keep an interest in the research that is ongoing. I made the comment that it was in the 70's and 80's, with the research of that time, for which I gave up the idea that evolution has any reality. The research since has only reinforced that view. From my perspective, I read the results and come to different conclusion from the authors in this area.
        
        YMMV.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 11:41am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: The difference...
        Well, keep in mind that global warming predicts more extreme weather events in both directions as the overall temperature of the Earth rises.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:08pm

While I support vaccines I am wary of them. I didn't read any studies but just from mainly my relatives. My niece got her first vaccine and then went into a seizure while still on the doctors table. The doctor said to wait a while. Tried again a month later and the second vaccine injection cause a seizure so bad that it cause brain damage. Another incident, a friend had a terrible skin reaction to the vaccine. Both went to different doctors and both are told not to get certain vaccines again. I am mainly worried about getting any of my children vaccinated due to my relative. Was it fluke? Is it genetic? Is it worth the risk?
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- That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:37pm
  
  Re:
  It's called an allergic reaction, if someone happens to be allergic to a substance in the vaccine, and the doctors don't know about it, it's hardly surprising that they'd have a negative reaction like that.
  
  Has nothing to do with the vaccine itself, just what's in it and how their body reacts to it.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:07pm
    
    RE: Allergic reaction
    If you have a source stating that, indeed, the dangers of vaccination are solely related to allergies, then (a) please give a source so that we may all be so enlightened and (b) please explain why someone must subject their children to dying due to a vaccine without any sort of test assuring them that their kids aren't allergic to the vaccine in the first place.
    
    AFAIK there's no study even close to conclusively saying what you're saying, in fact, elsewhere I quoted a study by NIH saying that it looks like infant deaths are indeed strongly correlated with the degree of vaccination in a country and that they don't know exactly why and suggest that people do a better job trying to find out.
    
    Besides, I'd argue that if someone's infant may die due to the vaccination then it's just pure semantic bullshit to declare that the vaccine didn't do it. You don't even attempt to defend why we should define "vaccine" as "just the active stuff in the vaccine" rather than "the active stuff in the vaccine PLUS the medium in which it's delivered."
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    - That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:37pm
      
      Re: RE: Allergic reaction
      Hmm, there seems to be something stuck in my mouth, give me a second to fish it out... oh, it appears to be all the words you just crammed in there.
      
      Nowhere did I say anything about allergies being the sole possible risk of vaccinations, I was explaining the most likely reason the AC's niece had that sort of reaction. The fact that the seizure was immediate, not delayed, pretty strongly points to an allergic reaction, nothing more.
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    - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:16pm
      
      Re: RE: Allergic reaction
      You know what else causes death in Infants, Children, Adults, etc??
      
      Accidents, Stupidity, Bad luck, genetics, Virus's, physical maladies, Force majeure, etc.. The list is huge.
      
      Based on your logic these things too should be outlawed and to stop any and all statistical outliers from EVER happening I suggest you lock yourself in an airtight room and never come out to eat, sleep, breath, procreate, or anything else.
      
      Because you never know.. you MIGHT die from something.. better off not taking the risk hey? and well at least it allows the rest of the human race the knowledge that you are saving yourself from us and thereby helping us weed out the second part of my list above from infecting others.
      
      Oh and the human race as a holistic entity would rather one die as a high probability statistical outlier than a statistical majority. So therefore based on a comment of yours below as an ethical dilemma the ability of the race as a whole to enforce vaccinations knowing that sometimes deaths will occur (panadol has EXACT same problem.. so does water.. so does life) is an actual correct ethical solution. No matter how you try to spin it
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  - btrussell (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:39pm
    
    Re: Re:
    My drunkenness has nothing to do with the beer, just what is in it!
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- Adrian, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:18pm
  
  Re:
  A terrible thing to happen and understandable that it would give you pause for thought before having your children vaccinated. But why did your niece have this reaction? Surely they investigated?
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- Phoenix84 (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:24pm
  
  Re:
  Some people are allergic to certain vaccines. Just like how some people are allergic to bees. That alone is one reason everyone who can, should vaccinate. It protects those who cannot via herd immunity.
  Unlike the idiots who choose not to vaccinate, these people, like sadly your niece, medically cannot receive the vaccines.
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- Sable Courtois, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:36pm
  
  Re:
  "Is it worth the risk?"
  
  Prior to widespread use of the measles vaccine, pretty much everyone got measles at some point in their lives.
  
  Approx. 20% of the U.S. population was hospitalized at some point due to measles.
  
  While death rates weren't terribly high, you don't have to die for your life to effectively end. Measles causes myriad complications, and often results in permanent disability and irreversible brain damage. And, of course, it does kill, as well.
  
  A nearly 100% chance of illness when measles makes a comeback as it's now doing, as well as a 20% chance you'll end up in the hospital, aren't terribly promising odds.
  
  The claims by anti-vaxers that vaccines aren't tested are patently false. Vaccines must meet the highest possible standards of safety as they're generally given to otherwise healthy people.
  
  There are risks, as well, as is the case with anything you put in your body. Anything manufactured can become contaminated.
  
  The FDA has a special reporting and information service so any adverse vaccine reactions/contaminations are immediately reported and warnings issued, which isn't the case for other everyday things from which you've got a far, far greater chance of being harmed; you only get the shots once, or perhaps in a small series, but everyday products can cause food poising and other issues, and you use them constantly.
  
  Hundreds of people are injured or killed using toilets every year in the U.S., for example. (Yes, really.)
  
  Be sure to inform your doctor if you've got any allergies. Some people can react to vaccines made using chicken eggs, for example. Alternatives are typically available, though they tend to be more expensive.
  
  Finally, keep in mind that the two negative examples you've seen stand out to you disproportionately. Humans have odd cognitive functions that cause a severe imbalance in our perceptions and invoke fear in our brains, because we don't think of all the people we know who got shots and for whom nothing went wrong, which actually constitutes the overwhelming majority.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:35am
    
    Re: Re:
    Many of these vaccines were not so long ago full of things that shouldn't have been there (aluminum etc...).
    Who knows what they are putting in today's vaccines that will horrify us tomorrow. I do vaccinate my kids, but I try to balance the risks and decide which vaccines they will receive. Denying that risk exist in vaccines is surely a loony attitude.
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    - Niall (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:28am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      You do know they pu Hydrogen Hydroxide into vaccines, don't you? I've also heard that there may be Dihydrogen Monoxide as well. You will also find large amounts of carbon.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:27am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        You know, dihydrogen monoxide kills more people in the world each year than any other cause.
        
        In fact, everyone who has ever died had massive ammounts of the stuff in them.
        
        It's a chemical that is massively used in nuclear reactors, the pesticide and chemical industry.
        
        We really should be more careful, but the Main Stream Media refuses to report on it.
        
        /SARC
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- Zonker, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:01pm
  
  Re:
  Sympathies for your niece. According to the CDC, incidence of seizures as a side effect of vaccination is rare. Family history among parents and siblings may be a factor. See this CDC report for more information, the Measles Prevention: Side Effects and Adverse Reactions section in particular.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:28am
  
  Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 19th, 2014 @ 3:08pm
  A lot of vaccines have an egg component due to the way they are cultured. More likely an allergy than a reaction to the vaccine itself. Vaccines are safe but you can't plan for that 1 in a million reaction. I had a similar extreme skin reaction to an over the counter painkiller that had changed the coating on the pill. I just avoid that brand.
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- Fushta (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:04am
  
  Re:
  I suggest they try to organic or gluten-free version of that vaccine. I've heard they are better for some reason.
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- Christian Buettner, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:18pm
  
  Re:
  To start I'm a scientist, not a doctor. There is NOTHING wrong with caution, especially not with familial history. Find out what caused the reactions in your family members. See if your child can be tested for the same reaction without being given the vaccine and then make the decision for yourself. TALK to a doctor before those decisions are made. Talk to 3 doctors. Don't let them wave you off, or give you platitudes. Do research. Being cautious and asking questions is GOOD. Blind acceptance of anything is bad.
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DMNTD, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:11pm

FEAR-mongering.
Right so since you like your vaccines so much. Keep getting them when it mutates. Big pharma will love you for it and you get your fix every few years. Leave the rest of alone and stuff your opinion where it counts the most.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:20pm
  
  Re: FEAR-mongering.
  The issue with this isn't about your right not to vaccinate. It's about your lack of it putting the rest of us at risk because some disease got a foot hold in your system and then mutated into something no one's vaccine will prevent.
  
  You and those that think like you are the reason that measles, mumps, and whooping cough, are coming back from places that didn't practice vaccines so thoroughly.
  
  I have never had whooping cough, I have had the other two and neither were much fun. I hope with your attitude you have the chance to enjoy them first hand. The rest of us don't want it so keep it to yourself if you ever do get some of these diseases we thought were pretty well eliminated here in the states.
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  - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:59am
    
    Vaccine effectiveness
    Firstly no vaccine is ever 100% effective, there will always be someone who is either immune to said vaccine, though not immune to live disease or will suffer major problems with whatever form the vaccine takes. It is genetic variability in the population.
    
    Secondly, you cannot make the assumption that because a person is not vaccinated that they will be the cause of a mutation. This assumption may or may not be correct, we do not have any definitive data to say this is true. Any data collected will have a margin of variability in which the result can be interpreted in different ways.
    
    Thirdly, to decry those who don't get vaccinated as being the ones who will cause future pandemics in a vaccinated population is no different to those who decry Jews as being the cause of the worlds financial woes or decry non-Caucasian as being the cause of poverty and other woes.
    
    There is enough evidence that vaccinations can lesson the incidence of particular diseases, but there is also evidence that this will never be 100%. There is also evidence that various vaccinations can have a very strong detrimental effect of portions of the population.
    
    An example is chicken pox. It is generally believed that you cannot get it twice. Yet, there are many children who have had this multiple times, my own have had it 3 times each. I can attest to this being a disease that you want to get only when you are a child. As a middle teenager through to adult, it can kill you at the worst or leave you debilitated for extended periods of time if it doesn't. I know this from experience. However, you can get shingles many times and they can be very debilitating. interestingly, what is the cause of shingles?
    
    The efficacy of any vaccination regime will depend on many factors affecting the population. Sickness is a part of being human and we will never reduce the incidence of any disease to 0, no matter what is done.
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    - nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:37am
      
      Re: Vaccine effectiveness
      Thirdly, to decry those who don't get vaccinated as being the ones who will cause future pandemics in a vaccinated population is no different to those who decry Jews as being the cause of the worlds financial woes or decry non-Caucasian as being the cause of poverty and other woes.
      
      No different. Really? No different? You're saying there's exactly as much evidence that unvaccinated people help spread disease as there is that the Jews caused the financial meltdown?
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      - zip, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:22am
        
        Re: Re: Vaccine effectiveness
        "No different. Really? No different? You're saying there's exactly as much evidence that unvaccinated people help spread disease as there is that the Jews caused the financial meltdown?"
        
        It's almost like an expansion of Godwin's law. As far as the people running the big international banks that caused the financial crisis, it's easy enough to look up who these people are and find out what their ethnic/religions affiliations are.
        
        This *myth/mystery* about "The Jews" (however that's defined) running Hollywood/banks/news media/Federal Reserve/etc./ can easily be solved just by spending a few minutes on an internet search engine. Ironically, most people with an opinion on the subject - either way - have never actually taken the time to research the facts and see for themselves.
        
        But just like the vaccination dispute, evidence means nothing because most people will believe what they were told to believe.
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    - jjmsan (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:29am
      
      Re: Vaccine effectiveness
      People are not immune to a vaccine. Also vaccines are effective against the disease they are used against. Smallpox only exists in labs because of vaccinations. You are placing other people at risk because of your refusal to actually face facts.
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      - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:30pm
        
        Re: Vaccine effectiveness
        Not immune - hmmm, are you absolutely 100% sure of your statement, you know with genetic variability and generational inheritance? Vaccines on the whole may be effective against a specific disease, but in other cases not so effective.
        
        To say that smallpox exists only in labs because of vaccines is a pretty big statement, have you investigated every square cm of the planet to ensure this?
        
        Facing facts - hmmm, do you know that in relation to infectious disease control, one of the problems facing modern medicine today is the ineffectiveness of our biological control systems. Because we use so many different treatments for disease that destroys the vast majority of infectious agents, the ones that survive are becoming resistant to our treatments and the newer treatments are having more pernicious side effects.
        
        We now have entire hospitals that are getting quarantined for many years before they are destroyed to contain the infectious agents that have developed/mutated over the years within their walls.
        
        My personal view is that within only a couple of decades, we should see major outbreaks of highly infectious diseases against which all previous vaccines will fail. Some of these will be the natural progression of mutation of the base organism, others will be due to the experimental mutations applied in these investigatory labs. The fact of whether or not you have been previously immunised will have little to do with whether or not you are then infected.
        
        There are more important things to worry about than this.
        
        You have got to remember that as a whole mankind is not very bright. Money, power, influence and control are the driving forces behind a lot of mankind's activity.
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    - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:48pm
      
      Re: Vaccine effectiveness
      "to decry those who don't get vaccinated as being the ones who will cause future pandemics in a vaccinated population is no different to those who decry Jews as being the cause of the worlds financial woes"
      
      Pure bullshit. First, it's not that unvaccinated people will cause pandemics, it's that unvaccinated people make it more likely that our attempts to get rid of or reduce the infection rate of the disease will fail. That's a fact not in question at all.
      
      Antisemitics have no rational basis for their bigotry at all, let alone anything approaching "proof". They hold a totally irrational belief.
      
      You can't compare the two things.
      
      "An example is chicken pox. It is generally believed that you cannot get it twice"
      
      By laypeople, not by the medical community. Also, most people seem to think you can get chicken pox and then be rid of it. That's not true -- it's a bit like herpes. Once you got it, you have it forever. Sometimes it even reexpresses itself and when it does, as you point out, it's called "shingles". I'm not sure what any of this has to do with vaccinations.
      
      Oh by the way, the chickenpox vaccine appears to be pretty worthless now that it's being used in the population. But that doesn't mean that all vaccines are worthless.
      
      "Sickness is a part of being human and we will never reduce the incidence of any disease to 0, no matter what is done."
      
      Absolutely not true. It's really hard to totally eliminate a particular disease, but we've done so for a few of them.
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      - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:26pm
        
        Re: Vaccine effectiveness
        Pure bullshit. First, it's not that unvaccinated people will cause pandemics, it's that unvaccinated people make it more likely that our attempts to get rid of or reduce the infection rate of the disease will fail. That's a fact not in question at all.
        
        Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. Your statement is not a fact, and as an intelligent man you know that. I have found that you are generally insightful, but this unfortunately, is not one of those times. You are making a correlation that has not been confirmed. It may be your considered opinion, and you are fully entitled to that, but to claim it is a fact (100% pure quill) is a bit of a stretch..
        
        If a population is already vaccinated, then only those who are not vaccinated should have the possibility of being infected? No? If someone is willing to take the risk of being infected because they consider that the least problematic, and you are protected because you have been vaccinated, what is that to you?
        
        However, an alternative viewpoint is that the treatment (though eliminating the majority of the disease) may leave slightly mutated varieties alone, which can sit in the treated population before an additional effects bring about a variety that is infectious and untreatable. So, in this viewpoint, whether or not you are vaccinated can become irrelevant for the spread of the disease.
        
        Oh by the way, the chickenpox vaccine appears to be pretty worthless now that it's being used in the population. But that doesn't mean that all vaccines are worthless.
        
        I am not saying that all vaccines are worthless, I'll reiterate, no vaccine is 100% effective, they all have side effects. Some are very minor, some quite major. Some vaccines have limited effectiveness. it is up to the individual as to whether or not they will avail themselves of the vaccines being presented.
        
        I find that many here have a problem with the "nanny state" mentality in many areas, but when applied to vaccinations, they want the "nanny state".
        
        Just for information, I am vaccinated for a number of diseases, as are my children and their children as well. However, from my perspective, if someone wants to refuse vaccinations that is their choice. If they get the disease that is a consequence of their choice, if they don't that is still a consequence of their choice. The population that has been vaccinated is already in the preventative mode.
        
        If by any chance the disease takes hold in the already vaccinated population, I am not about to blame those people who have chosen not to be vaccinated for this. To me it will be a result of a mutation in the disease that circumvents the protections put in place.
        
        "Sickness is a part of being human and we will never reduce the incidence of any disease to 0, no matter what is done."
        
        Absolutely not true. It's really hard to totally eliminate a particular disease, but we've done so for a few of them.
        
        Your "Absolutely not true" is "Absolutely not true". Though they have declared specific diseases eliminated, there is no guarantee that said disease is eliminated. On the whole, the evidence may suggest that this is the case, but without a comprehensive investigation of every area of the planet, one cannot with 100% surety say such a thing.
        
        Actually, there is one way to reduce the incidence of any disease to 0, kill everyone. No people, then there will be no disease in the population.
        
        Lastly, what seems to be forgotten, is that vaccinations are an attempt to get the human body to create an internal defence mechanism without the actual effect of dealing with a live antagonist. It is a preventative measure that may or may not work, as we have some who have already attested to this, the vaccination regime failed for them. So while it is intended to be safe, and for the vast majority it may be, there is still some risk involved. Some people consider that risk to be too high.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:42pm
  
  Re: FEAR-mongering.
  I've had the measles multiple times -- once as an adult -- because my body's immune system just doesn't seem to have the knack of fighting it off, despite being vaccinated as a child. It was horrible the last time, and I dread ever having to go through that again...especially as I get older and worry that my no-longer-young body might not be able to handle the stress.
  
  I'll be really pissed if I end up checking out due to a disease that was wiped out years ago but has made a resurgence thanks to the ignorance, stupidity, and selfishness of assholes like you. If you want to kill yourself, that's fine, but don't take me out too.
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  - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:15am
    
    Vaccine effectiveness
    You demonstrate that the effectiveness of a vaccination is not 100%. however, to lay the blame for you getting a recurrence of the disease on those who are not vaccinated is not a logical standpoint. You may well get a recurrence due to someone who is immune and carrying the disease.
    
    These are factors you cannot predict, nor is it valid to assume you can get it only from the non-vaccinated.
    
    Even today, most of our medical procedures are still best guess. There are things that do work, but in all cases, there are side effects. It is up to the individual to determine if the "cure" is worst than the "disease" for themselves.
    
    Finally, you cannot wipe out a disease and then have it come back without it sitting somewhere in abeyance. I'll leave the where and why to all the conspiracy theorists to argue over.
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    - Niall (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:54am
      
      Re: Vaccine effectiveness
      if people not vaccinating increases the incidence and possible virulence of an illness, then it is perfectly logical to complain about those vaccinating. People do know that nothing is perfect, but that doesn't mean you can't take issue with people not doing things properly.
      
      And it's been long established (even cited in these comments) that vaccine efficacy is way good enough to make up for any shortcomings. You only have to read materials from the 50s and 60s to see the dangers of 'childhood' diseases, and how we have been spared the worst of these.
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    - Jack, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:02am
      
      Re: Vaccine effectiveness
      No, AC SHOULD be blaming those not getting vaccinated. There is a phenomenon called "Herd Immunity" or "Community Immunity" (maybe take a gander at a scientific paper or two about it - even just wikipedia...) that will significantly protect those who the vaccine is not effective on or who can't have the vaccine for medical reasons. The greater percentage of people with the vaccine, the greater the protection.
      
      Do you just think it is coincidence that the diseases are coming back now when they were gone for decades? Everyone who can be vaccinated should be - if you are afraid of allergic reaction ask the doctor what is in it. If you are allergic to something, there are alternatives.
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    - jjmsan (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:32am
      
      Re: Vaccine effectiveness
      No they aren't best guess. We actually know the pathogens and how they work. Spend less time at sea and more reading current medical literature. As for effectiveness. There are these things called boosters that you can get to increase a vaccines longevity. Of course they weren't particularly needed when everyone's children were being vaccinated
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- Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:58pm
  
  Re: Big pharma will love you for it
  MMR is not under any current patent that I�m aware of.
  
  It appears Andrew Wakefield was indeed trying to patent an alternative to MMR, that would benefit from his scaremongering.
  
  Which side is getting that Big Pharma Love, exactly?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:14pm

The biggest problem I have isn't with vaccines in this. It's with the drug companies and their rush to get profits along with FDA's lack of actually testing out instead of taking the drug companies words for it.

Let me make clear at the start, I've had all my vaccines, so it isn't about vaccines themselves. It's about a lack of truth and verification leading to drugs and vaccines that aren't as safe as claimed which leads later to all sorts of people with side effects and then the FDA after the fact having to eat crow and end the drug's availability.

The price of drugs at present are so high it ought to be criminal.
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- chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:23pm
  
  Re: Or
  Or, the vaccines, such as the flu vaccine, which do little to prevent disease (due to being targeted at viruses based upon speculation about what flu *might* be prevalent the next year) and which were debunked as being of questionable efficacy as long ago as ~2005-6? by the British Medical Journal, while being responsible for plenty of *actual* adverse reactions.
  
  Yet, every year, these are pushed hard upon people to further the bottom line of the drug companies that produce them, by a government complicit in the deception.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:27pm
    
    Re: Or
    or this more recent article, published 16 May 2013...
    
    http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3037
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    - alan turing, 19 Mar 2014 @ 11:30pm
      
      Re: Re: Or
      tricky, work for BMJ?
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:01pm
    
    Re: targeted at viruses based upon speculation
    Umm, no, you can�t create a vaccine based on �speculation�, you have to have actual live pathogens, like those already circulating in the population.
    
    Flu vaccines are usually recommended for particularly vulnerable groups, like the elderly, not for everybody.
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    - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:22pm
      
      Re: Re: targeted at viruses based upon speculation
      Umm, yes, the vaccines are created by actual live pathogens that are speculated to be the ones that might be the actual pathogens that will take hold in the next flu season.
      
      And these vaccines actually cause worse adverse events in the young and elderly, and, as I stated, there are medical papers in peer reviewed journals such as the ones from the BMJ (not the only ones I've read, just the only ones I remembered off the top of my head for not mincing words about it) that over 5 years ago were (a) stating exactly what I stated, that the pathogens aren't even necessarily or likely the ones that will go around, they're just a guess at such and (b) concluding that whatever beneficial effect that these vaccines may have, it's likely either negated or outweighed by the *negative effects* they have.
      
      So, basically, you are simply repeating things that have been questioned by experienced physicians and researchers and shown to have a high likelihood of being incorrect.
      
      (Oh, and please notice that I avoid saying things like "such-and-such article proved" something, rather than overstating what the actual evidence is... Unlike, say, the propogandistic [wait is that a word? if not, then I claim it!!! all you Techdirtians(copr. 2011, Chelle Liberty, all rights reserved; limited licenses available on request) can use it of course...] statements coming from the drug companies, the governments, and the people who bought into what they said due to their propensity to state preliminary conclusions as fact and using fear to push people into doing things that aren't necessarily in their best interests.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - jjmsan (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:36am
    
    Re: Re: Or
    They do little to prevent disease is a lie. Plus the speculation is based on a genetic analysis of how the disease can mutate. Fewer of the at risk population dies because of the flu when they are vaccinated.
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chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:14pm

orly?
Oh, please. These are the same arguments constantly pulled out to justify all sorts of things that the government (and people) would love to force upon others. "Well your decision to [do/not do] X has a possible negative impact on other people in the society you live in."

Would I forgo vaccination? No, I wouldn't, because I find the risks of vaccination (which are not insignificant and which also kill lots of people every year, autism report debunking nonwithstanding.)

I also don't forgo wearing a seatbelt, but nonetheless I will stand up for other people's right to not wear their seatbelt if the rare risks associated with them (e.g. being trapped in a burning car) scare them more than the fairly common ones (e.g. being thrown and then crushed by your own car as it continues rolling.)

Yes, it's theoretically more dangerous for others (if say, you could have kept control of your car but not from underneath its wheel) but freedom is not based upon me getting to say what others do (or vice versa) because of some theoretical/potential risk to me (or your children, or my children) from the choices you are making.
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- chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:15pm
  
  Re: orly?
  correction: "because I find the risks of vaccination (which are not insignificant and which also kill lots of people every year, autism report debunking nonwithstanding.) to be *worth* it."
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- That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:43pm
  
  Re: orly?
  I also don't forgo wearing a seatbelt, but nonetheless I will stand up for other people's right to not wear their seatbelt if the rare risks associated with them (e.g. being trapped in a burning car) scare them more than the fairly common ones (e.g. being thrown and then crushed by your own car as it continues rolling.)
  
  As people have pointed out, the difference between a seatbelt and vaccinations is that is someone doesn't wear a seatbelt, odds are they're the only one who's going to pay for their stupidity(call it their 'freedom of choice', or something like that if you want, refusing to take basic safety precautions is stupid). Not getting vaccinated on the other hand, puts a lot more people than just them at risk.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:52pm
    
    Re: Re: orly?
    I've never done flu vaccines mainly because I knew already this is a guessing game. Theres been a few years when they didn't guess correctly. I wound up getting the flu anyway due to others coming to work after having been exposed to it from their kids in school for the most part. Since the ventilation wasn't the best we always wound up sharing what ever was going around.
    
    Since I retired I've found the best preventive for the flu. I haven't had the flu in over 12 years, nor a cold. I no longer mix with the majority of the population. I'm not exposed any longer to what the kids picked up in school. I rarely shop in crowded stores, preferring instead to go during the off hours. I tend to stay away from large crowds as a preference, which seems to have resulted in getting sick less often.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:54pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: orly?
      Sorry That One Guy, this wasn't meant to answer you. It was meant to answer chelleliberty about the flu.
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  - Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:34pm
    
    Re: Re: orly?
    As people have pointed out, the difference between a seatbelt and vaccinations is that is someone doesn't wear a seatbelt, odds are they're the only one who's going to pay for their stupidity
    
    Not if they have family--especially dependent children. Or, in a somewhat less life-wrecking but still highly emotionally-devastating context, not if they have friends.
    
    No man is an island, and the Libertarian ethos's stubborn refusal to admit this ought to instantly discredit anything they have to say on this sort of subject in the minds of any rational person.
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    - That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:43pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: orly?
      I suppose I should have said '...pay immediately for their stupidity'. Others, especially dependents like spouses and children, will 'pay' later, but the moron not wearing a seatbelt is the one paying the cost for their idiocy first.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:40pm
    
    Re: Re: orly?
    yes, and it's a very strong conclusion that not only overstates the likelihood of it happening, and I've responded to it elsewhere in the comments... basically it's not so cut and dried, and, in fact, environmental pressures to mutate in a way that can negate a vaccine do tend to happen: but generally not from not vaccinating (since there are no pressures that specifically select for vaccine invulnerability in that case) but from the 'safer' vaccines that tend to come out after a while due to the widespread adverse events coming from those that are more efficacious (because vaccination of any sort provides exactly the right pressures to cause such mutations).
    
    Anyway, I think that sums up what I mean... But hey, the thing that drives me nuts is that there is plenty of research into this, and plenty of resources, all just a quick googling away, which show that *at the very least* that your conclusion is arguable, and in fact that it's at least possible that the conclusion (as often happens in science) is exactly the opposite of the correct one...
    
    Regardless, say it were true and that these mutations are more likely from not vaccinations. I don't believe in safety at all costs, and just as I would rather have a free society even if it does cost us *some* safety to have such things as due process, protection against unreasonable search & seizeure, etc. And in the same way, I believe that the benefits of living in a free society far outweighs any interest that someone may have in maybe preventing a possible mutation event that creates a pathogen that theoretically could be dangerous enough to cause what has a chance of becoming predominantly fatal or debilitating, and that also may spread quickly enough and in the right way to allows that small of any pathogen becoming a widespread pandemic...
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - RonKaminsky (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:25pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: orly?
      Do you always feel an urgent need in public forums to repeatedly post over and over again, in a futile attempt to drown out other opinions, rather than actually countering them?
      
      Your understanding of science seems limited. For example, why did you post an "op-ed" piece from the BMJ as evidence? You don't seem to realize that in order to come to a conclusion, you have to review the whole body of scientific literature on a subject, rather than just cherry-picking?
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      - zip, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:43pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: orly?
        "Do you always feel an urgent need in public forums to repeatedly post over and over again, in a futile attempt to drown out other opinions, rather than actually countering them?"
        
        Surely you're not suggesting that chelleliberty's fifteen (and counting!) comments on a single topic might be just a little bit excessive?
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      - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:21pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: orly?
        But cherry picking is what the anti-vaxxers do so well.. ;)
        
        Someone should tell em about all the diseases cherry's can have on them.. LOL
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      - chelleliberty (profile), 8 Apr 2014 @ 1:03am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: orly?
        > Do you always feel an urgent need in public
        > forums to repeatedly post over and over again,
        > in a futile attempt to drown out other opinions,
        > rather than actually countering them?
        
        Well, since I did do my best to counter them, not sure what you're talking about.
        
        And 'to drown out other opinions'? That's a laugh. Seeing as how I was trying to present the side of the case, and pretty much everyone here was not even bothering to try to 'counter', for instance, the (perfectly reasonable) argument that pressures within an environment are causally related to the eventual mutations that survive.
        
        Oh, and I think it's funny that without any sort of reasoning or evidence, you state that I'm cherry picking; which, I wasn't, as I wasn't trying to present a full case showing that flu vaccines are overhyped and have potential dangers that are typically ignored in the widespread campaigns to get people to get vaccinated.
        
        However, I *was* trying to show that there have been articles published in peer-reviewed journals, including one systematic review paper and one public policy statement in the BMJ formerly "British Medical Journal", "a weekly open-access peer-reviewed medical journal [...] described as among the most prestigious" according to Wikipedia, and offered this as at least one example where vaccination was believed, by at last some of those in the actual field, to be overdone, and not of any benefit.
        
        And to date, I still haven't seen anyone present any evidence that these supposed pandemic-causing mutations have happened, or are likely to happen, or that the risk of such somehow outweighs the risk of complications of giving your infant a cocktail of vaccinations when they're born. (And at the risk of repeating myself, since I know that everyone will feel the need to jump down my throat, I would probably do it anyway.)
        
        All if this in support of my contention: not, that anyone should or should not get vaccinated; or what the final truth is about them, etc. but simply that calling people 'loons' is far from what a civilized discussion should include, whatever one might feel about the ultimate answers.
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- zip, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:27pm
  
  Re: orly?
  "I will stand up for other people's right to not wear their seatbelt"
  
  But having some people exercise their "rights" to not wear seatbelts or motorcycle helmets costs all of us extra money, in higher insurance premiums, to pay for their higher medical bills that result from their "right" to live dangerously.
  
  It would be a more fair practice if drivers charged in an auto accident didn't have to pay the medical bills of people who would not have been hurt had they worn seatbelts or helmets.
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- Adrian, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:31pm
  
  Re: orly?
  The analogy to wearing a seatbelt is a poor one.
  A better analogy to the arguments being made in this article is wearing glasses whilst driving. If you need glasses to be able to drive safely and decide you're not going to wear them it's not just you whom you're endangering, it's also the other people on the road, on the footpath, and in every other location when your poor vision might result in you crashing your vehicle.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:47pm
    
    Re: Re: orly?
    When you don't wear a seatbelt, as I mentioned, it's also endangering people. And frankly, I have no problem with people being held liable for things that are *almost certainly* going to cause accidents such as if someone were to choose to not wear glasses while being visually impaired enough to make such an accident probable.
    
    What I do have a problem with is forcing people to do things on the outside chance of a worst-case scenario that someone can think of happening for something, especially when such arguments can be used to justify practically any government intervention.
    
    You can look elsewhere in the comments if you want more in-depth justification of the following, but here it is: (a) there is good evidince that the standard vaccines given to infants cause many of them every year to die, and (b) there has never been a mutation of an almost-eradicated pathogen coming back due to people refusing vaccinations for themselves or their children that has caused anything near the likely number of infants to die from it as the vaccines likely kill themselves and (c) it's not at *all* clear that *not* being vaccinated causes this kind of mutation anyway, as the environmental pressures are not there in those cases, but instead in cases of the very vaccinations that were refused in the first place.
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    - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:29pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: orly?
      a).... There is also good evidence that anyone who ate potatoes before 1880 is now dead. Aren't statistics great!
      
      b).... one word!!! POLIO [ Oh sorry.. did I cause a sore point that totally destroys your idiotic notion about how vaccines are bad and unethical to force people to take them and what happens when the loons take over the asylum...good!]
      
      c)... Let me guess.. you're a creationist and right to lifer as well? since all your so called theories are based on made up and/or bogus claims or placed out of context to suit your agenda instead of looking at evidence holistically and contextually using best practice scientific methodology
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:47am
        
        Did you get out of the bed the wrong this morning?
        What's happened to you, I have not seen this kind of ad hominem attack from you before? You van be feisty but this ????
        
        Let me turn c) on its head for you.
        
        let me guess.. you're an evolutionist and abortionist as well? since all your so called theories are based on made up and/or bogus claims or placed out of context to suit your agenda instead of looking at evidence holistically and contextually using best practice scientific methodology.
        
        Whether or not the evolutionary model is scientific or a religious viewpoint is a discussion left for another day.
        
        Let's leave such comments where they belong with OOTB and Daryl. Otherwise, what civility there is will quickly disappear.
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        Claire Ryan (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 12:54pm
        
        Re: Did you get out of the bed the wrong this morning?
        Just want to point out that people of all ages are dying or getting very sick in these outbreaks because of attitudes like yours regarding vaccinations somehow being junk science.
        
        so (a) while the science shows that vaccines are largely a good thing for society, a minute number of allergic reactions notwithstanding, and
        (b) the outbreaks of these diseases can be directly traced to scientifically-illiterate individuals who refuse to vaccinate on grounds that are shaky at best and downright fucking stupid at worst:
        
        Your surprise at G Thompson getting irritated and calling you names is a little weird.
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        The Old Man in The Sea, 21 Mar 2014 @ 3:18pm
        
        Re: Re: Did you get out of the bed the wrong this morning?
        Claire,
        
        I was responding to GT not because he called me names but he was very cranky calling somebody else names. I have found him usually more considered in his manner of speech.
        
        Again, if you are immunised, what's your problem. If those getting sick have chosen not to be immunised that that is a result of their choices. This is no different to any other group who make specific choices and faces their health issues, like lung cancer or STD's, etc.
        
        if on the other hand, the ones getting sick are those who are already immunised then the only conclusion is that the vaccinations are worthless or ineffective. Blaming those who are not immunised for this is not only futile but sets dangerous precedents. As a society we really do not want to go down that path, history shows us the results of such pogroms - bluntly that's what it will lead to.
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- RonKaminsky (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:35pm
  
  Re: orly?
  > which are not insignificant and which also kill
  > lots of people every year
  
  Could we have references for this, please?
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:05pm
  
  Re: orly? Manditory Seatbelts
  Manditory Seatbelts
  
  Another thing for the stupid to oppose,
  * Price to fit them to all car seat positions, already included in the purchase price NOT AN OPTION.
  * Potential Cost of increased medical bills for a non-user.
  * All Car Users Protected.
  * Avoiding Accidents require the Other road users to be safe. Being a safe driver yourself only protects so far.
  * Less Psychological stress on emergency workers. These people do an important job, if the have to deal with less roadside decapitation the less stress leave they need to take (cheaper for society).
  * Less Stress on families. When the child dies in a messy accident because they weren't wearing seat-belts and were thrown into that laminated windscreen while copying their parents habits, my how that family will spin apart. in the end society will pay for the harm done to its members.
  
  SO again the ideal of individual freedom is perverted to maximize harm to society. This crazyness that individual freedom trumps responsibility to society is sickening. Is the basis of excuses the rich use for not paying taxes, murderers for killing, drunkards for driving, children bullying other children, "financial advisers" recommending sub-prime mortgages.
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- JR, 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:13am
  
  Re: orly?
  Drinking and driving is illegal not only because it endangers the life of the driver, but because it "has a possible negative impact on other people in the society [we] live in."
  
  Every drinking and driving accident involves a drunk driver (obviously) but not every one involves an innocent bystander. But the law helps protect the second.
  
  Every disease caught by someone who is deliberately not vaccinated affects the unvaccinated (obviously) but that sick unvaccinated person puts the health and lives of the people who are either too young to be vaccinated or can't be vaccinated for health reasons at risk as well.
  
  And it's illegal not to wear seatbelts in most states, so I think your example is kind of moot.
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jameshogg (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:28pm

"Oh, please. These are the same arguments constantly pulled out to justify all sorts of things that the government (and people) would love to force upon others. "Well your decision to [do/not do] X has a possible negative impact on other people in the society you live in." "

That is generally the basis on which we make ethical decisions, yes.

"I also don't forgo wearing a seatbelt, but nonetheless I will stand up for other people's right to not wear their seatbelt if the rare risks associated with them (e.g. being trapped in a burning car) scare them more than the fairly common ones (e.g. being thrown and then crushed by your own car as it continues rolling.)"

The solution to being trapped by the belt during a fire is take a knife, or design the belts so that they cannot possibly be stuck (there are ways). And your body flying around inside the car during a crash does not just endanger yourself, but the people sitting next to you. That is why we have the seatbelt rule.

"Yes, it's theoretically more dangerous for others (if say, you could have kept control of your car but not from underneath its wheel) but freedom is not based upon me getting to say what others do (or vice versa) because of some theoretical/potential risk to me (or your children, or my children) from the choices you are making."

It is, actually. And if the government does NOT get involved where it is due, I consider that an oppression. Not doing anything IS a policy. Bystanderism gets you nowhere. When the government does not enforce vaccinations for children, I consider that an action by the government to infect the public with long forgotten diseases.

Not doing anything has its oppressions. And the short-sightedness that can come from libertarians in particular always fails to see that.
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- chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:00pm
  
  Re: um
  Okay, so please tell me, what is the threshold? What types of evidence are necessary to justify turning freedom on its head and using newspeak to turn the freedom NOT to do something into opression?
  
  What of the fact that there's good evidence for the opposite conclusions, that, in fact, that the very vaccines that are given are what have the environmental pressures that will cause such mutations? Or the fact that such mutations haven't ever resulted in widespread pandemics that killed lots of people, as oppposed to the vaccines themselves?
  
  Who are we going to entrust this decision, on what is clearly a very dangerous power(the power to decide that the freedom to not do something is actually somehow opressing other people) to? The same governments that decided that they could re-word laws in order to allow them to collect data on pretty much everyone in the US in secret, without any sort of real review of it until someone put classified documents showing how bad it was in the public eye?
  
  And what sort of pressures shall we use to make sure that only the most dangerous things are protected against, and that the evidence showing the thing in question is actually to blame?
  
  As your response that basically says we should have a government with this kind of power has been deemed insightful, I'll refrain from further comments. Again, I personally am vaccinated, and if I had kids, I'd probably take the risk for them too.
  
  I have basically just tried to show in various comments now that: (a) the study of the question (the likelihood of the choice of people not to vaccinate actually causes mutations) is far from conclusive and there's good evidence not only against the thesis, but even supporting its opposite, and that (b) even should such a mutation occur, there is no good evidence that it would be severe enough to warrant the types of penalties suggested by OP Timothy, or those of you in support of such draconian measures.
  
  So, given that people here think that "Not doing anything has it's oppressions" and that the government should have the power to force people to do things not only against their better judgment but on very dubious scientific grounds is 'insightful', I have nothing further I can add. If you care to learn, there is lots of info a google away. Make your decisions based on that, not on groupthink and newspeak put forth by those who believe the government should have this kind of power over our lives and choices.
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  - Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:05pm
    
    Re: Re: um
    Or the fact that such mutations haven't ever resulted in widespread pandemics that killed lots of people, as oppposed to the vaccines themselves?
    
    [citation needed] What widespread pandemics have resulted from the administering of vaccines?
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    - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:32pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: um
      >>>>What widespread pandemics have resulted from the administering of vaccines?
      
      ummm.... *points out all the anti-vaxxers worldwide lately* Stupidity!
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elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:37pm

Anti-Vaxx commenters
Anti-vaxxers should be sent to prison (after vaccination) for negligent homicide or attempted manslaughter for their decision to endanger other people. There's been wholly preventable maimings and fatalities. I've read the anti-vaxxer forums where they suggest in entire seriousness - deliberately exposing people to measles, whooping cough, and polio.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:40pm

WTF?
We read time and again that scientist have lied, cheated, and plagiarized. Why should they be inherently trusted? I personally remember the swine flu back in the 70's - the fools didn't think folks could have adverse reactions to egg whites (used as a carrier or something). They tried to mandate that every damn child would have the shot. But then, lots of folks died as a direct result. With increasing dishonesty running rampant in science and governments - it is proper to question authority. Seems to me that slash dot and techdirt readers should know well enough that huge lies have been perpetrated against large populations of people. That being said - I'm vaccinated - but damn it all to hell - if Gardasil is any indicator of vaccine integrity - my kid and I will wait for more evidence of safety. Honesty and integrity is far too rare to just trust those highly educated businessmen and scientists. The real bottom line is profit above all else. You can have faith in the self-righteous - I hope you survive.
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- Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:06pm
  
  Re: We read time and again that scientist have lied, cheated, and plagiarized.
  Q: Who was it who discovered that?
  A: Other scientists.
  
  Q: What�s the difference between science and religion?
  A: Science is a self-correcting process. It admits human frailty up front, but instead of pretending some imaginary Higher Authority will fix the problem, it builds on an interesting characteristic of that human frailty: that we are better at spotting other people�s mistakes than our own.
  
  This technique is called �critical thinking�. As should be apparent, it is effective, not just against simple mistakes, but also against active dishonesty as well.
  
  Maybe that�s why the religionists hate it so...
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  - Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:41pm
    
    Re: Re: We read time and again that scientist have lied, cheated, and plagiarized.
    I know plenty of highly religious people, and none of them hate science. You really need to brush up on your history. Where do you think the modern concept of science and the scientific method came from? (Hint: it was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests.)
    
    Even in this modern age of information, a few hundred years is long enough for even well-documented events to become mythologized and distorted in the popular consciousness. Just look at how many people believe that Columbus set out to prove that the world was round, and was opposed by superstitious religionists who thought it was flat. Or that Galileo was put on trial for teaching that the Earth orbited the sun, and not vice versa. Or... well, I could go on, (and on and on, there are tons of examples,) but you get the point.
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    - Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:56pm
      
      Re: science ... was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests
      Was Einstein a Christian?
      
      Uh ... nope.
      
      Was Newton a Christian?
      
      Only if you accept that, technically, he was a heretic.
      
      Was Kepler a devout Christian?
      
      Yes, but his life�s work�trying to fit the planetary orbits into the platonic solids�was a failure. What he is remembered for today�his laws of planetary motion�was just an incidental discovery as far as his personal faith was concerned.
      
      Was Galileo a devout Christian?
      
      The Church certainly didn�t think so.
      
      Was Alhazen a Christian?
      
      Nope.
      
      Archimedes, Socrates, Pythagoras, Eratosthenes ... ?
      
      Nope, and nope, and nope, and nope ...
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      - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:48pm
        
        Re: Re: science ... was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests
        Christianity is NOT the problem , nor any one Abrahamic religion (Judaism, Islam, Catholicism). The problem is ANY religion that is intolerant of change. Since to accept change means you have to accept people having the curiosity, the will, and the freedom to question those beliefs in that religion at the time.
        
        In fact unchangeable ideology is the main problem of most 'fundamentalist' religions nowadays whereas the older churches etc are nowadays accepting that society as a whole is changing and are willing to change and develop with it to some extent.
        
        Anti-vaxxers are Ideologically unchangeable and adamant in their belief that their view of the world is the one and only way and no matter how many times they are proven wrong their faith remakes their confirmational biases for them to redo the whole bullshit all over again.
        
        IN Australia the Anti-vaxxers are quite distraught at the moment since the organisation that was the main Anti Vaxxination push has just been basically destroyed by the Australian Government (state and Federal) and their members are being ridiculed everywhere. Also though parents have a right to not vaccinate their kids those kids are NOT allowed to attend preschoool (6months to 5yrs) Unless vaccinated and Government benefits will not be provided either. Oh and when they attend School (5-6yrs old) if they are not vaccinated there is now a push for vicarious liability damages to be civilly available if any other child gets sick due to those unvaccinated kids. ie: AWESOME! ;)
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      - Wally (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:55pm
        
        Re: Re: science ... was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests
        Try Galileo Galilee...and Julious Capernucus...Marie Cury...the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, Isaac Newton, oh and that Catholic Priest who invented the widely accepted "Big Bang Theory"...and it was a Gregorian Monk who proved the world wasn't flat...
        
        Persians and Moors started avid scientific studies Astronomy
        
        Newton was somehow recently declared a haratic by a group of devout anti-theists...the truth of the matter is that they base GHW assumption that Alchemy is a "no-no" for Christisns because it somehow evokes "evil spirits"...but when you look at the Periodic Table and when it was organized (first by Aromic Weigt) by Mendeleve, it was "Chemistry" was still called "Alchemy". Mendeleev was a Christian...oh and Henry Mosely (responsible for what we see as the modern day Periodic Table of The Elements...by Atomic Number) was also a Christian.
        
        Now certainly Christians are not responsible for all the major scientific discoveries...but nobody can, try as they might, fully claim that any religion has held science back...or humanity for that matter...Turns out that when we (as cave dwelling Homo Sapiens 10's of Thousands of years ago) figured out we were killing innocent creatures for food, we felt very bad about that...If we didn't superstitiously believe they had a soul, we wouldn't have survived the guilt of killing it. This basically means that we felt guilty, and in groups we asked those animal spirits to forgive us...If we didn't organize a religion around that, our cave dwelling ancestors would not have done this in an orginized way. It MADE us cooperate with each other...
        
        Here's the bottom line, organized religion has helped progress humanity during a historically crucial time where we as a species needed to survive to stay around (ice age anyone?). It has not hindered it...We would still be apes without it.
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:12pm
        
        Re: Mendeleev was a Christian
        Except his church considered him a bigamist. Hardly a devout Christian, then, was he?
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:14pm
        
        Re: and it was a Gregorian Monk who proved the world wasn't flat...
        The ancient Greeks had that worked out long before Saint Paul even invented Christianity.
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        Anonymous, 22 Mar 2014 @ 7:20pm
        
        Re: Re: and it was a Gregorian Monk who proved the world wasn't flat...
        Christianity was around way before Saint Paul, or any other city in Minnesota was established.
        And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota...
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      - Mason Wheeler, 19 Mar 2014 @ 9:42pm
        
        Re: Re: science ... was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests
        Einstein lived well after the principles of science had been established.
        
        Newton definitely thought of himself as Christian, and in fact he considered his theological work to be his greatest accomplishment, and his discoveries in physics and mathematics to be mostly just useful for demonstrating the glory of God in His creations.
        
        Kepler... what's your point exactly? Lots of scientists accomplish things that are considered greater than their personal pet projects. (See Newton, above.) Same for lots of writers and artists.
        
        Galileo, though... he was a very interesting case. If you look at the historical record instead of the mythology that's been built up around him, what emerges is a picture of a charismatic guy who was a very gifted writer and speaker. He had a way with words much more so than he did with astronomy, and he actually made no real contributions to science. He believed that the earth orbited the sun--as described in Copernicus's model; he didn't even come up with it himself--but all the details were horribly wrong.
        
        And the thing he's most famous for, his trial, wasn't about him having the right model and the Church calling him a heretic for it. It was about him teaching that the Copernican model which he believed in was not just mathematically useful but literally true, and had Scriptural support. And even then, the church would have accepted his claim if he had evidence to back it up, but he didn't, since his model was wrong! (In a nutshell, yes, he really was a heretic, and yes, his science really was wrong. See http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-table-of.html for the details.)
        
        Some Arabic name I've never heard of: what about him?
        
        A bunch of ancient Greek mathematicians: yeah, they were awesome, but math has very little to do with the scientific method. And it was Greek natural philosophy (early science) that set back the development of empirical science by centuries, particularly by way of Aristotle, until a series of Christian monks started questioning "established" principles and finding problems with them. ( http://www.ldolphin.org/bumbulis/ )
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:12am
        
        Re: Galileo ... actually made no real contributions to science
        You got to be fucking kidding.
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        Mason Wheeler (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:02pm
        
        Re: Re: Galileo ... actually made no real contributions to science
        Read the series I linked to. It goes over Galileo's career in great detail, using verifiable data drawn from the historical record. It's quite an eye-opener!
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:52pm
        
        Re: Galileo ... actually made no real contributions to science
        So some Christian I�ve never heard of continues the good old Christian tradition of trying to do a hatchet job on Galileo, yet again.
        
        Is it so hard for you people to admit you were wrong? That the deeper you try to dig yourselves into this hole, the more stupid you look?
        
        Because that�s the trap that absolute insistence on religious faith leads you into, sooner or later. And you fell right into it.
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        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:00pm
        
        Re: Re: Galileo ... actually made no real contributions to science
        Is it so hard for you people to admit you were wrong?
        
        Please don't lump all Christians in with the church that took centuries to apologize for their treatment of Galileo.
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 21 Mar 2014 @ 1:00am
        
        Re: Please don't lump all Christians in with the church
        Why not? Doesn�t the Catholic Church believe it has the right to speak for all Christians? And don�t you Christians believe everyone has the right to their beliefs?
        
        Or don�t you?
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        nasch (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 7:40am
        
        Re: Re: Please don't lump all Christians in with the church
        Why not? Doesn�t the Catholic Church believe it has the right to speak for all Christians?
        
        Whether it does or not has no bearing on whether anyone else should consider all Christians a homogeneous group.
        
        And don�t you Christians believe everyone has the right to their beliefs?
        
        Of course, and I also have the right to point out your fallacious beliefs.
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 21 Mar 2014 @ 1:34pm
        
        Re: all Christians a homogeneous group.
        Funny, the original claim was that science �was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests�. I didn�t see any qualification in there about the kind of Christianity those �devout Christians� subscribed to. So clearly the argument was meant to apply to all Christianity.
        
        Now that I have torn that argument full of holes, we see the plaintive mewing begin that we shouldn�t lump all Christians together in the same basket.
        
        As soon as it becomes clear that Christianity has been an obstacle, not a boon, to science, the Christians start offering the excuse that it�s the �other� kind of Christianity that�s at fault, not �their� kind.
        
        But then, circular arguments have long been an inherent characteristic of religious beliefs, haven�t they...
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        Mason Wheeler (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 4:16pm
        
        Re: Re: Galileo ... actually made no real contributions to science
        So some Christian I�ve never heard of continues the good old Christian tradition of trying to do a hatchet job on Galileo, yet again.
        
        Not at all. You really ought to read the articles; you're just making yourself look more ignorant with each post.
        
        The series isn't even about Galileo, Christianity, or apologetics; it's about a history of where our scientific understanding of the heliocentric model of the solar system comes from. And Galileo really played very little part in that, (because the heliocentric model he was pushing was incorrect,) but since the Galileo mythos has become such a big thing in the modern consciousness when thinking about this subject, the author found it necessary to set the record straight as a part of the overall process. Otherwise he'd have gotten a bazillion stupid comments saying "but what about Galileo? He knew the Earth went around the sun!"
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 21 Mar 2014 @ 5:03pm
        
        Re: history of where our scientific understanding of the heliocentric model
        Which, while it is indeed the most famous case of religious intolerance in the history of science, is only one part of Galileo�s contributions to science.
        
        Which just proves how he is very much one of the towering figures of science. Trying to belittle him makes you look the fool.
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        Mason Wheeler (profile), 24 Mar 2014 @ 11:49am
        
        Re: Re: history of where our scientific understanding of the heliocentric model
        That's the entire point! The trial of Galileo had nothing whatsoever to do with "religious intolerance of science;" it was about not tolerating an attempt to mix bad science with bad theology. The fact that this is "indeed the most famous case of religious intolerance in the history of science" really ought to tell you something.
        
        Which just proves how he is very much one of the towering figures of science.
        What does? The circular logic is incredibly strong here. "Galileo was persecuted for being a great scientist, which just proves how great of a scientist he was." If he made so many great contributions, what are they?
        
        From the article series that you obviously still have not read:
        
        Aside: The Crucial Role of Galileo.
        
        There was none. Every discovery made by Galileo was made by someone else at pretty much the same time. Marius discovered the moons of Jupiter one day later. Scheiner made a detailed study of the sunspots earlier than Galileo. The phases of Venus were noted by Lembo and others. And so on. Even his more valuable work in mechanics duplicated the work of De Soto, Stevins, and others. Matters would have proceeded differently -- certainly with less fuss and feathers -- and some conclusions may have taken longer, or perhaps shorter times to achieve. The thing is, science does not depend upon any single individual. No one is "the father of" any particular theory or practice. As Newton observed, he stood upon the shoulders of giants -- a sentiment expressed by Bernard of Chartres back in the Early Middle Ages! Regarding heliocentrism, Galileo's biggest accomplishment was to get some folks so riled up that the conversation was inhibited for a short time in some quarters.
        
        If that's incorrect, prove it, with facts, not wild assertions and crazy rantings about evil religious persecutions.
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:21pm
        
        Re: Some Arabic name I've never heard of: what about him?
        Well, now you have heard about him, go read the article. He worked out the mathematical theory of perspective�you know, the one your (just barely) Christian Renaissance painters were to use so effectively just a few centuries later?
        
        And he was also the first to point out that we didn�t see by emitting rays from our eyes, but by having light rays bounce off objects into our eyes. Seems common sense to Christians today, but not back then...
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:24pm
        
        Re: what's your point exactly?
        That your claim that science �was developed by a bunch of devout Christians, most of them priests� is complete bullshit.
        
        Frankly, the idea of Christianity trying to take credit for science is just hilarious.
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    - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:03am
      
      Re: Re: Re: We read time and again that scientist have lied, cheated, and plagiarized.
      "I know plenty of highly religious people, and none of them hate science."
      
      This. In fact, I've worked with hundreds of scientists from various fields in my life, and most of them were religious to some degree, usually Christian (since I live in a predominantly Christian society).
      
      Outside of the religious fringe, most people see, quite correctly, that religion and science are not mutually exclusive at all. They are approaching, describing, and attempting to answer completely different questions.
      
      I think often the trouble is language. For example, I know a number of people who feel that science is attacking religion based primarily on the fact that science says things like "there is no scientific basis for ". To the believers, this sounds like scientists are saying it's not true, when scientists are only saying that it's not something that science can comment on one way or the other.
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- WibbleMyFins (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:07am
  
  Re: WTF?
  I�m probably one of the few people who will reply to this who actually has an immune compromised system. The problem with the vaccine in the 70�s had nothing to do with egg whites. A bit of research would of told you this.
  
  The disease I have / had is called Guillian-Barre Syndrome. To put it in a simplified way. Your immune system responds to a flu like virus and starts attacking your nervous system thinking that it is the virus. You soon lose control of your body (including the ability to breathe) and unless you get emergency treatment you will die.
  
  Most people (but not all) who get GBS also have flu like symptoms in the weeks before. What happened in the 70�s is that the people who died got GBS after having the vaccine due to their immune system getting tricked by the dead virus in the vaccine. If they had gotten flu anyway the chances are they would still of gotten GBS and still would of died.
  
  It is due to this adverse reaction to the dead virus in vaccines that I can no longer have vaccines myself due to the possibility of triggering GBS again. And I have no wish to relearn how to walk or breathe for myself again. I need to rely on Herd Immunity and Anti-Vaxers are putting my life at risk.
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  - Derek Kerton (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:44am
    
    Re: Re: WTF?
    I liked your post. I would HAVE tagged you as insightful if you had known how to compose verbs in your native tongue.
    
    "Would of", "Could of" and any writing of the contraction "would've" as including the word "of" is incorrect.
    
    "'ve" is short for have, it isn't "of". People who have read English books should know this.
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    - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:53am
      
      Re: Re: Re: WTF?
      You're being overly critical here. "Would of," etc. are commonly used and accepted regionalisms. It's not so much "incorrect" as it is informal and slangy. You knew precisely what he meant, and in my opinion, what he said was indeed insightful. That you disagree with his grammatical choices shouldn't enter into that.
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      - The Wanderer (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 7:59am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: WTF?
        While you're right that we knew what he meant, and that what he said was insightful, "would of" et al. are still incorrect and it's not inappropriate to point that out.
        
        It may be less appropriate to do so in some contexts than in others, and there's certainly room to do it badly and/or offensively (not taking a position on whether that was done in this case), but I disagree with the claim that "it's not so much incorrect as it is informal and slangy".
        
        It's an incorrect way to write some of the variant pronunciations of a stock phrase. Writing it that way when you're specifically trying to convey the variant pronunciation is one thing (though there's no sign that that was done here), but when people then start to think that it's written that way because it represents a different word rather than a variant pronunciation of the original word - and then to use the different word in place of the original word - that's a problem.
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      - Derek Kerton (profile), 26 Mar 2014 @ 1:35pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: WTF?
        Admittedly, nobody likes the grammar police. So, I'll accept a few jibes for playing the part. But I just can't stand this particular grammatical error, which fits the definition of a pet peeve.
        
        And mothafudge, you are wrong. It is NOT an accepted regionalism. It may be common, but so is the flu. Neither one is good. It is not an evolution of the language. It is a mistake. And one that displays a surprising level of mis-comprehension, illiteracy, and lack of aptitude. How does one get through grade school without having read the "'ve" contraction hundreds and hundreds of times?
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Kronomex, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:44pm

I don't remember who said it but it's very valid: There is no vaccination for stupidity.
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This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Albert Meyer, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:44pm

Thank you for spreading the propaganda
Was that study really fake, or is Dr. Wakefield just being punished for deviating from the party line? Go ahead and line up for your injection like a good sheep!

Even CNN questions the official narrative: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/

Here's Wakefield's side of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7NotxTg7jg

Of course our fascist government would never spread diseases to scare you into taking your government injection! They would never do anything to harm US citizens, right? Google Operation Northwoods

Like GW said, "You gotta catapult the propaganda!"
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- silverscarcat (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:57pm
  
  Re: Thank you for spreading the propaganda
  Honestly, I have to wonder why people like you say that those of us who like to, you know, NOT GET SICK from those diseases are just "buying into the propaganda".
  
  Seriously, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Hep-B, Tetanus, Smallpox, Whooping Cough...
  
  Know what all those have in common?
  
  All of them have vaccinations that you can get.
  
  Know what else all of them have in common?
  
  They were almost wiped out until people started "questioning vaccinations".
  
  So, go on, don't get vaccinated, but I sure hope you know that doctors are forced to quarantine patients who aren't vaccinated so that they don't get others sick with diseases that are totally treatable and preventable.
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  - elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:29pm
    
    Re: Re: Thank you for spreading the propaganda
    Actually anti-vaxxers ought to have to pay any medical costs, lost wages, burial and memorial costs applicable for the areas they've managed to spread disease.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:10pm
  
  Re: Thank you for spreading the propaganda
  It was faked. This is just basic reality we're talking about here.
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  - Albert Meyer, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:35pm
    
    Re: Re: Thank you for spreading the propaganda
    "It was faked" is the propaganda, but what is the reality? You don't know, and you haven't taken the time to investigate for yourself. Did you even watch Anderson Cooper's attempted hatchet job? Wakefield does a pretty good job of defending himself and his research even though Cooper won't let him finish his answers (a classic propaganda technique; asking a question and then interrupting the answer with another attack). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6kOxkPJfRM
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    - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:51pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Thank you for spreading the propaganda
      Wakefield does a pretty good job of defending himself and his research even though Cooper won't let him finish his answers
      
      Wakefield: Quack, quack quack! Quack quack qua--
      Cooper: --Mr. Wakefield, please stop quacking and answer my question.
      Me: Wait! You cut him off! I wanted to hear what he was going to say next!
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- Wally (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 9:17pm
  
  Re: Thank you for spreading the propaganda
  When you believe it ethical, at all, to give unsuspecting autistic children an endoscopic colonoscopy (which is as traumatizating as being raped for those not so functional brethren of mine) to test for autism causing bacteria in the colon...and are being paid by companies looking to make a quick buck against an an entire the European health industry...then you have no right to declare that the disorder that I, AND MY BROTHER WERE BORN WITH...to ever have been caused by the contents of a vaccine itself. People like you often search for and only seek out the results you wish to publish...but the problem is that you have confirmation bias with that. I'm sorry, but Andrew Wakefield deserved to be stripped of his medical doctorate and license to practice. He accepted a bribe to fudge the results of the research he was already doing.
  
  Now...there is some evidence that a vaccine can cause autism or some other developmental disability...but, that's only because an idiot would suggest giving a Hepatitis B shot to their infant patient.
  
  Now mind you, the companies financing Wakefield's "Research" happened to be rivals of the companies manufacturing MMR shots at that time.
  
  If your child has Autism...just stop denying your genetics caused that. Autistic individuals are a gift from God himself by some views as a reminder to remain honest with each other, and pure of heart. Mozart, Handel, and Einstein all had Asperger's Syndrome or some other form of autism...there weren't vaccines back then to cause it...
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chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:49pm

and frankly
I think what tweaked me the most was the headline that starts the article with what might as well be schoolyard name-calling.

It's quite insulting. I am a bit pissed off, since I came to Techdirt expecting its usual fare of well-reasoned and logical *arguments* against the stupid bullshit happening in government as it enriches and empowers itself and its friends at our expense, but instead the story that catches my eye is from someone calling people 'loons' and piously espousing a holier-than-thou attitude: even against those who may have decided through logical reasoning (whether you agree that reasoning or not) to avoid the non-negligible risk of their baby dying of SIDS because of a vaccine.

And no, this isn't some crackpot theory: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/ "Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?". Notice the source. TL;DR: Basically, "SIDS" or (as it turns out) later variations on causes of death relating to infant suffocation didn't start to show up until the start of institutionalized programs of infant vaccination.

The article above, on reclassification of possible vaccination related deaths:

"It appears as though some infant deaths attributed to SIDS may be vaccine related, perhaps associated with biochemical or synergistic toxicity due to over-vaccination. Some infants' deaths categorized as �suffocation� or due to �unknown and unspecified causes' may also be cases of SIDS reclassified within the ICD. Some of these infant deaths may be vaccine related as well. This trend toward reclassifying ICD data is a great concern of the CDC �because inaccurate or inconsistent cause-of-death determination and reporting hamper the ability to monitor national trends, ascertain risk factors, and design and evaluate programs to prevent these deaths.�29 If some infant deaths are vaccine related and concealed within the various ICD categories for SUIDs, is it possible that other vaccine-related infant deaths have also been reclassified?"

The conclusion?

"The US childhood immunization schedule requires 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year, the most in the world, yet 33 nations have better IMRs. [...] [A] correlation coefficient of 0.70 (p < 0.0001) was found between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants. [...] 98.3% of the total variance in IMR was explained by the unweighted linear regression model. These findings demonstrate a counter-intuitive relationship:nations that require more vaccine doses tend to have higher infant mortality rates."

So, I ask this of you, Timothy: please reconsider whether your opinion on this matter is as cut and dried as you think, and whether it makes sense to call people that disagree with you 'Loons' for what is likely for many of them a reasoned position. Why not argue for your case (that the risk of mutations, etc. outweighs these dangers) rather than simply name-calling and assuming your reasoning is the only correct way to think of this.

Thanks.
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- silverscarcat (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:05pm
  
  Re: and frankly
  Have you ever heard of the phrase "correlation does not equal causation"?
  
  Of all the developed nations in the world, the U.S. is the only one with a consistently growing population.
  
  Not only from immigrants, but also from births.
  
  Other developed countries have flat or negative growth rates.
  
  Oh, gee, the U.S. has the most growth rate in the world of developed countries, the U.S. has a high rate of vaccinations, the U.S. has a higher rate of SIDS than any other country.
  
  It's almost like the more babies that are born, the more chances SIDS could happen.
  
  Gee, what are the odds?
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  - Crazy Canuck, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:09pm
    
    Re: Re: and frankly
    That's similar to the "Most drownings happen within 50 feet of land" or "you are more likely to be involved in a car accident within 10 miles of home" That's because most people in water are close to land and most people do the majority of all their driving in the area around their home.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:10pm
    
    Re: Re: and frankly
    Sorry, the study was adjusted for those types of things, as is most... Just think any evidence against your beliefs must be wrong, and then look for what you think sounds plausible? Maybe try actually reading the paper, I gave a link. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/
    
    Oh, for that matter looking at it I can see I put the final conclusion which even talks about the statistical adjustments made and the overall correlation of these types of deaths and the number of vaccines given; so it even says right there that this study didn't suffer from the flaw you claim.
    
    Why the need to react and respond instead of actually just reading what's right there in front of you?
    
    Sorry, I definitely give up now; I don't think there's anything at all I can add if not only people believe that "the government not keeping people from making free choices when there's not even a scientific consensus" can equal
    "oppression" (paraphrased and interpreted) but people claim that "duh, study must be flawed in X way" when the quote I give from the study say "this study was not flawed in X way".
    
    To reiterate one last time: I'm not arguing that you shouldn't get vaccines. I'm arguing that the belief that you shouldn't is far from being an unreasoned belief, or one that means someone should be considered to be a "loon".
    
    Thanks to anyone who actually bothered to read the information I gathered in order to show that it wasn't as cut and dried as people seem to think. :) o/
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    - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:11pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: and frankly
      sigh, correction: "Sorry, the study was adjusted for those types of things, as are most..." [changes in italics]
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    - Togashi (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 10:48pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: and frankly
      Directly from the paper you linked...
      ...Torch found that two-thirds of babies who had died from SIDS had been vaccinated against DPT (diphtheria�pertussis�tetanus toxoid) prior to death...
      
      ...No adjustment was made for national vaccine coverage rates�a percentage of the target population that received the recommended vaccines. However, most of the nations in this study had coverage rates in the 90%�99% range for the most commonly recommended vaccines...
      
      So ~66% of the ones that died had been vaccinated, whereas ~90% overall had been vaccinated. That's not exactly convincing evidence that vaccinations are causing said deaths, it's more likely to make me think they decrease the risk of infant mortality. Then there's also this:
      ...Although most of the nations in this study had 90%�99% of their infants fully vaccinated, without additional data we do not know whether it is the vaccinated or unvaccinated infants who are dying in infancy at higher rates. However, respiratory disturbances have been documented in close proximity to infant vaccinations, and lethal changes in the brainstem of a recently vaccinated baby have been observed...
      
      In other words, we don't actually have much data to support our hypothesis. We just have some data and a plausible sounding explanation for it, and we have some assumptions that because a thing has happened before, it is likely to happen.
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- Zonker, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:27pm
  
  Re: and frankly
  If there were a direct link between SIDS caused by vaccinations, one would assume that as vaccinations increased so too would SIDS. Instead globally SIDS resulted in about 22,000 deaths as of 2010, down from 30,000 deaths in 1990. Lancet 380 (9859): 2095�128 Of course, measles is such a benign disease that it only resulted in about 158,000 deaths globally in 2011, down from 630,000 deaths in 1990. [Same source as link above] We only saved an estimated 472,000 lives globally in 2011 thanks to measles vaccinations, or 450,000 if you were to assume all cases of SIDS were being caused by vaccination.
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  - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:52pm
    
    Re: Re: and frankly
    There you go again.. letting facts get in the way of their loony ideology!
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:10pm
  
  Re: and frankly
  It's quite insulting. I am a bit pissed off, since I came to Techdirt expecting its usual fare of well-reasoned and logical *arguments* against the stupid bullshit happening in government as it enriches and empowers itself and its friends at our expense, but instead the story that catches my eye is from someone calling people 'loons' and piously espousing a holier-than-thou attitude: even against those who may have decided through logical reasoning (whether you agree that reasoning or not) to avoid the non-negligible risk of their baby dying of SIDS because of a vaccine.
  
  I think you are offended because you are one of the loons.
  
  p.s. Babies don't get SIDS or autism from vaccinations. What they actually get is protection from measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, chicken pox, and other nasty germs.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 8 Apr 2014 @ 1:09am
    
    Re: Re: and frankly
    Ahh and the desire to score points for one's personal opinions triumphs again. And, as I stated elsewhere, I actually have my vaccinations, and if I were ever to have kids I would probably have them vaccinated. I wouldn't ever advise someone not to have their kids vaccinated.
    
    And in seeking to show that the name calling was not justified by the evidence out there, I have been now been soundly thrashed by those who think that scoring a few quick points by calling someone names and not bothering with all that pesky argumentation stuff that requires all that research and evidence, when clearly having thought about it for a bit of time here and there off and on, and having come up with something plausible gives one the right to say someone is loony for having found some other thing plausible given the evidence they've seen.
    
    I'm overwhelmed at your skill. Kudos.
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a.s, 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:53pm

Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
If anything could turn me against it, it would be posts like this one.

Look, to be clear, if you don't want to vaccinate your children, you have that free right, but only because I haven't attained enough power in this country yet to have you summarily arrested and to take your children away from you

Good to see that the NSA aren't the only people who want to work their will in violation of people's natural rights. It's just a question of which rights one wants to strip, on the one hand, privacy, on the other, parental rights. The NSA has the power now, but if the choice is between them and you, I think I pick them. At least with them, you might be able to stay under the radar. Unlikely, but possible. With you, that might not be possible.
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- Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:47pm
  
  Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
  People don't have a "natural right" to knowingly, deliberately harm other people. Whether with a gun, a knife, or a germ, it's all the same to me. So I'm sorry, you can talk about your rights until you're blue in the face, but one of the most fundamental principles of civilization is that your rights end where my higher rights (such as the right to life) begin.
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  - Crazy Canuck, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:11pm
    
    Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
    Your right to wave your fists around in the air end at the tip of my nose. =P
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  - a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:20pm
    
    Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
    If you were responding to the message I wrote under this subject, I would respectfully urge you to read it again. The argument had nothing to do with competing rights, I'm not sure where you brought the ideas you're using in the discussion. If the original message was important enough to reply to (which I don't claim), it's important enough to understand.
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    - Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:46pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
      Not at all. You asserted (or at least implied very strongly) that parents have a "natural right" to not get their children vaccinated, and strongly implied the Godwin-esque claim that those who disagree with that position are supporters of the NSA and similar government overreach that causes harm to people.
      
      I replied that unvaccinated children do cause harm to people, just as surely as people assaulting people with weapons causes harm, and that my right to not get a potentially deadly disease that ought to have been eradicated by now trumps your right to make me vulnerable to it by screwing up herd immunity.
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      - JWW (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:56pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        The kind of political representatives you would need to pass a "take kids away from parents that don't vaccinate them law" strike me as much the same kinds of politicians that would be fine with a "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, so we're monitoring all your communications" types of laws too.
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      - a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:15pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        @Mason Wheeler, respectfully, the implications are of your manufacture, they weren't either intended or actually present in my message. The furthest I would go is that parents have rights over their children and, due to both circumstances and nature, that they are probably the best people to determine their healthcare. How this applies to vaccines would take a book, not a comment to explain. Again, however, my message was not attempting to prove either that or any other statement about competing rights, that track is the one you took. My message was an attempt to say that those who would use the power of the state to try to preserve people from minor or phantom risks are the same whether the minor or phantom risk is "terrorism" or "disease". It just happens that they are different people, but they all want the same thing, their arrogance or cowardice makes them trample the rights of others either because they think they know best or because they are so frightened as to have lost reason. It was also to show some depression that a site which was charging against the destruction of liberties because of one risk would be so anxious to destroy them itself because of another.
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        John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:08am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        "My message was an attempt to say that those who would use the power of the state to try to preserve people from minor or phantom risks are the same whether the minor or phantom risk is "terrorism" or "disease"."
        
        Except the vaccines that we're talking about are not trying to preserve people from minor or phantom risks. They're preserving people from very grave and real risks.
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        a.s., 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:40pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        Thank you for reading the message before replying, that seems to be unusual and is appreciated. Now, let's compare the risks. Keep in mind that the risk is not of the diseases being vaccinated against but rather of those who are unvaccinated either:
        A. Weakening herd immunity to the point where people who cannot be vaccinated will get the disease or
        B. causing diseases to somehow mutate so that the vaccine will no longer be effective.
        Let's compare that risk with "terrorism", which is the risk being used by certain governments as a reason for their actions. How many people have died due to terrorism in the past twenty years in the United States? How many people have died due to diseases for which there are vaccines over the past twenty years in the United States? I'm yanking times and places out of the air here, I'm happy to extend the period if you like, and I'm using deaths because if we included suffering, we would have to include every cough and every person who got scared that the "terrorists" are going to get him). This comment is long enough as it is but if you want to extend the periods or play with suffering rather than death, let me know. Over the past twenty years, approximately 5000 people have died due to terrorist acts in the United States (I'm being deliberately low about these). Over the past twenty years, deaths from Measles, Mumps and Rubella, just the first three diseases that came to mind, have been less than 1000, combined, in the United States according to a quick and dirty google search. Frankly, I think if terrorism is a phantom or minor risk, the lack of vaccination is much smaller and more ghostlike. Diseases are mutating, but, as has been said here earlier, there are plenty of other reasons for that. This is a tiny risk which people assume mainly for themselves or their own kids. It is a tiny number of people assuming the tiny risk. The outrage here over this tiny risk makes the NSA look reasonable by contrast.
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- elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:35pm
  
  Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
  A parent who isn't willing to protect their children doesn't deserve the title or "rights" to neglect them. Same as one who endangers other people's should get locked up.
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  - a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:52pm
    
    Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
    Interesting. Let's ignore the lack of reading of the original message and ask the following:
    1. Who gets to decide whether the children are protected?
    2. How much protection is required, who decides on the standard and who decides whether it is being met?
    3. If your answer is "the government", may I ask what evidence you have that they will do it well given the track record?
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    - elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:05pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
      Does said parent take malicious pleasure in and/or make bizarre excuses for endangering their children or other people's children? If no, then they'd get the (eligible) kid vaccinated because they don't want harm to befall them. If yes, they do all that - they haven't met the standard set by common sense.
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      - a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:22pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        @elnigma, Allow me to note that you didn't answer a single one of my questions except maybe 2, to which your answer is circular. Again, I don't claim that my comments on an internet message board are of any value or importance, but if you're going to answer them, would you be good enough to read them?
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        elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:39pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        Okay, lets get more clear about "protection"
        1. Who gets to decide whether the children are protected?
        how about I ask a question in response -
        1. What is an anti-vaxxer doing to protect themselves or their children from ever contracting the contagious diseases and spreading it to others if they don't vaccinate?
        
        Whatever they have planned, it's got to be better than tactics available before vaccinations, since those attempts to keep these preventable diseases contained weren't very successful.
        Therefore I think it is common sense to say that if they aren't vaccinating, they aren't protecting. And the answer to 2. The amount of protection required involves those who can be vaccinated need to be vaccinated.
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        a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:49pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        @elnigma. I would again note that my questions are not answered at all. I'm happy to answer your question, even though it's badly based, but I don't want to get off the track of this thread by doing it. We've already jumped to another track once on this thread. If you're interested, let's finish off here before we get to what you're saying, which has nothing whatever to do with either how this thread started or your own post responding to it.
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        elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:55pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        Au contraire, I think if you got a reliable way of protecting everyone or even one's entire family from these diseases without vaccinating, we'd all like to hear it.
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        a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:13pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
        If and when you wish to engage in conversation rather than trying to change the subject whenever a difficult or problematic topic comes up, let me know. As I said, I'm more than happy to deal with your question. My difficulty here is that if I do, I'm worried that you'll switch on to some other track or, alternatively, not read the post. This seems to be what you're doing now and what you've done before.
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    - The Wanderer (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 8:14am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
      In response to your question 1:
      
      I would say that this is the wrong question. The right question would be "What constitutes protection?", or possibly "Who gets to decide what constitutes protection?", which are the first two parts of your question 2 - and then your question 1 becomes the same as the third part of your question 2, i.e., "Anyone who applies the standard for what constitutes protection".
      
      I don't have an immediate answer to your question 3 (although I'm not sure that I would meet the premise for that question), but I would note that just because government doesn't do everything - or even some particular thing - well doesn't mean that there's any better choice for doing that particular thing, even when the thing is something that needs to be done.
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- Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:27pm
  
  Natural Rights
  there is NO natural right to harm others, incubating a disease inside yourself will be a harm to others, if you interact with society. The cure is simple. No vaccination, immediate quarantine in Maximum Security Solitary Confinement. The Individual enjoys a vaccine free existence and society enjoys a plague free population.
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  - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:40am
    
    Natural Rights
    So you would be in full agreement to put all those involved in promiscuous sexual activity of any kind (heterosexual, homosexual or other) and the transfer of STD's have the same fate applied - Maximum Security Solitary Confinement.
    
    To ensure that society enjoys a STD free population.
    
    Hmmm??????
    
    Put it this way and you would be up in arms over such a policy. Yet it is just as big if not bigger health issue.
    
    Or would you apply this to all smokers because of the health issues with passive smoking?
    
    Making these kinds of statements and expecting them to become government policy to be acted upon is a dangerous slippery slope.
    
    Just because you have an unreasoned viewpoint about the necessity of full vaccinations (including forced vaccinations) doesn't mean that someone doesn't have a reasoned view as to not accepting vaccinations.
    
    As noted above by G Thompson, here in Australia, we now have the forced vaccinations if you want to avail yourself of the school system. I think that the unintended effect of this will be an increasing number of home-schooled children. There are benefits to both sides of the argument. However, there can be serious problems with both sides. Again a discussion for another day.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:24am
      
      Re: Natural Rights
      Your STD argument doesn't work, because you don't catch STDs just by being in close proximity with a carrier.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:26am
        
        Re: Re: Natural Rights
        Actually, in most cases you can't catch a STD unless you are in close proximity to a carrier. =P
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- Jenna Carodiskey- Wiebe, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:36pm
  
  Re: Vaccination is one of the most important medical advances in history but
  Agreed. NOBODY ever has a change of heart when called a loon,an idiot,or stupid.As someone who actually wants to reach parents rather than put them on the defensive and entrench them in their decision not to vaccinate,I refuse to name call.
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chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 3:56pm

one more
And since I figure this will come up over and over--it's not so clear-cut that NOT vaccinating is the problem here, so the "well you're endangering all of humanity" (which by itself is overblown, as there has not been a case of a mutated virus close to eradicated by vaccination coming back and causing any sort of hugely widespread epidemic, much less a fatal one) trope itself is not necessarily even placed correctly:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/whooping-cough-strain-now-immune-to-vaccine/story-e6freuy 9-1225828959714

Yes, that's right, turns out that sometimes vaccines themselves can cause problems (like antibiotics) such as (drumroll, please): mutations in the viruses causing them to evade vaccines. Yes, that's right, actually viruses have little environmental pressure to mutate *until we attack them with vaccines that are less than efficacious* and, of course, the more effective vaccines also are a hell of a lot more likely to cause adverse events such as... your baby dying of a vaccination.

So yeah. It helps to actually look at the evidence *against* your position rather than just assuming you're correct and that anyone that might disagree with you is somehow worth derision and/or name calling.
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- Christopher Best (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:17pm
  
  Re: one more
  From your linked article:
  
  Concerns over potential side-effects were behind the change to a vaccine with a narrower scope, but this now appears to have contributed to the promotion of resistant strains.
  
  Your own source undermines your argument. Had they stayed with the older vaccine regimen instead of listening to people like you, this would not have happened.
  
  Pathogens can only mutate by having a sufficiently large population to breed in. The only reason these pathogens are getting the opportunity is because people aren't getting vaccinated.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:32pm
    
    Re: Re: one more
    sigh one more:
    
    No, first off, you are cherry-picking the article to say what you want; the article is clear that (a) the actual vaccines in use have been in large part responsible for the mutations that have been found, and (b) "listening to people like" me had nothing to do with these decisions, they were made by scientists and researchers who were quite worried about the actual adverse events from the vaccines that existed and were frequently causing severe problems like, oh, death.
    
    Besides, that wasn't my only point. My point is that decisions like this are made all the time, and the very vaccines that people have been avoiding getting are those causing the issus... These new vaccines were introduced because of the adverse events being seen as unreasonable in the first place.. had nothing to do with the "people like me" (who is that BTW, people that look at the scientific evidence and present it without judging those that come to different conclusions?)...
    
    And that regardless of your feelings on the matter, decisions like this are made left and right by people making the vaccines, and it's likely that at any point in time the reduced-strength vaccines are causing these issues as evidenced by the fact that so many current vaccines are exactly this type. Besides your reasoning basically equates to "fuck anyone who decides to avoid the much increased risk of their baby dying with the original vaccines, because we have potential future issues that may cause even worse things, even though up to this point the scientific evidence pointed to there being far more danger in the present, and even though up to this point there's been no evidence of a mutation of the severity which I from my lay background and hour worth of study believe could justify it."
    
    Besides, it's pretty clear that environmental pressures to mutate in a way to avoid vaccines come from... vaccines. Significant populations do indeed give viruses the opportunity to mutate, and there is a chance of it being a way to avoid the vaccine, but it's far less likely to mutate in that way in such a population.
    
    Besides, again, please give any evidence of a mutation of this kind that has been dangerous enough to justify the types of enforcement proposed; and please give us a rationale for and way to ensure that this type of enforcement is only used for things that are indeed that dangerous.
    
    And I think that's my biggest point here... The type of rationale necessary doesn't actually exist in an enforcable way, and it's easy to find many cases where either initial studies go the opposite way than the later ones and many reasons that the powers that would have to exist would not be able to make them in a rational way anyway in part due to the fact that decisions would be made on insufficient evidence due to alterior motives, or simply due to the fact that in this type of position you will get totally reamed for deciding not to do something, but generally an incorrect decision will either go unnoticed or given a "well, they were just doing their best" anyway...
    
    And that was my point. Even if it would be desirable in this case (which I have given a fair amount of reasoning against in the comments) once you generalize it and give power to someone to restrict people, history shows that government will, in the long run, make decisions solely because they benefit the government or the people within it in some way, or based on factors that are still in disagreement in order to be seen as proactive and doing something in the face of what people perceive as a threat.
    
    Must stop reading now, you don't need me to make these arguments, the science is there, and frankly, I'm not invested enough in this to spend the rest of the night responding to people that seem more interested in a "quick win" than any discussion around whether the current evidence supports draconian governmental policies.
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    - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:35pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: one more
      and just as a quick summary TL;DR, a quote from above:
      
      "Even if it would be desirable in this case (which I have given a fair amount of reasoning against in the comments) once you generalize it and give power to someone to restrict people, history shows that government will, in the long run, make decisions solely because they benefit the government or the people within it in some way, or based on factors that are still in disagreement in order to be seen as proactive and doing something in the face of what people perceive as a threat."
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    - G Thompson (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 9:04pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: one more
      What a load of unmitigated crap with you drawing your own fantasies about what the actual article was talking about..
      
      Lets see.. its The Telegraph, Its a Paper from where I live in New South Wales, Australia. It is a 4 years old article, it was based on a press release that was dumbed down even from the actual press release and was talking about specific vaccine and a specific problem.
      
      Instead you have confabulated some fantastical idea around this article when you have no clue whatsoever what you are yabbering about in the first place.
      
      Let me guess.. You have attended a seminar by some crack supported of Wakefield's and need to justify your ineptness by pointing to articles that bear no correlation or evidence on what we are actually talking about here.
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      - chelleliberty (profile), 8 Apr 2014 @ 1:24am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: one more
        Ok. As I've stated elsewhere.. oh fuck it, I don't care, believe that I hate vaccines. It's not true, but believe it.
        
        Still, my point stands: there is conflicting evidence, and holding a minority opinion does not justify calling someone a 'loon' IMO. Also, I've seen no dissent about the finding; perhaps you know something I don't? I couldn't find the paper or I would have posted that instead.
        
        Furthermore, no need to assume that someone pointing out evidence against a particular opinion held dear is an adversary, nor to direct vitriol my way. I would have loved to have had an actual discussion here. And, in fact, the thing that you so strongly seem to need to deny, that the vaccines themselves have caused mutations due to environmental pressures similar to overprescription of antibiotics, actually isn't that surprising, but more importantly, you could have simply argued that *even if true, it doesn't mean we would have been better off not having the ability to make people resistant to it in the first place.*
        
        Whatever. I will never again make the mistake of thinking I might actually be able to show that there's enough evidence out to warrant saving the name-calling for people that believe the moon is made of green cheese. (Well, for that matter, I'd just give the evidence against, and I would answer any objections, and forget trying to convince someone that won't be convinced. Like now. And, no, for those of you with a mental block preventing seeing the rest of what I've posted if you see a point to be scored, it's not trying to convince you that vaccines are bad, mmm'kay.)
        
        Of course, I'm assuming since you talk with such an air of authority, you can provide a link to that paper, so I can review it myself more closely? Great, thanks.
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- MatBastardson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:05pm
  
  Re: one more
  >"It helps to actually look at the evidence *against* your position rather than just assuming you're correct and that anyone that might disagree with you is somehow worth derision and/or name calling."
  
  Seems like more than a few people on your side of the argument also missed this memo.
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Vel the Enigmatic, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:01pm

Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
Considering the kind of shit our government is letting other industries besides Big Pharma get away with. The idea the newer vaccinations may be dangerous, and may do more harm than good is a very plausible reality. So, quite frankly, while a big bunch of you believe the Anti-Vax crowd are a bunch of idiotic lunatics, I personally say they may have a point. Vaccines should be tested properly before being brought out onto the market, and so long as Big Pharma is in charge of making these vaccines, we're looking at the possibility of them cutting corners in order to turn a profit faster with as little expense as possible to them.
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- That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:47pm
  
  Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
  In which case blame the sociopaths putting profits ahead of lives by rushing out poorly tested drugs, not the vaccines themselves.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:39pm
    
    Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
    It's quite likely that the vaccines themselves do cause death. I suppose you missed the rest of the comments or are still insisting on the semantic argument that the receiving of the vaccination (active material PLUS medium) is somehow not as important as the fact that you believe it to be only the actual active material in a vaccine that matters, whether or not the vaccine as a whole is actually killing infants.
    
    And again, there's no evidence for your thesis that I've found (that death associated with vaccinations is only due to other things, and not the active medium itself.) To repeat myself one last time: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/ finds that there's an associated risk and encourages more research, precisely because they do not KNOW why.
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    - silverscarcat (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:02pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
      Vaccines only cause death in cases where someone's immune system is either too weak to get vaccinated, compromised or the person's allergic to the vaccination.
      
      The MINUTE chance that vaccinations MIGHT cause complications is WAY over-shadowed by the fact that many diseases have been eliminated or rendered harmless to children since the 1950s and 1960s.
      
      If I had a kid, I'd rather risk my child dying from SIDS or Vaccinations over the complications that arise from getting Smallpox, Polio, Chickenpox (there's a vaccine for it now), Hep-B, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Tetanus.
      
      Do yourself a favor and look up what death by Tetanus is like.
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    - That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:15pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
      Okay, say for the sake of argument you're right, vaccines do cause deaths(though some solid evidence of that would be in order before I'd buy a claim like that), the question remains: compared to just how many that would have died, at gotten seriously ill, without them?
      
      The diseases that have been all but wiped out due to vaccines, they affected massive numbers of people pre-vaccination, causing serious health issues up to and including death to those affected, so to say that vaccinations are bad now, just because they might cause a handful of complications due to allergic reactions or similar responses is trading a minor threat for a much bigger one.
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      - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:03pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
        ... as I stated elsewhere, I don't personally believe that someone has the right to decide that, because of general risk statistics, someone must choose one risk over another. To me, it's rational that someone might choose the risk of dying from an illness later in life over the risk of dying from a vaccine as an infant... The risk of which there is plenty of evidence, whether you have taken the time to find that out or not; feel free to educate yourself, you could start with the NIH study that I provided, for instance...
        
        It seems to me that the thing requiring absolutely compelling evidence (e.g. many good studies showing the thing you are positing with little evidence against, over a period of time, and, not only that, but then the same kind of evidence showing that the thing that might happen is as likely and severe as posited) would be the making of such laws, rather than someone else having to convince you or others that it's *not* the case.
        
        Otherwise you're basically saying you or other should have the power to make anyone do whatever they want by simply saying "hey we had our scientists look at it, and we think that this will happen and it's very very dangerous, we promise. oooo, everyone gonna die." And that's my problem with the whole theory.
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        silverscarcat (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:28am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
        And my problem with your position is that by not getting vaccinated, you put those same infants, that you're claiming might die from the vaccination, at even GREATER RISK!
        
        The "risk" of dying from a vaccine is *SO* *DAMN* *SMALL* that you are more likely to get killed by a lightning bolt right now.
        
        However, the risk of dying because you're not vaccinated is far, FAR greater to both you AND the people around you.
        
        The needs of the many (society) outweigh the needs of the few (you).
        
        Cruel as it can be at times, that's far more rational than what you've put up in this thread.
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- Wally (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:07pm
  
  Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
  Only people who don't vaccinate due to religious grounds have a point. You want a real conspiracy...I'll point STRAIGHT to Andrew Wakefield himself...
  
  His "research" was not only HIGHLY unethical (more on that in a moment)...but it was funded and backed by groups similar to AF Holdings looking to sue the pharmasutical industry in the UK. That's merely the tip of the iceberg...He also gave endoscopic colonoscopies to autistic children to test to see of they had "autism colitis"...a bacterial disease which he himself declared as the cause of autism as a direct result of an MMR shot.
  
  Now to a point, Thermiseral is a mercury based conpound and is a common food, drug, and vaccine additive meant for preservation of organic material...which was used to aid MMR vaccines in having a longer shelf life...Some people are highly allergic to it...so to reduce the risk of an anaphylactic alergic reaction, the CDC ORDERED the use of different chemicals. They have stopped using that and put in actually much safer chemicals.
  
  Now granted there are some shots you should never give an infant...Most of the (extremely rare and legitimate) cases of vaccine injury are the results of either a previously unknown allergies...or a bad doctor suggesting an unessecery shot (Hepatitus B, unlike its counterparts, is an STD).
  
  Now about Autism...Both my brother and I are actually in the spectrum...we both have Asperger's Syndrome...Autism is genetic, and Asperger's Syndrome is a latent form of Autism. The difference is that in the former, brain development happens so fast, that the brain doesn't have time to structure itself. Asperger's Syndrome is where it's still a more rapid average development of the brain, but the brain does structure itself enough to function more normally during the rapid development.
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  - zip, 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:50pm
    
    Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
    If the preservative Thimerosal was the component actually responsible for autism, as the anti-vax movement claims, then its removal from vaccines several years ago should have resulted in a reduced occurrence of autism among vaccinated children. Yet there was no change at all.
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    - Wally (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 9:24pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
      But Thermiseral wasn't causing any damage...The only time it would cause harm is in an ultra rare scenario caused by, genetic disposition, is if you had an allergic retraction to an MMR shot.
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    - Wally (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 9:41pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Even the Anti-Vax crowd has a good point:
      The reason Autism is on the rise is because it's easier to diagnose at an earlier age than it was in 2001....This is because the DSM (something I'm sure you've never heard of because it's painfully obvious you know nothing of autism and how it's PURELY A GENETIC DISPOSITION) got reorganized and Asperger's Syndrome was reclassified as being a form of Autism.
      
      That being said, just because one had a genetic disposition towards something...doesn't mean that they will get that something each generation...my great, great grandmother was autistic...nobody elese in my lineage had it but her great grandmother...and it so happens both my brother and I are on the spectrum.
      
      Your argument about "but it's no change because it is on the rise" is due to anecdotal evidence. Autism can be diagnosed as early as 6 months because that is when the symptoms first start appearing. Most children are often diagnosed with the disorder at roughly the same time (before) you get your first tetanus shot at that age...So please spare me the straw man argument...I'm a psychologist who grew up around a house full of medical knowledge and people in this thread are more knowledgable than average about all this.
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zip, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:08pm

TV cults and cult leaders
The problem is not Jenny McCarthy, it's the talk-show tycoons like Opera Winfrey who green-flag these kooks and offer them a friendly, inviting platform to spew their idiocy at the public -- unchallenged.

And of course, if Winfrey thinks it's OK not to vaccinate children, then it must be OK (in the minds of her brain-dead followers) because she's such a nice, caring person who would never dare peddle dangerous "medical advice" that might actually harm the public (especially not to boost ratings and get rich in the process) ... and besides, everyone likes Winfrey, and those who don't must (presumably) have something wrong with them, or something like that.
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- a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:56pm
  
  Re: TV cults and cult leaders
  The problem here isn't that these people are putting out ideas you don't like, the problem is that people follow them. I would be just as concerned if they were telling the public that vaccination was God's gift to man. Remedying that problem would, however, mean trying to get people to think critically and both pro and anti in this particular small fight like things as they are, they just don't like the consequences of things as they are when the other side uses it.
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  - elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:14pm
    
    Re: Re: TV cults and cult leaders
    No, the opposition to anti-vaxxs is not about your/their difference in ideas and frequently borderline personality paranoia. It's the actions they do/don't take that endanger the lives of others which has caused serious illness, maiming, and death and puts many more at risk.
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  - zip, 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:13pm
    
    Re: Re: TV cults and cult leaders
    "The problem here isn't that these people are putting out ideas you don't like, the problem is that people follow them."
    
    So it's perfectly alright for television shows to dispense dangerous quackery disguised as sound medical advice? And if anyone actually believes it, it's their own fault for being so gullible?
    
    I think that these Snake-Oil salesmen like Oprah Winfrey and her ilk need to be held to account. Not with censorship laws, of course, but by others in the media coming down hard on these people who literally swindle the public this way. For instance, I had hoped that Piers Morgan --famous for brutal interviews where he rips his guests to shreds -- would at least mention the anti-vaccine scandal when he interviewed Oprah Winfrey on his show. But no, it was a total ass-kissing interview. (no doubt a good career move for Piers Morgan, as he seems to be looking for a job right now)
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    - a.s., 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:16am
      
      Re: Re: Re: TV cults and cult leaders
      @Zip. You wrote:
      
      So it's perfectly alright for television shows to dispense dangerous quackery disguised as sound medical advice? And if anyone actually believes it, it's their own fault for being so gullible?
      
      The answer to both questions is yes. If anyone takes medical advice, sound or not, from the overpaid and undereducated people appearing on television, and acts on that advice without checking it with another source if the advice is of any importance at all, he deserves what he gets. It is also the prerogative of the overpaid and undereducaated to spout their opinions if they wish, just as it is mine not to listen to them. As for your recommendation, you're saying, so far as I can understand it, that one celebrity who has views you might like should challenge another who has views you don't. My suggestion is to forget about the celebrities completely and simply do what one likes. My other suggestion, which is about as likely to happen as one person is to win the lottery, is that people be taught to evaluate evidence, think clearly, and otherwise to act like people considering a point of view in a charitable and thoughtful way.
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Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:12pm

Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
Vaccination doesn�t need to happen to 100% of individuals in order to keep down the spread of the corresponding disease: depending on the specific vaccine, somewhere around 80-90% penetration may be enough. It gets to the point where anybody coming down with the disease finds themself surrounded by immune individuals, so the disease finds it very difficult to spread.

Yes, there are risks to vaccines. We accept those risks because they are less than the cost of an epidemic of the disease.

In sum, vaccination of 80-90% of the population is sufficient to protect 100% of the population.

We have a name for that 10-20% that are benefiting from the protection without themselves being vaccinated: we call them �freeloaders�.
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- silverscarcat (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:14pm
  
  Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
  Well, they might have allergies.
  
  Plus children under 8 weeks can't get vaccinated, so...
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  - Hibby the Hoovy (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:50am
    
    Re: Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
    Um, yeah, they can, and are.
    I don't know where you live, but here in the US kids are given the Hepatitis B vaccine within a few hours of birth.
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- Christopher Best (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:25pm
  
  Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
  I'm not a freeloader, I have deadly allergies to certain vaccines. I've tried to get them, and have been refused.
  
  And with that in mind, I depend on other people to do the responsible thing and get vaccinated to protect people like me who can't.
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  - Vel the Enigmatic, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:44pm
    
    Re: Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
    "I depend on other people to do the responsible thing and get vaccinated to protect people like me who can't."
    
    Prepare for a nasty wake-up call when you depend on others to get vaccinated so you don't have to then.
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    - Christopher Best (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:52pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
      I don't even know how to respond to this.
      
      You're not even wrong.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:41pm
    
    Re: Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
    If what you say is true, you probably have an albumin / egg allergy. Doctors generally ask if you have that, though there some kinds that don't use egg whites. Anti-vaxxers are people who _can get vaccinated who won't out of junk excuses and oppose vaccinations - if you can't due to allergies you aren't identified as an anti-vaxxer.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:43pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
      Anti-vaxxers are people who _can get vaccinated who won't
      
      Ya sure about that?
      
      The use of the term "Anti-vaxxers" sure seems to be used anytime someone refuses a vaccine.
      
      Kinda like how if you have a concern about how the Government in Israel is acting someone will call you an anti-semite.
      
      if you can't due to allergies you aren't identified as an anti-vaxxer.
      
      You are wrong. Given enough time, someone will call just such a person "anti vaxxer".
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- Crazy Canuck, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:20pm
  
  Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
  Or immune compromised (ie. too young/old, chemotherapy, AIDS, etc) or have allergies to the vaccine and there isn't a different version available.
  
  But since I heard the numbers of those groups can be 5-10% of the population, that means there isn't room for any "freeloaders" in addition for those highly contagious diseases that require a 90% vaccination rate to prevent/control outbreaks.
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- Derek Kerton (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:57am
  
  Re: Vaccination Benefits Society, Not The Individual
  A freeloader is someone who sleeps on your couch and empties your fridge. This is a mooch, and there are negative connotations automatically attached to the term.
  
  I think the term you are looking for is "free rider". It's an economics term for those who get benefits from some social investment in public goods (like vax for societal health or public transit) without paying their share of the costs.
  
  In the case of Christopher Best (his comments below) he is a free rider. But economics planning suggests that subsidizing some such free riders is often desirable. This is generally the case when the free rider is someone who, for whatever LEGITIMATE reason, would be unusually burdened by his share of the cost. The marginal cost of the free rider is often negligible (a free rider on a half-full train costs almost zero).
  
  A free rider problem occurs when too many people elect to become free riders, like antivaxxers do with herd immunity.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:25pm

Measles!
It's what plants crave!
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Jake, 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:28pm

All this because Andrew Wakefield wanted to make a fast buck and started throwing conspiracy theories around when he got called out on it.

Yes, really. Straight from the source.(PDF)
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- That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 4:45pm
  
  Re:
  Okay, this needs to be First Word'd, just get to the core of the thing right off the bat.
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  - chelleliberty (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:08pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Not sure how this is the 'core' of anything, since it's likely that lots of people would avoid vaccinating their infants due to the uncertainty as to the reason that vaccination is strongly positively correlated with infant death without any regard to that study or that person... It's posted elsewhere in the thread. Why am I still here? Had hope people might actually try to see another point of view here (not even mine, just one I can at least understand). Clearly too much to hope for.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:23pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      "Why am I still here?"
      
      Probably because your parents got you vaccinated.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:16pm

No Hope At All
It seems unlikely that such a callous society could stand for very long. This highly charged polarization on a single subject about how one's rights trump another's rights so everybody go to hell because you don't drink the same flavor kool-aid as me exemplifies the lack of tolerance society has devolved to. On the one hand, readers can blow-up against the corruption of the intelligence community, the banking community, the telecom's, big business, little business - anybody caught playing dirty pool. On the other hand - many seem accepting with blind faith that the same driving entities (humans) could perform faultlessly under the firm hands of the CDC and the WHO. You folks seem willing to cut throats of all who may disagree with you. This is not a black-white/wrong-right argument. There will always be poverty. There will always be death. It's not for you to place blame so easily on those who act, feel, think, see things differently from you. Damn! Perhaps the mean, callous, self-centered, self-righteous will inherit the Earth. Have fun being the ones responsible for controlling everyone and everything. What a strange audience this has become. It's disheartening to see such intolerance.
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- a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:30pm
  
  Re: No Hope At All
  I agree. Besides intolerance, I am amazed at the vindictive tone and the great ignorance I'm seeing here. I've seen more rationality and better attempts to understand opposing views on religious blogs, and that really is saying something.
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- JWW (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:58pm
  
  Re: No Hope At All
  Amen brother! Very well said.
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- silverscarcat (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:08pm
  
  Re: No Hope At All
  There will always be death.
  
  Yes, however, do we not, as a society of people, work to finding ways to lengthen our own lives?
  
  On the one hand, readers can blow-up against the corruption of the intelligence community, the banking community, the telecom's, big business, little business - anybody caught playing dirty pool. On the other hand - many seem accepting with blind faith that the same driving entities (humans) could perform faultlessly under the firm hands of the CDC and the WHO.
  
  False analogy.
  
  Which of those groups has everyone's best interest in mind and which of those groups is concerned with profits/jobs at the expense of everything else?
  
  That'll tell you why people blow up at one group but support the other group.
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  - a.s., 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:05pm
    
    Re: Re: No Hope At All
    you wrote
    
    Which of those groups has everyone's best interest in mind and which of those groups is concerned with profits/jobs at the expense of everything else?
    
    First, the comments here seem to indicate a deep and nasty fear not for everyone's interest but for that of the poster himself. People don't usually go this crazy because of an abstract love of humanity, they yell, scream, and call their opposition names as is happening here because they're scared or want to gain something. I don't even need to get into the comments that people make indicating that they don't want to die, that's just too obvious.
    Secondly, I'm sure if you asked the bankers, the alphabet agencies, and the government, they would make it very clear that they are acting in everyone's interest. After all, a rising tide raises all boats, doesn't it, and we all want to be safe from terrorism, don't we? Again, my problem is not with vaccination, frankly, I think it has done an incredible amount of good and a fairly small amount of harm. My problem is that people are not consistent. If you wish to be a sheep, by all means be so, most people are. If you want to be a man, by all means do that, many people are. If you're a sheep, though, don't complain about being fleeced. If you're a man, use your head and argue like a man, reasonably and with due proportion. Recognise that other people have brains and sometimes they use them and that they're doing their best, too. The annoyance is that people who are men on some subjects turn into scared sheep on others.
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    - silverscarcat (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:33am
      
      Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
      You're still using false arguments.
      
      One can be against the bankers and NSA because they don't want to be fleeced like sheep and STILL be for vaccinations and be a man.
      
      So, no, I'd rather you stop giving them ammunition because them not getting vaccinated puts LITTLE CHILDREN AT RISK FOR DISEASES that they should NOT have to worry about otherwise.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:04am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        As I've said before, my posts may well not be worth your time to reply. That's fine. I would respectfully ask, though, that if you're going to reply, you actually read the post and not just skim it. To put it differently, arguments are not answered by assertions, they're answered by other arguments. Your message is just a list of assertions and your desires without any kind of logical connection to what I wrote, let alone to showing why what I wrote was wrong. Feel free, if you have the time and interest, to have a look at what I said and answer the arguments I give in light of the previous posts, both yours and the original that started the thread. I already know what you want, please let me know why I'm wrong, rather than just that I'm wrong.
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      - JWW (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:03am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        Except that the entity that you want to enforce your anti-vax punishments on people it the same government monitoring your communications or violating your rights because of terrorism scares.
        
        It is literally insane to complain against abuse of government power in one area and then plead for it in another!!
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        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:27am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        It is literally insane to complain against abuse of government power in one area and then plead for it in another!!
        
        There is nobody pleading for abuse of government power, just people disagreeing about what is abuse and what is appropriate use.
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        a.s., 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:31pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        I'm sort of pleased to see that I'm not the only person subject to not having my messages read by those who reply to them. With respect, there can be no argument about the use and abuse of government powers because we live in a world where abstractions don't appear in front of us. There is only the use of power by this government that we have now over these people that we have now. What I understand JWW as saying is that if you don't trust this government that we have now to use its power when it comes to terrorism, and if that lack of trust is based upon the most excellent of reasons, what makes you think they will use any other power you give them in a reasonable way? It's like saying "I know he stole from my business account, but I need to give him access to my personal account, too, surely he won't take the money from that.". I wouldn't describe such an attitude as insanity, but it is at least logically inconsistent. It may be, if we had a perfect government, or even a perfectly honest government, that such powers might be useful. However, given the current government, I wish to see its powers radically scaled back, and I have good reasons for that view, many of which are on the front page of this site.
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        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:41pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        If we were talking about one person called "the government" you might be right. But just because the NSA has done terrible things and cannot be trusted with anything at all does not mean there is no good that any branch of the government can do.
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        a.s., 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:07pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        I see. So the NSA, CIA, FBI, FCC, IRS, and DHS have all done things with which many people disagree and for which the only defense is a steady drumbeat of lies. The political branches have failed to restrain them. The judicial branches have done the same. The political branches seem to be more interested in theatre than solving problems. This applies, more or less, worldwide. However, you wish to give more power to other agencies which are to be restrained by precisely the same people who failed to restrain the agencies mentioned above. For this grant of power, your reasoning is that the FDA and CDC, or whatever other organizations, are run by people immune from the problems which have shown up everywhere else. I'm not sure whether to envy your optimism or be astonished at your hardheadedness. However that may be, I do say that whoever said "people get the government they deserve" isn't as foolish as I first thought him. I hope the tuition fees you're paying to that expensive teacher, experience, finally result in some education but, as I said, it would be nice to be as optimistic, a fool's paradise is still paradise.
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        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:23pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        However, you wish to give more power to other agencies which are to be restrained by precisely the same people who failed to restrain the agencies mentioned above. For this grant of power, your reasoning is that the FDA and CDC, or whatever other organizations, are run by people immune from the problems which have shown up everywhere else.
        
        I would be happy to have a discussion about it when you're done putting words in my mouth.
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        a.s., 20 Mar 2014 @ 2:43pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        If I have in fact put words in your mouth, I apologise. If I misunderstood you, I am somewhat confused. Either you wish to grant the government the power to compel vaccination or to make it difficult to refuse vaccination or you wish the government's power to remain the same. If the latter is true, then we agree and there is nothing to discuss. My desire for the government's power to be scaled back in this area is not particularly acute, it is a minor abuse if it is one at all. The government is not generally using its power in a problematic way, so far as I know, people who have strong objections need not be vaccinated or have their children vaccinated. If, on the other hand, you wish to grant the government power to compel, or make it difficult to refuse, vaccination, then I think my message concerning beautiful optimism and experience having proven you wrong stands. If you have the time to clarify, I would appreciate it.
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        nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:25pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        I think it would be difficult to argue that the public interest in vaccination is so compelling that the government should be able to make it compulsory. I'd consider such an argument but I would be very skeptical. I do think they should do as much as they can to educate the public about vaccines and make it as easy as possible to get them. It should be a public policy goal to get as much vaccination as possible, but not through compulsory means.
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        A.S., 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:23pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Hope At All
        I agree with this. I would add the essential untrustworthiness of the current governmental systems to the lack of a sufficiently compelling public interest as reasons to avoid granting the government any further powers than those of education and payment, which it has already, but I agree with your view. I apologise for misunderstanding what you wrote earlier and for responding to it wrongly.
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stu, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:26pm

vaccine
This may just be a simplified viewpoint but the minute amount of adverse reactions to vaccination has to be offset by the lack of diseases in the community. Some people react badly to peanuts but shops still sell peanut butter. By deliberately not vaccinating your kids you are putting the community at risk, and that is an incredibly self centred view on life.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 5:48pm

Much of the current outbreak is traceable to the Philippines, where the disease is raging and easily spread to unvaccinated travelers. They come home to the U.S., where the virus is finding a surprising welcome.

My question is ,Why aren't these travelers from overseas being immunized before entering the US or traveling abroad from the US. If you know a certain country is having outbreaks of this or that ,why the hell let them into the country without them being tested prior to getting on a flight or however they traveled. Now everyone on that flight and any connected flights are now exposed.
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- Pragmatic, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:33am
  
  Re:
  See Billy's comment below. That's your problem.
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  - The Wanderer (profile), 22 Mar 2014 @ 9:18am
    
    Re: Re:
    I think the question wasn't "Why not force people entering the country to get vaccinated if they haven't already been?", but "Why not refuse to let people enter the country if they haven't been vaccinated?".
    
    There might be logistical issues, and there would certainly be questions of abuse of power (Customs and Border Control appears to be way out of control as it is), but on the face of it that seems like a reasonable and legitimate use of customs authority. If I'm not mistaken, there's considerable historical precedent for that sort of thing, if perhaps not on the scale of modern nations.
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billy, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:13pm

No one has the right to tell me what to put into my body. Not Timothy Geigner, and certainly not the USG. Yes, this makes you vulnerable. It also makes you free.
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- That One Guy (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:18pm
  
  Re:
  No, but they do have the right to call people who refuse to take basic safety precautions idiots, and blame them when others pay the price for their choices.
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- elnigma, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:24pm
  
  Re:
  Are you a hermit? If you're not, then you need a vaccination so you try to prevent becoming a plague-carrier. And should you care about your family and acquaintances, then you'd care enough to protect them with vaccines.
  This is beyond "shoulds" though.. you don't have the right to endanger other people unnecessarily. If you ever drive with a license, you accept in your being there are laws there designed to help protect the public. Unbalanced allowances giving those who don't vaccinate no punishment is misplaced, because it's lead to illness, maiming, and death.
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- techflaws (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:06am
  
  Re:
  It makes you free to die off infectious diseases. Good job!
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- Pragmatic, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:19am
  
  Re:
  So "free" = "vulnerable," now?
  
  Hell, no, this is a case of "I'll do what I like and to hell with the rest of you!"
  
  That's the kind of thing we need freedom FROM. Unfettered selfishness is not true freedom, it's just a way of getting all paranoid when the consequences of your actions kick in. Eventually, the chickens come home to roost and you find that ultimately, you've made yourself a slave to your own (self-inflicted) fears.
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- Claire Ryan (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 1:54pm
  
  Re:
  It looks to me like 'free' means 'I can do whatever I want even if it fucks over other people' in the USA.
  
  You know you live in a society, right? Around other people, right? And being around them and sharing in communal things like the military that protects you and the roads that let you move around easily and laws that give you recourse against crimes etc etc means that you give up some of this 'freedom'?
  
  That's the bargain. If you want to be around other people, then you fucking well follow the rules laid down by society that are designed to protect you and everyone else in it. If you don't agree with the rules, then you can advocate for change or go somewhere else with different rules. That's what the whole "your right to throw a punch ends at my face" saying means - if you live in a society, you can do what you want until you start to fuck it up for everyone else. So, you're not allowed to drive while being drunk. You're not allowed to attack people and take their stuff because you need it. And, ffs, you shouldn't be allowed to go without vaccinations just because you feel like being a contrary little shit.
  
  The combined lives and health of many other people should be ranked higher in the grand scheme of things than your ignorant opinion on science you don't understand.
  
  If the rules or the society don't work - and let's be honest, big chunks of them don't - then that's a good reason to strive for change and improvement. But this 'I'm free and you can't tell me what to do nyah nyah' bollocks is ridiculous.
  
  Honestly, I know most Americans are fine, normal people, but stuff like this makes the country look like it's populated by nutballs.
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An Actual Girl, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:24pm

Sadly, expecting to see some more bullying
It's not wrong to believe that vaccines are generally safe and effective -- this position is so pervasive and well funded, in media, advertisements, advertisements disguised as research, official statements.... It is natural to believe the claims.

But it is wrong (and kind of perverse, actually) to push these claims on others without proper investigation. Trust -- but verify. I expect this of Techdirt people. Also I expect something better than name-calling and bullying. History will call this one if we can ever get our media's truth boycott lifted, and it will be sobering.

Iatrogenic has what rank as a cause of death in the US these days? Was it third?

Spending a couple years researching and experimenting to get my own health back from an "incurable" and "poorly understood" illness was what drew my attention to some of the fatal mistakes of "modern" pharmaceutical medicine in the US. I bumped into so much medical fraud... committed over decades... so much sacrifice of human life for profit or other motives... that I stand in shock that anyone was able to get away with it. Where do we even start? What do I even present here? What about the time that Bayer knowingly sold some millions of dollars of AIDS-tainted injectable medicines to other Asian, Latin American, and European nations? Or the 28 other studies (last I checked) that reproduced Wakefield's findings on vaccines and gut inflammation, but that the prostitute press consistently neglects to mention. I really expect these kinds of crimes, misrepresentations, and deceptions to be spotted by Techdirt people. I want to see official medical "information" treated with the same critical thinking as official "information" on the surveillance programs.

It may be the fringe view here, but I have been through a torturous and excruciating hell, and it is a view born of hard experience. The NSA spying is child's play compared to what the pharmaceutical companies, FDA, CDC, and military have been up to.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:28pm
  
  Re: Sadly, expecting to see some more bullying
  Shut up. Please. Just shut up. Wakefield has been so thoroughly discredited that I don't have any interest in hearing about other "studies" that reproduce his work, they will be bogus as well. As for "proper investigation", how about 40 or 50 years worth of PROVEN SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. When the community at large gets vaccinated, incidence of disease goes way *way* down. When the vaccinations start slipping, incidence of disease increases. End of story.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 6:30pm

Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
For if they were not adding Mercury as a way to extend shelf life and act as a way to allow multi-shot vials then no one would have to complain about the Mercury in the shots.

Be sure to thank them for getting Congress to pass a law making sure they have indemnification for various vaccines. Now one can point to the lobbying and the law and ask about how safe they will bother to make the product if they have no reason to fear a screw up.

Be sure to thank them about the use and release of cancer cells/cancer cell lines over the years in some vaccine shots.
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- teka, 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:36pm
  
  Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
  >mercury
  That's right, they squirt a dollop of pure shiny mercury into every vial to preserve freshness. Those science types are totally just sloshing things around in beakers, what do they know about medicine right?
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  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:53am
    
    Re: Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
    What is thimerosal?
    
    Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative that has been used for decades in the United States in multi-dose vials (vials containing more than one dose) of some vaccines to prevent the growth of germs, bacteria and fungi, that can contaminate them.
    
    (Source CDC.gov)
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- Rich, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:25am
  
  Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
  First off, most vaccines today do NOT contain mercury. Those that do, contain less mercury than you'll get eating a piece of fish.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:40am
    
    Re: Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
    Those that do, contain less mercury than you'll get eating a piece of fish.
    
    And the Radioactive socks give off levels of radiation like getting a chest x-ray or an airplane flight over the course of the year.
    
    But the concern for radioactive socks is if the radioactive particles are inside the body, not outside.
    
    In the case of Mercury and the Fish argument, the fish is not injected into the blood in most use cases.
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:02am
  
  Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
  "Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
  
  For if they were not adding Mercury as a way to extend shelf life and act as a way to allow multi-shot vials then no one would have to complain about the Mercury in the shots."
  
  God damn it, mercury levels in vaccinations have been REDUCED in the past few decades, not increased. Why are you people so fucking insane?
  
  On top of that, the vaccines in question (measles, mumps) DO NOT CONTAIN FUCKING MERCURY IN THE FORM OF THIMEROSAL.
  
  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/thimerosal/thimerosal_faqs.html
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  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:35am
    
    Re: Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
    Why are you people so fucking insane?
    
    I point out that Mercury has been placed in vaccines as a way to maximize profit for the makers of the vaccines and the reaction is:
    
    Why are you people so fucking insane?
    
    And rather than simply point out that the Mercury isn't historically in single shot versions because there isn't the risk of contamination there is the denial-type answer of:
    
    DOes NOT CONTAIN MERCURY IN THE FORM OF THIMEROSAL.
    
    If this was the topic of the NSA spying Techdirt would be all over 'Mercury in other forms'.
    
    Government and Corporate lying over the years have created the toxic environment this issue is now existing in.
    
    If the health industry has lied in the past, along with government, why should these entities be entitled to trust now?
    
    Pulling things like "it was the least untruthful thing I could say" does translate into other areas beyond that one time such an event occurred. Trust is earned...why should the parties involved be trusted?
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    - Pragmatic, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:16am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
      Have you ever considered getting a sample of the vaccines in question and testing them for mercury? You sound like the Moon Landing deniers who spend years analysing the photos and films but never actually point a telescope at the Moon.
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      - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:05am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Be sure to send some thanks to the vaccine makers
        Have you ever considered getting a sample of the vaccines in question and testing them for mercury?
        
        One doesn't need to. The labels say things like "multishot" and "Thimerosal".
        
        As the post states - Mercury has been used as an anti-biotic to combat contamination in multi-shot versions. As the post doesn't state but the "hurf-durf anti-vaxxers grrrr!" posters haven't bothered to point out is: the simple way to minimize the chance of Mercury is to get the single shot "for pregnant women" version of the shot. (Well you can also read and understand the label and take a shot that doesn't contain the Mercury)
        
        You sound like the Moon Landing deniers who spend years analysing the photos and films
        
        And you sound like someone who is responding with a set of biases VS responding to what was posted.
        
        but never actually point a telescope at the Moon.
        
        And how nice that the science argument and reading arguments get to be brought up.
        
        http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/08/12/moon-hoax-why-not-use-telescopes-to-loo k-at-the-landers/
        (TL;DR - the lunar landing objects are too small)
        
        As for reading comprehension of the original post - I'll leave that for others to de-construct who arn't approaching what was said with their own biases.
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        Lawrence D�Oliveiro, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:18pm
        
        Re: The labels say things
        So you believe what you read, if it is written by Big Pharma?
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An Actual Girl, 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:11pm

Who are "anti-vaxxers," really?
I think the moral of the story may be stick to what you know. There seems to be a caricature that "anti-vaxxers" are some ignorant, science-free, credulous lot who heard that a vaccine may be dangerous and jumped to the conclusion that vaccines should be avoided. What a vicious and BS stereotype! Come on -- do better.

In my experience, the people I have met who would stay away from vaccines are people whose immune systems have already been damaged, who have dealt with a devastating illness where natural health methods proved to be the remedy, or who have watched someone they love undergo massive harm at the hands of modern medicine. People find, basically universally, that there are safe (non-pharmaceutical, generally) methods to repair the systems of their bodies which have been damaged, and these are the opposite of the kinds of approaches that pharmaceutical doctors provide. That is, if pharmaceutical doctors offer any treatment at all. Their loss of faith in pharmaceuticals is usually extremely well warranted, from what I have seen.

The worst part of this may be that the "vaccinate them all and if they die or are maimed it was their fault and a completely random occurrence and for the greater good" crowd actually thinks that the science is on their side in this one. This conversation should end very quickly by looking at results. Who can help autistic children recover? What are the actual strategies that help autistic children recover? And other poisoning victims with the same complex of symptoms. What about people with Parkinson's? Do you know? I do, because I have been down the neural / gut / immune inflammation hell-hole, and used these approaches to claw my way out. They are well understood, but boycotted among much of the medical establishment.

That is why this topic is a personal one for me -- and I will venture that there is not a person here who has healed such a thing, who has actually done the research and managed to heal such a thing, for themselves or another, and who is here arguing in favor of universal vaccination. Is there?
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- Dustin, 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:00pm
  
  Re: Who are "anti-vaxxers," really?
  "Who can help autistic children recover? What are the actual strategies that help autistic children recover?"
  Tell you what: bring peer-reviewed evidence to the table supporting a link between autism and vaccination and then we can talk.
  
  Is it a rule that people who are against vaccines are required to Gish Gallop their arguments and believe that "natural herbs" are a way to combat the influence of "big Pharma"? You couldn't sound like bigger kooks if you tried.
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  - zip, 19 Mar 2014 @ 8:35pm
    
    Re: Re: Who are "anti-vaxxers," really?
    "Tell you what: bring peer-reviewed evidence to the table supporting a link between autism and vaccination and then we can talk."
    
    Who needs evidence when all you really need is to trust your "Mommy Instinct" like Jenny McCarthy does? "If you feel it, then it must be so" - isn't that the way it works?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Mar 2014 @ 7:52pm

Wow
I used to think there were some, while mildly paranoid, opinions expressed on TD. This article has spawned the most whack-a-doodle comments I've ever read.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 12:55am
  
  Re: Wow
  This article has spawned the most whack-a-doodle comments I've ever read.
  
  Then you've never spent time with YouTube video comments or at various newspaper websites and their comments section.
  
  TD is downright sane.
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nasch (profile), 19 Mar 2014 @ 11:05pm

Whooping cough
Oh, and whooping cough.

Most of the recent cases of whooping cough have been in vaccinated people. It turns out there's some problem with the newer vaccine (I don't remember if it's killed vs. live or what) that causes its effectiveness to taper off after several years. Nobody yet knows what to do about it.
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- Hibby the Hoovy (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:58am
  
  Re: Whooping cough
  They swapped the whole cell pertussis with an acellular version.
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This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

the truth, 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:28am

wake up!
Some of you just can't see it for what it is! Yes, vaccinations may help but the process is still unproven and may have effects later on! HIV virus was spread through the hepititus b vaccination around Africa. Its was produced using a monkey.

They give all babies at least 30 types before there 1 year old which maims and even kills some babies and is linked to many issues that have arisen in man today. Giving a developing body such toxic and mind/body altering substances (never mind mercury, aluminium etc etc) is the night of stupidity of man!

The food and water is poisoned, what makes you think they have not poisoned the vaccines? I mean you can trust your government right? Haha

Rothschild's own the prestigious medical schools, Rothschild's own the education system, Rothschild's own the banking system..... See a connection!

Wake up idiots and reccomending immunizations is reccomending the death penalty! Sheeple! That's there name for you! Sheeple! You all OK with that?

There's no waking people up from there sins
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- Rich, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:22am
  
  Re: wake up!
  I love it when the scientifically illiterate calls other people "sheeple."
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  - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:11am
    
    Re: Re: wake up!
    Whenever I see the term "sheeple," (amongst a handful of others), I know that I can safely disregard everything else that person has to say.
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    - MatBastardson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:36pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: wake up!
      I do the same when someone says "Hitler" or "racist".
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- Wally (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:45am
  
  Re: wake up!
  I hope you're being sarcastic...but in case you aren't...Rothschild is merely a financial advisor. One of the world's biggest philanthropists, Bill Gates, followed the company's advice. It's an investment corporation that has no ties to the pharmasuetical industry except for financial advice.
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  - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 10:14am
    
    Re: Re: wake up!
    "One of the world's biggest philanthropists, Bill Gates"
    
    Why toss that descriptor in there but leave out the equally accurate descriptor "one of the worlds biggest corporate scumbags"?
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    - Wally (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:54pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: wake up!
      People change.
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    - Wally (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:02pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: wake up!
      He's given away so much money to bring technology to schools, it'd take 70 years of a person working at $20 an hour working around the clock to match that...That's more than 3/4 of his 2012 fiscal net worth....and it's estimated he's still worth $54.7-billion...
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- Pragmatic, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:07am
  
  Re: wake up!
  Smallpox has been eradicated thanks to vaccinations. We were on the cusp of adding measles, mumps, and a host of other diseases to the list of former killers but thanks to conspiracy theories, that's off the table now. You must be so proud!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:10am

You have only the almighty US govt to blame for this. How can anyone trust vaccines after the govt pushes them down your throat with barely no trials because profit? Seriously you blame the people?

So the quack TD poster calls people out for questioning what exactly is being pushed into their bodies for someone in power's pure profit. Good job loon!
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- silverscarcat (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:24am
  
  Re:
  More like the sensible person is calling out buffoons for questioning methods that have been PROVEN SAFE AND DAMN NEAR ELIMINATED THE DISEASE, THEREBY CAUSING THE DISEASE TO COME BACK.
  
  Seriously, I'm surprised by the morons who think that vaccinations cause so many problems.
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  - The Old Man in The Sea, 20 Mar 2014 @ 4:50pm
    
    Good vaccines and Bad Vaccines
    Shouting doesn't make your point more valid. There have been a number of vaccines that on the whole have had few side effects and have in the end reduce the incidence of specific diseases to a very low level (but never fully eliminating the disease).
    
    However, as you very well know, there are vaccines that have much higher side effects and for the purposes of stopping infectious diseases have not been as effective as they should be.
    
    Let us look at a common yearly vaccination - the various influenza vaccinations. Over my career, I have work with many who have their regular flu shots each year and invariably, a significant proportion of these get sick and interestingly enough, so do the colleagues they work with.
    
    Here we have the mindset of inoculating against a specific pathogen and the result is an increase in the population becoming affected. After many years of the yearly procedure of receiving the vaccination, getting sick and recovering, one colleague discussed this with his GP. The advice given was to split the vaccination into three separate treatments at least 1 week apart. This appeared to mitigate the the effects of being sick.
    
    So what can we say of this, only that there appears to some vaccines that have minor side effects and on the whole effective and that there are other vaccines that are problematic.
    
    So to vaccinate or not is a decision that is up to the individual. We have many public health issues and vaccinations are only one of them (and in the real scheme of things may in fact only be a minor one of them).
    
    I actually have more of a concern over the increasing use of antibacterials in the normal course of life. Cleanliness is one thing, but we are taking it to the extreme in what is being promulgated. That is another discussion for another day.
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    - nasch (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:00pm
      
      Re: Good vaccines and Bad Vaccines
      Fair points, but the flu vaccine is fairly off topic.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 6:42am

RE: "It isn't about you or your kids, it's about all of us."
Nah, it's about them and their kids.

If I accept the tiny risks of being vaccinated for myself and offspring and others don't, those genetic tendencies that led me to accept vaccination will be more represented in future generations than those tendencies that argued against vaccination. That's all - I and my children will more likely survive and reproduce than those (and their children) who reject vaccination.

Nature's harsh - ignoring any chance to improve your odds is contra-survival for your own genetic complement, and you will be edited out of the gene pool over time. No value assessment implied - vaccine refuseniks may own hugely valuable genetic material. Doesn't matter - simply and ruthlessly, Nature don't care.

For those of us who subscribe to principles of modern biological and medical sciences, this is a self-eradicating problem.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:57am
  
  Re: RE: "It isn't about you or your kids, it's about all of us."
  those genetic tendencies that led me to accept vaccination
  
  Yea, its genetic.
  
  No effects of education, wealth, or even trust at all....its the GENES!
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  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:44pm
    
    Re: Re: RE: "It isn't about you or your kids, it's about all of us."
    "Yea, its genetic."
    
    I did not say it was ALL genetic to the exclusion of every other precept. I said "genetic tendencies" (and it was ALMOST humor, dark tho' it may have been).
    
    I think the expression "genetic tendencies" allows my inherited traits (and those passed to my offspring) as influenced by my life experiences to be considered by rational readers as merely one of many, possible influences when evaluating the states of my being (or one o' my descendants) as an-organism-as-a-whole-in-all-of-its-environments and the decisions I might make, e.g., sane evaluation that vaccination seems pro-survival at both individual and species' levels.
    
    Genetics is likely never ALL as an explanation for any specific human action, except as we begin with the premise of using human terms to discuss behavior; at that point you do have to limit discussion to HUMAN genetics and behaviors, e.g., societies, cultures, education, cities, science, etc.
    
    The vax-nixers may own some wacky, special gene(s) that will outsurvive every other...not the bet I'm makin'.
    
    Zygotes may a gamete's way of making more gametes - this may be the purpose of the universe.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 7:11am

If its such an issue why aren't the vaccines given away free globally. why is there a profit being made for these life saving vaccines.I don't wanna hear about research prices and creation they make plenty of money on all the other garbage they're peddling.
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- Pragmatic, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:04am
  
  Re:
  http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/index.html
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Mark Wing, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:16am

It takes a special kind of stupid not to vaccinate your children.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:14am
  
  Re:
  Yea, the kind of stupid who doesn't trust Large Corporations or Government.
  
  The same kind of stupid who don't believe B on this page.
  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0M4RRlfmzD0/Uuaee6RSmhI/AAAAAAAADiY/rLas8yIdD6o/s1600/WP_20131212_003.JPG
  
  C itizens are members of the community
  B. Citizen responsibilites and how they help our city:
  3) Voting - puts good people in office
  
  Yup you'd be STUPID to not think that by the act of Voting good people get into office. Its part of a 3rd grade civics test so it must be true.
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Dan G Difino, 20 Mar 2014 @ 8:47am

Vaccines doomed to failure
What about the vaccines that are doomed to failure by design? That makes my skin crawl. The vaccines that will cause all sorts of maladies for kids down the road. If you are being totally objective, you have to research what is happening by the big pharma, and not take it with a grain of salt. If you want to get rich quick, its a good bet that vaccine stock will get you there. And when you read how kids were forced vaccination at gunpoint in Maryland and scared to death by cops with attack dogs, its completely UNAMERICAN to not almost fallover backwards to this Totalitarian state of chaos. And digging deeper, you will find that the STATE OWNS YOUR KIDS and is not shy to let you know it.
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MatBastardson (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 1:48pm

re: Who are "anti-vaxxers," really?
"There seems to be a caricature that "anti-vaxxers" are some ignorant, science-free, credulous lot who heard that a vaccine may be dangerous and jumped to the conclusion that vaccines should be avoided. What a vicious and BS stereotype!"

No more viscious BS than the stereotype that pro-vax research scientists are being paid off by 'Big Pharma', which is engaged in a world-wide effort to poison humanity with deadly vaccines so they can increase their bottom line by 2%.
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- Wally (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 3:52pm
  
  Re: re: Who are "anti-vaxxers," really?
  Take a gander at who funded Andrew Wakefield's "research".
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William Brown (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 5:18pm

Vaccines
If you have been vaccinated what does anyone care who has the disease. And if you believe these diseases discussed are eradicated/non-existent please check your kool-aid. And CDC says smallpox vaccine is NOT recomended for the general public because of the decline in our immune systems from disease and vaccines.
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2014 @ 4:22am
  
  Re: Vaccines
  You'd have to FIND a smallpox vaccine someplace to be able to take it.
  
  The more "interesting" position to consider here is with the increased ability to assemble DNA element by element when will someone re-assemble smallpox and re-introduce it?
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GEMont (profile), 20 Mar 2014 @ 9:31pm

Bad, bad conspiracy theorists - wack their pee pees...
Well of course its all the fault of conspiracy theorists.

I mean look at how effectively they always are at causing authorities to change policy. Why its down right disgraceful how the officials in Washington obey every demand they ever make, no matter how far-fetched the theory may be.

There is absolutely no truth to the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma has been re-establishing old diseases in order to profit from the manufacture of new vaccines.

Big Pharma is your friend and loves you one and all, and profits are never even considered when public health is at stake.

Everyone knows that.
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- Niall (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 9:21am
  
  Re: Bad, bad conspiracy theorists - wack their pee pees...
  Except that a) you have 'conspiracy theorists' fighting against the 'Big Government' idea of global warming.
  
  and b) In Europe with its 'socialised medicine' and much less 'government-in-hock-to-big pharma' (because medicines and vaccines are paid for from taxes) they also push vaccines. Look at the UK's NHS - loads of people in there have no financial interest in vaccines, only in keeping people healthy.
  
  Just because some (large) elements of 'Big Pharma' suck doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don't see people avoiding phones just because Verizon and AT&T are dicks...
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  - GEMont (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 11:59am
    
    Re: Re: Bad, bad conspiracy theorists - wack their pee pees...
    Ummmm... Big Government invented Global Warming??!!!
    
    Damn. And here I thought it was a bunch of scientists who created a computer model from past weather patterns, with the idea of extrapolating future weather patterns.
    
    Well hit me with a stick!
    
    And just out of curiosity, what has global warming got to do with faulty vaccines willingly produced by US Big Pharma??
    
    Questions.
    Does the UK publish its after-vaccine death count??
    Does the UK publish its after-vaccine side-effect count??
    Does the US publish its after-vaccine death count??
    Does the US publish its after-vaccine side-effect count??
    
    Without knowing if the vaccines used there are identical to the adulterated concoctions used here, it is impossible to even start to compare the two.
    
    And if you're trying to say that socialized medicine somehow eliminates or lessens the ability or desire of Big Pharma to profit massively from public illness, methinks you have not actually understood socialized medicine.
    
    Under such a program, hospitals and doctors are simply paid out of a taxpayer-funded, government-held source.
    
    IE - they bill the government, not the patient.
    
    There is no less incentive for Big Pharma to make folks sick to promote sales of drugs, when the tax-payer foots the bill.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2014 @ 1:04pm

I don't get it, if people are all for vaccines, and get all their vaccines, why are you scared of people who don't?

Your vaccine should protect you.

I do not get a flu shot, and will not.
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- nasch (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 1:41pm
  
  Re:
  I don't get it, if people are all for vaccines, and get all their vaccines, why are you scared of people who don't?
  
  I'm not sure "scared" is the right word, probably "irritated" is more accurate.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
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- GEMont (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 4:52pm
  
  Re:
  I've never taken the flu shot either.
  Anything the Fed says is good for me is obviously not.
  
  I don't get the flu or colds either, since I started cleaning my ears regularly with peroxide once a week and immediately after being in a large crowd of people.
  
  According to my research, viri cannot survive long in the throat or nose - too wet and too hot. However, the ear canal is attached to nose and throat and is perfectly suited for doubling as a nursery for viri. And nobody ever considers covering their ears when they enter a hospital, or sick room!
  
  Also according to my research, the symptoms of the common cold and flu are not caused by the viral infection. These are the mechanisms used by the body to kill off the virus. So all of your over the counter cold and flu remedies prolong the infection by shutting down the body's natural defenses - cough, sore throat mucus, fever, stuffy nose.
  
  The Flu and Common Cold are a gold mine!!
  
  Of course doctors will never mention this because it tends to lower their income.
  
  PS - don't try this at home kids, or I'll be arrested by the Fed for practicing medicine without a license. OK.
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Larry Vrooman (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 1:22pm

Vaccinations
Charles Richet was awarded the Nobel Prize 100 years ago.
Anaphylactic Shock is only one of many reactions to foreign protein in the blood.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1913/richet-lecture.html
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GEMont (profile), 21 Mar 2014 @ 5:06pm

Mercenary Medicine, Predatory Medicine
What amazes me is how perfectly intelligent people, can decide that a man would spread lies to make money, yet refuse to believe for one moment that this man may have had an even better deal for a really big haul stashed in a Swiss Account for spreading those lies FOR the Fed or the Big Pharma.

When the doctors discovered that Vitamin D was lowering the number of patients, they set up a skit, where someone "died" from an overdose of Vitamin D and then had it legally banned "to protect the public". I foget exactly long the vitamin was banned for, but they did the same thing with colloidal silver.

And in order to insure illness in the poor and a bonus addition for cancer diagnosis, the source of the long used over the counter remedy for pin worm, round worm and ring worm - the bark of a special oak tree - was eliminated by claiming the tree had a blight that would spread to other trees. The tree was eradicated from North America is just a couple years. Doctors are no longer taught the facts about North American parasitic infections from these parasites, because the lesions they cause on the skin appear to be skin cancer and can be so diagnosed, earning a shit load more money than they were getting from tree bark sales.

Yep. Mercenary Medicine is here to stay folks.
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Anonymous, 22 Mar 2014 @ 7:11pm

The last paragraph says it all. Geigner is a statist loon whom nobody should take seriously.
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Mats Svensson, 14 May 2014 @ 1:16am

Bah, what has sciense ever done for mankind?

I say we get down on our knees, and pray like never before.

Kiss Gods ass, really get our tongues in there, so maybe he decides not to kill us after all.
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The Last Word

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Reader Comments

vaccine

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Don't forget Bill Maher...

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What is true and what is untrue

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FEAR-mongering.

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Vaccine effectiveness

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