Vaccination and the erronous fear against it

[Seventh Pup]

I feel like before I get into this I must start off by saying that we are vaccinating my 6 month old son. So I am not an anti vaccine person; but I do understand the position more now that I have had a baby.

On a personal level, getting you child vaccinated seems very alien. You have this perfect, pure, healthy baby and then you take them to the doctor and have them stabbed with metal and injected with somethings that might make them sick. (Even if not with the illness they are being vaccinated against, but the side effects listed are extremely scary). Your doing this to protect them against an illness that you've probably never seen in real life. You probably don't know anyone who has had any of the illnesses. You know that your baby will be in pain. In the case of my son, it's not just the intial shot that hurts, it lasts for hours afterward and his thighs are sore for about a day. Hearing your baby cry out in pain is a terrible feeling, it actually makes me sick to my stomach. I also feel guilty because I am the one who allowed him to be hurt. So the experience is not a great one. I don't think I am alone in saying the experience makes me feel guilty, and sad.

Now add this mix the anti vaccine scene. Most anti vaccination people are actually very educated and intelligent. In fact generally speaking the more educated the family, the less likely they are to vaccinate. So you have a privileged group, a group that seems to know what it's talking about, and one that more families probably identify with, opting out. More over they have been opting out for more then a decade now and there hasn't been any large scale public health crisis. (Until the Disneyland measles outbreak). This makes not vaccinating feel reasonable. It also makes the people who criticize them seem more hysterical.

Then there is the fact that while most of the parents of young children today have never seen the illnesses that are being vaccinated against, they've all lived through a couple Vioxx type scandals from Big Pharma. Vaccine Court also does not help the imagine that vaccines are indeed safe. It can seem like they are indeed less safe then they are being promoted as. It can feel like you have large untrustworthy corporations, that have limited liability risk, trying to push it's product on your baby.

You also have a government that is more concerned with public health, then the personal health and well being of YOUR baby and family. For instance the CDC now recommends the Hep B vaccine at birth. Hep B is mostly transmitted through blood, and other bodily fluids. If a mother has Hep B she can give it to her baby, but there is otherwise no real risk of the baby contracting it. Sex and drug use are the most common ways to acquire it. It used to be given to young teenagers. But teenagers are harder to get to come in for vaccines then babies. So the CDC moved it up in the schedule because of public health.

There is also the fact that you give your baby the MMR vaccine right around the time that Regressive Autism hits babies. This is one of the worst fears that parents have. That your wonderful, smiling, social baby will disappear. It honestly keeps me up at night. So there is this very delicate time, when you feel like last thing in the world you want to do change anything physically about your baby. But this is also the time when you have to start giving your baby even more heavy duty vaccines. The MMR vaccine has a high correlation with the onset of Regressive Autism because it is given during the window of time that Regressive Autism develops. It's also one of the more painful vaccines. So you have an event that the parent is dreading, and probably feeling guilty about; followed by the onset of one of the worst fears a parent could have. Correlation of course is not causation; but it can feel like causation; and it can feel safer not to do it. The rate of Autism diagnosis has skyrocketed in the last couple decades, more then just increased diagnosis can explain. Because we don't why, we don't have a causation, naturally people look for things that strongly correlate.

In the end vaccinating has been a huge battle for me, my emotional mind and "mommy instincts" against my ration mind. My rational mind wins, but it is a battle. One I didn't think I would have to fight before I had my son.

[Larry of the Lawn]

This seems like a manufactured issue that will go away in a couple weeks. I'm skeptical there exists any widespread anti-vaccine movement other than in extreme religious/hippie enclaves that have always been around.

It won't go away in a couple of weeks, it's been a thing for a over a decade, since that bogus study first came out and started gaining traction.

[The Iceman of the North]

Triple Post!

Come on, you can do better than this! Next time go for five!

[Seventh Pup]

Come on, you can do better than this! Next time go for five!

The post before that got eaten. I guess I was over enthused about with post button.

[Inigima]

This seems like a manufactured issue that will go away in a couple weeks. I'm skeptical there exists any widespread anti-vaccine movement other than in extreme religious/hippie enclaves that have always been around.

You're wrong about this. It is not new and it is horrifyingly widespread.

[DanteGabriel]

You're wrong about this. It is not new and it is horrifyingly widespread.

Indeed, Chris Christie was buttering up anti-vaxx dipshits in 2009.

And Kennedy, erstwhile annoying MTV VJ now turned Fox News muppet, blames progressives for the anti-vaxx problem, but also blames "government bureaucrats" for overblowing the scale of the outbreak:

"The only thing I despise more than irrational progressives who don't vaccinate their children are government bureaucrats who tend to overblow these public health crises," the former MTV VJ, who goes by just one name, said on the Fox News show "Outnumbered."

After that, I'm told she went back over the highlights of Fox News' election-time Ebola coverage.

[Aemon Stark]

I feel like before I get into this I must start off by saying that we are vaccinating my 6 month old son. So I am not an anti vaccine person; but I do understand the position more now that I have had a baby.

On a personal level, getting you child vaccinated seems very alien. You have this perfect, pure, healthy baby and then you take them to the doctor and have them stabbed with metal and injected with somethings that might make them sick. (Even if not with the illness they are being vaccinated against, but the side effects listed are extremely scary). Your doing this to protect them against an illness that you've probably never seen in real life. You probably don't know anyone who has had any of the illnesses. You know that your baby will be in pain. In the case of my son, it's not just the intial shot that hurts, it lasts for hours afterward and his thighs are sore for about a day. Hearing your baby cry out in pain is a terrible feeling, it actually makes me sick to my stomach. I also feel guilty because I am the one who allowed him to be hurt. So the experience is not a great one. I don't think I am alone in saying the experience makes me feel guilty, and sad.

Now add this mix the anti vaccine scene. Most anti vaccination people are actually very educated and intelligent. In fact generally speaking the more educated the family, the less likely they are to vaccinate. So you have a privileged group, a group that seems to know what it's talking about, and one that more families probably identify with, opting out. More over they have been opting out for more then a decade now and there hasn't been any large scale public health crisis. (Until the Disneyland measles outbreak). This makes not vaccinating feel reasonable. It also makes the people who criticize them seem more hysterical.

Then there is the fact that while most of the parents of young children today have never seen the illnesses that are being vaccinated against, they've all lived through a couple Vioxx type scandals from Big Pharma. Vaccine Court also does not help the imagine that vaccines are indeed safe. It can seem like they are indeed less safe then they are being promoted as. It can feel like you have large untrustworthy corporations, that have limited liability risk, trying to push it's product on your baby.

You also have a government that is more concerned with public health, then the personal health and well being of YOUR baby and family. For instance the CDC now recommends the Hep B vaccine at birth. Hep B is mostly transmitted through blood, and other bodily fluids. If a mother has Hep B she can give it to her baby, but there is otherwise no real risk of the baby contracting it. Sex and drug use are the most common ways to acquire it. It used to be given to young teenagers. But teenagers are harder to get to come in for vaccines then babies. So the CDC moved it up in the schedule because of public health.

There is also the fact that you give your baby the MMR vaccine right around the time that Regressive Autism hits babies. This is one of the worst fears that parents have. That your wonderful, smiling, social baby will disappear. It honestly keeps me up at night. So there is this very delicate time, when you feel like last thing in the world you want to do change anything physically about your baby. But this is also the time when you have to start giving your baby even more heavy duty vaccines. The MMR vaccine has a high correlation with the onset of Regressive Autism because it is given during the window of time that Regressive Autism develops. It's also one of the more painful vaccines. So you have an event that the parent is dreading, and probably feeling guilty about; followed by the onset of one of the worst fears a parent could have. Correlation of course is not causation; but it can feel like causation; and it can feel safer not to do it. The rate of Autism diagnosis has skyrocketed in the last couple decades, more then just increased diagnosis can explain. Because we don't why, we don't have a causation, naturally people look for things that strongly correlate.

In the end vaccinating has been a huge battle for me, my emotional mind and "mommy instincts" against my ration mind. My rational mind wins, but it is a battle. One I didn't think I would have to fight before I had my son.

To be clear, the data purporting to show an association was fabricated. There is no correlation from which to infer causation.

It's not just that autism diagnoses have increased but that other conditions previously defined as something else have been placed on the "autism spectrum".

[Inigima]

It's literally a question of whether you believe in the scientific method. I understand the idea of an irrational fear, but you are a god damned human and you need to be able to say "I am a rational adult and I understand that we've demonstrated that this is not real." That is literally why we do scientific experiments. If you don't believe that, fine, go back to sacrificing goats. But please do it somewhere else. Somewhere remote.

[Alex.]

It's literally a question of whether you believe in the scientific method. I understand the idea of an irrational fear, but you are a god damned human and you need to be able to say "I am a rational adult and I understand that we've demonstrated that this is not real." That is literally why we do scientific experiments. If you don't believe that, fine, go back to sacrificing goats. But please do it somewhere else. Somewhere remote.

Exactly what Ini says. This isn't one of those things up for debate.

[DanteGabriel]

It's literally a question of whether you believe in the scientific method. I understand the idea of an irrational fear, but you are a god damned human and you need to be able to say "I am a rational adult and I understand that we've demonstrated that this is not real." That is literally why we do scientific experiments. If you don't believe that, fine, go back to sacrificing goats. But please do it somewhere else. Somewhere remote.

I was re-reading Snow Crash recently and the passages about living in a post-rational society really hit home. We have been dumbed down in order to make us more easily steered consumers.

I can't help but wonder where we're headed after watching a conservative whose intellect I respected, who is a wealthy and successful person with all the advantages one could have in life, literally trying to disprove evolution and prove the earth is a few thousand years old, on his goddamn Facebook wall.

Government services are breaking down due to funding, technology is becoming more pervasive and powerful, and educated people are ignoring the rational, scientific principals on which our very complex society has been built. This is how apocalypse movies start.

[Inigima]

http://i.imgur.com/sslRPcL.jpg

[maarsen]

My brother was vaccinated with polio, along with me, when we were little guys about 50 years ago. This was when polio was still scary and killing people. He had an adverse reaction to the vaccination, almost died, and spent almost a year in hospital. We were discussing this just a few months ago and he thinks even though he was one of the few to suffer an extreme reaction to it he would still go ahead and do it again if he had to. The diseases we vaccinate against used to kill people. Vaccination isn't done to save you from having to stay home with a sick child for a few days. It is done to save the child's life. Ask those of us with smallpox vaccination scars on our arms what the benefits of vaccination are. Now that was a truly scary disease. Imagine something like Ebola that actually spread fast.

[Solmyr]

I don't think we've quite reached the critical mass of irrational people that would endanger society at large and put us at at the brink of apocalypse. It's more of a matter that as long as these questions remain on the table and rational people are constantly challenged by those irrational and have to spend time and effort proving again what is, to the majority of us, a fact, overall progress of society is slowed, because we could have used that time in a number of other, more productive ways.

Once again I wish there was a way for us not to have to waste this time, but unfortunately the cost of not wasting it outweighs the cost of wasting it. It's also a shame that we can't exact recompense from those ignorant, for wasting our time in re-educating them, but criminalizing their ignorance is perhaps a bit too extreme.

[Commodore]

Indeed, Chris Christie was buttering up anti-vaxx dipshits in 2009.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/03/hillary-clinton-likens-anti-vaxxers-to-science-deniers-the-earth-is-round-the-sky-is-blue-and-vaccineswork/

Asked in a questionnaire by an autism group whether she would support investigating vaccines as a possible cause of autism, Clinton said that she would.

“I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines,” Clinton wrote.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/flashback-when-hillary-and-obama-gave-credence-to-anti-vaccine-theories/

“We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included [not Obama, the questioner]. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it,” then Sen. Obama said.

The president’s words contrast his current position that there is no reason not to get vaccinated. The president said over the weekend that the scientific evidence in support of vaccines is “overwhelming.”

“There are some people who are suspicious that it’s connected to vaccines and triggers. But the science right now is inconclusive,” Obama said.

[Suttree]

Yes we understand it's anathema to you Commodore but some people support making informed decisions.

[Inigima]

No, he's right, that's alarming. I'm glad they've come around, though.

[Commodore]

what's stupid is asking politicians for medical opinions or to weigh in on whatever issue is in the news, like they have some special wisdom

the correct response to a reporter should be "Why are you asking a politician for medical advice? I don't support any changes to current vaccination laws, and that's all I'll say on the subject."

[MisterOJ]

So, I vaccinated my kids because, that's just what you do. It was never a thought to withhold them. But that was 9-10 years ago.

One thing I don't understand after reading through the thread though, is how does no vaccinating your child endanger others? If others are vaccinated, there is no risk to them of being around someone contagious right? Like, my kids couldn't get sick fro measles or whatnot from an unvaccinated child, could they?

[Maithanet]

what's stupid is asking politicians for medical opinions or to weigh in on whatever issue is in the news, like they have some special wisdom

the correct response to a reporter should be "Why are you asking a politician for medical advice? I don't support any changes to current vaccination laws, and that's all I'll say on the subject."

Politicians are expected to be leaders on issues of public health. Seems simple really.

[Fez]

what's stupid is asking politicians for medical opinions or to weigh in on whatever issue is in the news, like they have some special wisdom

the correct response to a reporter should be "Why are you asking a politician for medical advice? I don't support any changes to current vaccination laws, and that's all I'll say on the subject."

Considering they are the ones that create the laws, its entirely reasonable to ask what their stance on the issue is. Particularly if they 1) support the current status quo; 2) support additional laws; or 3) want to rollback some/all of the existing laws.