The antivaccine movement wins in Oregon: Senate Bill 442 is dead

Unfortunately, we cannot fight fire with fire on this one. We can’t lie. We can’t missinform. We can’t make spurious associations between things and publish papers to be retracted. The cult of the antivaxxers operates on the same principle as terrorism in that they only need one win to get their ideology to be heard. They only need one child to have a bad reaction to a vaccine, one lot of vaccines to be recalled, or one misstep from one of us to have a big impact on their followers and on those siting on the fence. We have millions of scientists, yet they wave Hooker and Wakefield around as if they’re the high priests of all that is science. We have millions of committed physicians that love their patients and do what is best for them. They have Sears and Gordon, two men with medical degrees, to tear apart the truth that pediatricians the world over see vaccines as life savers and see even a handful of measles cases as an enormous threat. We have thousands of hours invested in our educations, verified our knowledge through exams and certifications… They have Google.
We have your blog, my blog, Todd W’s blog, to explain in clear language what the science means. They have their blogs and celebrity spokespeople to obfuscate the truth. And now I have this entire comment while they’re likely to take the “terrorist” part and accuse everyone who comments here of calling them terrorists.
It makes me wonder why I’m heading into Baltimore to take a biostats final exam… Oh, that’s right. It’s so I don’t make an ass out of myself and have people laugh at me for thinking that simple statistics are more elegant than actual statistics.

I have to admit I can’t be entirely rational when viewing the Barbara Loe Fischer’ video. The appeals to emotion on which she relies have the opposite effect on me: it makes me ANGRY to hear her treat vaccine exemption as equivalent to HIV status in legal protection. As though being HIV+ is something that people choose to do. The rhetoric is just sharp enough to hide the fact that her viewpoint is based on fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Getting vaccines is about having freedom, actual, authentic freedom, not the ersatz “treat your children like chattel” freedom that anti-vaccine activists promote.

Freedom from illness. Freedom from injury and death. Freedom from the fear of these things.

Did some reading on newsletter articles by Senator Jeff Kruse, the Vice-Chair of the Oregon Senate Committee On Health Care. State Senator Kruse is a turkey farmer by occupation, and his newsletter is a hilarious collection of anti-science essays:

Here’s a taste, verbatim:
“The issue is not the vaccine itself; it is the chemicals they put in the vaccine to extend the life of the product which are mercury and aluminum. I have believed for some time that there is a real link between vaccinations and autism, and it is connected to these two chemicals. Unfortunately the CDC continues to deny any connection and will not allow access to the data which would either prove or disprove the assertion. Our frustration is we are not allowed access to the hard science we need and should have access to. It should also be pointed out there is no accountability, as the CDC is both judge and jury in the matter.”

“The state doesn’t own the children. Parents own the children, and it is an issue of freedom.”

This statement made me think about a question. Would those people rise to defend a person who took a gun and shot their child in the head? No reason, just because they could.

Because really, why shouldn’t parents be allowed to do that? That is serious limitation of their freedom to do as they want with their “property”.

Ren @ 1: The real fire is not the lying & so on, it’s the use of emotional messaging. And we can fight that fire with a far more powerful fire, all of it squarely based in facts.

The antis’ emotional messages have two parts: One, “freedom,” the other, “fear.”

Stirring up “freedom” emotions basically comes down to making a value statement: “Freedom is a good feeling. You feel more free when nobody can tell you what to do.” As a generalization, that’s _true_, but the angels are in the generalizations and the devils are in the details. The good feeling is one of unfettered ego, which, taken to an unreasonable level, is easily identified as egotism.

Stirring up “fear” is where the overt lying etc. comes in, and we all know the list.

What do we do about that? To counter an emotional message effectively, requires invoking and inducing emotions that overcome and/or that transfer the emotions that the other side is seeking to invoke and induce.

Fear can be transferred, and this one is easy: The fear of autism is a “modern” fear, but it pales into insignificance next to the ancient and deeply-engrained fear of measles and other life-threatening contagious diseases. This we saw when the outbreak was all over the news.

Freedom has a complimentary civic value: responsibility and good citizenship. Freedom without responsibility is seen as recklessness or selfishness, both of which bring scorn that partially nullifies whatever pleasure comes from feeling “more free.” Invoking the feeling of responsibility and good citizenship successfully, works in two steps: One, invoking guilt, shame, contempt, etc. toward unacceptable behaviors. Two, invoking a shift of ego identification toward responsibility as an expression of maturity.

Examples:

Slogan for use as headline on print media ads: “Measles is eight times as contagious as Ebola. Do the right thing. Protect your child and your child’s friends.” The first sentence is literally true, it intrinsically evokes fear, and any attempt to refute it is easily found to be an overt lie. The second sentence is a value statement appealing to the sense of responsibility. The third sentence is the action that the audience is asked to perform, and it identifies the individual child with the community at-large.

TV or radio spot: “The sound you are hearing in the background, is the sound of a baby with whooping cough. (here are some facts about whooping cough, etc.). Do the right thing. Protect your child and your child’s friends.” Here the audio invokes fear, and the closing lines invoke identification with the sense of responsibility.

Any testimonials by people who survived these diseases, were disabled by them, or know someone who was seriously ill, disabled, or died as a result, will also evoke fear that makes the fear of autism seem insignificant.

Statements about civic responsibility and good citizenship, by respected figures, will evoke the relevant feelings and the desire to be identified with those feelings and figures.

Putting these elements together using evocative symbols and statements, and (important) using sufficient repetition to become familiar, will overcome the antis’ messages and make them seem selfish and irresponsible. This probably won’t change any antis’ minds, but it can reach undecideds or people who are leaning anti. And if the antis try to argue against a civic responsibility message, they will only expose themselves further as being utterly selfish and lose support.

I don’t know what you mean, Matt–in what way is that happening in this situation?

“But there were a bunch of [cowards] who weren’t prepared to take on this controversial of a topic at this point.”

FTFY, Senator Steiner.

Scientific consensus is not in any way being enshrined in law–instead, legislation addressing public health policies are being rationally informed by scientific consensus.

Which is, or course, exactly as things should be.

Commenters at AoA appear to be quite happy.

To Todd W. on comment #2-

Thank you for that information. Reading through the post that you linked to, I noticed that only certain representatives and senators were mentioned as people to contact. Why not the others as well? Does this mean that the others are definitely in favor of SF380/HF 393?

A policy is different from a law. Policies are set by agencies which are typically authorized by law to create said policies.

Policies can, and should, be rationally informed by scientific consensus because, as policies, they can be updated and changed if and when the consensus changes.

Laws are much more difficult to change. As evidenced by the plethora of outdated (and ridiculous) laws on the books. For example, laws forbidding one to swear in front of a lady, or have sex in any position other than missionary.

Lately, there are attempts springing up to use the force of law to compel people to follow their doctor’s advice. Vaccination is just one example. In my opinion, this is a really, really, really BAD idea.

Perhaps- similar to what was proposed in this here bill- people (including apparently Congresspeople) should be required to demonstrate that they understand how our legal system works before attempting to tinker with the laws.

“Commenters at AoA appear to be quite happy.”

I have it on good authority that Wakefield open-mouth kissed Hooker… On the mouth.

That you refer to it as a “tactic” proves my point. Words have specific meanings. The entire idea behind laws themselves rely upon words having particular meanings which everybody can agree upon.

When we change the meaning of words for reasons of “tactics” or expediency (in other words because we’re too lazy to do it the right way) we undermine the entire fabric of linguistics upon which the whole concept of law is predicated.

Jeez, dude. Look, if you feel that the use of the word ’emergency’ is so empirical that you cannot abide its utterance outside of a very specific set of circumstances, whatever. I’m not going to argue semantics with you. My point is that, at the present time, this is how the political system works. ’emergency’, in that parlance, means ‘expedient’. Most importantly, the characterization of emergency status was NOT unique to this bill.

Here’s an example:

Arrest Warrant Issued for Florida Mom Who Refuses to Get Son Circumcised

Here’s another example:

Should Physicians Force Patients to be Incarcerated?

… and the link to the NEJM article:

Court-Ordered Care — A Complication of Pregnancy to Avoid

And nobody in Oregon sees the problem with this?

I highly doubt that nobody in Oregon sees the problem with this, having lived there for a time myself.

I have to admit the picture looked so happy I misread this as SB442 passing at first.

@ Matt

Seriously? Having mandatory vaccination in specific contexts is going to lead to/condone forced incarceration or circumcision?

By your logic, maybe we should disband child protection services. Same stuff. These government agencies are here to enforce policies and laws telling parents what they should do or not do to their children.

Read on the slippery slope fallacy.

I agee that in your second example the judge’s order that the woman be required to submit to her physician’s care and that they be allowed to physically prevent her from leaving the hospital was a violation of her constitutional rights, but again this doesn’t represent an example of a law enacted requiring patients follow their physicians orders or advice. It’s a judge, issuing an order from the bench directed at a single individual, and as far as I can tell without any legal basis.

Your second link appears broken.

Why is Hep B vaccine mandated? It is not a very contagious disease. Moreover, the number of Hep B deaths have actually increased after the introduction of the vaccine in 1990. See fig. 7 here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3290915/

Going by evidence-based science regarding infectious disease, I’d be hard-pressed to say anti-vaxers in the Oregon community “won” anything. But, if portlandians feel like taking themselves out of the gene pool, more power to them.

@Ren and @Gray Squirrel:
The antis are way more social media-savvy than we are. Just check out all the eye-popping misinfographics they have. We need people who know how to do things like that that people actually share and actually influence people who aren’t following ScienceBlogs every day.

@#33 Well yes, that was a bit of hyperbole on my part, in this case “nobody” should be read as “the clowns who are calling the shots”.

@ Vijay

As usually, the devil is in the detail. Actually, let me quote the abstract of the article you linked to:

An encouraging trend is that the incidence of acute hepatitis B in the United States declined as much as 80% between 1987 and 2004, attributable to effective vaccination programs as well as universal precautions in needle use and in healthcare in general. While encouraging, these decreases in acute infections have not translated into diminished prevalence or burden of chronic HBV infection. The prevalence for HBV in the United States has been estimated to be approximately 0.4%. However, these estiamtes have been based upon surveys conducted in samples in which population groups with high prevalence of HBV infection, namely foreign-born minorities, were underrepresented.

In short, the reason Hep B-related deaths augmented may have something to do with the underestimation of actually sick people and the recent arrival in US of people from regions where hepB is more active.

As to not very contagious… It depends on what you do. As a biologist, I am expected to have to manipulate blood and other bits of human origin and this vaccine was mandatory for me before attending university.

Vijay,

Moreover, the number of Hep B deaths have actually increased after the introduction of the vaccine in 1990.

I would hazard a guess that this is a baby boomers phenomenon. There is a mass of people born post-WW2 currently heading into old age, and we will see a rise in death rates from all causes as a result, despite a falling birth rate. Some of those baby boomers will have hepatitis B, which takes decades to cause liver cancer and death, so the effects of vaccination on deaths have not yet had time to become apparent, if you see what I mean.

As for it not being very contagious, I worked with a woman who discovered she had contracted the virus, presumably from working with blood, as she wasn’t in a high-risk group. She had cleared it uneventfully, as most people do, and only found out when her antibody titres were checked.

But, if portlandians feel like taking themselves out of the gene pool, more power to them.

1. It’s Portlanders, not Portlandians.
2. Watch it.

What if this spreads to other areas outside of Oregon, like Austin , TX or Boulder, CO? What if the anti-vax movement is nothing mire than the right wing trying to take out the lefties???

Maybe the problem lies with trying an approach using medical science, instead use more of an irrational approach.

If you can convince the anti-vaxxers that really it is a conspiracy as they all feared, that the conservatives are trying the infectious disease approach, getting these liberal communities to reduce voter numbers by not vaccinating. YES, that’s how you do it.

If we have to lose a few neonates along the way, well that’s certainly a sacrifice the anti-vaxxers are willing to make for everyone.

I f*cking hate that show.

I wonder what the antivaxxers will do if other countries pass laws that prohibit entry into their country unless your vaccinations are up-to-date and you can provide proof that they are so?

“For most children, the risk of a serious vaccine reaction may be 100 times greater than the risk of hepatitis B.”

http://www.aapsonline.org/testimony/hepbcom.htm

She did some VAERS dumpster-diving to come up with that number rot.

“For most children, the risk of a serious Hep B vaccine reaction is ____ times the risk of getting a hepatitis B infection.”

Orders of magnitude less than.

AAPS is not considered a reliable source of information by reputable doctors. They are a bunch of right wing loonies, in my opinion.
Krebiozen is too kind. I go for “The John Birch Society with stethoscopes”.

and their now defunct journal
The JAP&S is still extant.

“For most children, the risk of a serious Hep B vaccine reaction is ____ times the risk of getting a hepatitis B infection.”

FTFY Vijay:

“For ALL children, acquiring Hep B infection/remaining as a lifelong carrier and at risk for fulminant liver disease or hepatocellular cancer, is thousands of times the risk of receiving hepatitis vaccine”.

Matt:

Here’s an example:
Arrest Warrant Issued for Florida Mom Who Refuses to Get Son Circumcised

I hope this is not intended as an example of “attempts springing up to use the force of law to compel people to follow their doctor’s advice”, because following the link, it has nothing to do with medicine or doctors.

@Krebiozen
“For most children, the risk of getting a hepatitis B infection is 3 times the risk of a serious Hep B vaccine reaction.”

But do you know that most cases of childhood infection are caused by mothers who are infected with hep B? So for kids whose mothers are not infected, the risk is much lower–lower than the risk of a serious vaccine reaction.

But you still believe that the hep B vaccine should be mandatory for a one-day old infant whose mother is not infected?

(Teenagers or adults can decide for themselves whether they want a hep B vaccine. It is also safer by then.)

That anti-vaxxers sure hate the Hep B shot. Perhaps Matt is not aware that one of the main ways babies get Hep B is at birth from their mothers. The birth shot is intended to reduce that risk. Though if the mother is known to be infected at birth the child will get vaccine and immune globulin at birth to further reduce their risk of contracting the infection. Besides, the vaccine is very (very very very very very) safe, so why not give your kid the best shot at not getting a chronic disease that is likely to go on to give them permanent disability or death by getting them vaccinated? I crunched the numbers on Hep B for a class I took and its truly frightening the number of people who are very shortly going to be dying due to liver failure due to Hep B.

Vijay,

But do you know that most cases of childhood infection are caused by mothers who are infected with hep B? So for kids whose mothers are not infected, the risk is much lower–lower than the risk of a serious vaccine reaction.

Citation? Does horizontal transmission to children only happen in fewer than 1 in 1.1 million children? I don’t think so. Horizontal transmission of hepatitis B in children is by no means uncommon:

Children with chronic HBV are more prone than adults to be HBV e antigen positive and to have a high viral load. At the same time, children are more likely to have contact with each other’s body fluids, such as saliva and tears, and therefore have a high risk of horizontal transmission. Horizontal transmission is especially important in children who are at a high risk of acquiring chronic, asymptomatic infection when exposed to HBV. That children often are asymptomatic after infection with HBV lets them enter the large pool of chronic carriers unnoticed.

Why not vaccinate all babies? The risk is tiny, and as far as I know the only severe reaction to hepatitis B vaccine is anaphylaxis, which is easily treated.

But you still believe that the hep B vaccine should be mandatory for a one-day old infant whose mother is not infected?

Yes. I live in the UK where only babies of high risk mothers are vaccinated. I wish it was routine for all babies. This disease has no animal reservoir and could be eliminated if universal vaccination could be achieved. Then no one would need vaccination.

(Teenagers or adults can decide for themselves whether they want a hep B vaccine. It is also safer by then.)

What makes you think it is safer then? Parents can refuse the vaccine if they wish anyway. I don’t see the problem.

I’m not sure what you mean no mechanism of enforcement. If a child doesn’t have an exemption, the child can be barred from school, and several states have – including in recent times – enforced that.

If the parent doesn’t vaccinate, doesn’t send the child to school and doesn’t meet the state’s homeschooling requirements they may face penalties for truancy.

@Krebiozen

I think we could go on arguing about the exact numbers. The point is that there is some risk of hep B vaccine and there are some benefits. Different people disagree about the exact numbers (which is as it always is, and which is as it should be).

But here is a deal. I know that vegetables are good for your kids. So for every vaccine you mandate for my kids, I would like to mandate one veggie for your kids. Deal?

Frankly, I am so sick of this. Why not just give the parents what they want and take away vaccines, hospitals and medical personnel and give them to areas that actually want all three? We’ll see how long anti-vaxx sentiment lasts when the parents have to set their little snowflake’s bones, by themselves.

You do realize that this is never going to happen, and shouldn’t happen, right? For one thing, find me an area where the majority of parents don’t vaccinate. Not that even if a majority of parents in an area didn’t vaccinate your idea would be ethical. The Biblical G-d was willing to spare Sodom for the sake of ten righteous men – one would think we could show at least as much mercy.

So you’re going to say, well, the people in those areas who do want healthcare can move somewhere else – but I’ve got something to tell you – mass resettlement is a weird freaking Stalinist fantasy. Seriously. So yeah, the whole idea is absurd.

Speaking of awful Russian leaders whose names end in “in,” Putin fell off the radar entirely about a week ago, it seems. I’m hoping he’s very ill, dying, or dead.

Vijay: Here’s a reason to give children the Hep B vaccine: children bite.

Imagine this scenario: one child bites another at the playground. Years later, the bitten child discovers that they have chronic Hep B, which means that they have to be very careful with any sexual partners, probably shouldn’t have any biological children, and will probably need a liver transplant.

Dude, the childhood Hep B shot prevents serious liver disease, for which there is no infection-specific treatment (unlike Hep C). The better question is; why wouldn’t you want to protect all children?

I would like there to be a law mandating certain vaccinations for air travel. Air travel is unhealthy, I make several international flights each year and every year I I usually get at least one respiratory infection following a flight.

To follow up on Calli’s experience, all the records I’ve ever provided for my kids had to be signed by a health care provider.

Wow. Thanks for redefining the word “mandate.” If you can elaborate on the new definition, I will let the Oxford dictionary folks know.

“I’m not [instructing or ordering] anything for your kids.”

What part of that doesn’t make sense to you, Vijay? The vaccination schedule is a recommendation (with some consequences for non-compliance), not an order that cannot be refused.

Vijay, you are the one claiming that ‘mandate’ was incorrectly used by Krebiozen. I still don’t know the basis of that claim. A recommendation with some consequences for non-compliance is not the equivalent of a mandate. As discussed, vaccination is a *requirement* for enrollment in public school or daycare. Medical or personal belief exemptions to this requirement are available to qualified individuals in many states. There is the additional option to *not* enroll your unvaccinated child in public school or daycare. That is a far cry from a blanket mandate.

A general order to the public to be vaccinated doesn’t exist anywhere in the US.

Viajy, is it your belief that “mandate” and “prerequisite” are synonyms?

@Jen,
In the media and elsewhere, the word used is “mandate.” If you disagree, then let me know, what word you would use instead. Of course, every word in a language has many shades of meanings.

Talking about the misuse of language, the pro-vax folks are calling people who want a choice as anti-vax instead of pro-choice.

Ultimately, this endless vaccination debate is all about the unsavory consequences for parents who don’t comply with these recommendations. If you don’t support the unsavory consequences, then I have nothing to disagree with you. But as far as I can tell, everybody who argues in favor of vaccines supports the unsavory consequences for non-compliance. That includes you and Krebiozen.

@JGC
“Vijay, is it your belief that “mandate” and “prerequisite” are synonyms?”

No, it is my belief that the commonly used word for required vaccination is “mandate.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20230978

WTF is “unsavory consequences” supposed to even mean? Unless there’s a valid medical reason, kids should be vaccinated before they’re sent off to hang out in a room all day with a bunch of other kids, some of whom might be particularly vulnerable to disease. If parents are really committed to not vaccinating, they can homeschool, as far as I’m concerned.

I mean, we also don’t just let people go grocery shopping in the nude and rub their crotches all over the produce. There might be unsavory consequences.

I mean, we also don’t just let people go grocery shopping in the nude and rub their crotches all over the produce. There might be unsavory consequences.

But what about my health freeeeddooooommmmmmm? I deserve the right to do my own research on how wearing clothes inhibits my ability to bond with my food. And that produce is too damn sexy for its own good, anyway.

@Narad
“I’d say whining for a special dispensation to, y’know, not vaccinate and be completely free from consequences ”

Thanks for calling this land of the FREE, a land of the WHINERS. The free folks have won in Oregon for now. And as they say, liberty and freedom can never be taken for granted because medical fascists will always try to take it away.

Talking about the misuse of language, the pro-vax folks are calling people who want a choice as anti-vax instead of pro-choice.

Because it’s a false choice based on misinformation and willfull misinterpretation of science.

the unsavory consequences

I think I will start lobbying for the right to be exempted of paying the entrance fee when I want to go watch a movie. I believe I should have the choice to decide if I want to pay or not. Being barred from watching the movie is an unsavory consequence and an affront to my freedom.

George III
Another victim of MEDICAL FASCISM.

Why would people be upset about services they never used not being available anymore? Oh, they might be a little embarassed when the former local ped writes about how wonderful her new life in Rwanda or Brazil is, but I doubt they’d be upset. It’s just a matter of fiscal prudency- taking services that aren’t used to areas where they will be used and appreciated.

That’s the whole thing. There’s no “area” where people don’t “use and appreciate” health care. Despite MarkN’s above stated opinion that Portlanders should “take themselves out of the gene pool,” Multnomah County, where Portland is, has vaccination rates for childhood diseases hovering generally between 94 and 95%. That’s better than Oregon’s average rate. It’s a small minority of people there who don’t avail themselves of vaccinations, and that’s just one piece of health care. Personally, I like children, and I don’t want to see them suffer and die needlessly in various awful ways because all the health care in their area was “moved” somewhere where people would “appreciate it” more, even if their parents are stupid.

Re: Putin. He’s not the type of guy to “lay low” for any reason at all, as far as I can tell. He didn’t bother laying low after invading freaking Ukraine and annexing Crimea, for instance. I suspect I may be disappointed, and I actually don’t wish any particular suffering on the man, but I do think his swift death would be a boon for the world, Russia in particular.

A. In my son’s school too immunization record was required. People can lie or fake records, but they take a risk doing that.

B. In states whose laws I examined, immunization requirements also apply to private schools. The legislature cam
Certainly require it. I came across no state that doesn’t, though I haven’t looked in detail at all state statutes.

@PGP

They can’t enforce it if the child goes to a charter or a private school. Charters are legally protected and don’t have to abide by any regulation covering a public school.

Uh, yes, they can. Most states include private and charter schools in their vaccine requirement regulations.

Why would people be upset about services they never used not being available anymore?

We’ve been over your abhorrent recommendations before. Go back and re-read the responses you got the last time you suggested this.

And it is just a fantasy- I’m not that heartless in real life

The way you talk on here suggests otherwise, but it could be you feel more free to say what you really think online than you do IRL. Not exactly reassuring, though.

@Vijay

Perhaps you can explain which vaccines are safe and worth getting as recommended.

JP: “It’s a small minority of people there who don’t avail themselves of vaccinations, and that’s just one piece of health care.”

I personally see it as a big part of health care, and it disgusts me that anti-vaxxers, who yell about how awful doctors and immunizations are, still want bones mended, tumors taken away and appendixes removed. They shouldn’t expect any sort of treatment at all. The only pressure they might respond to is social pressure- if the neighbors won’t speak to them because the doctor moved away because of them, that might make anti-vax people reconsider.

Todd W: The way you talk on here suggests otherwise, but it could be you feel more free to say what you really think online than you do IRL. Not exactly reassuring, though.

Isn’t that the point of the internet? To say stuff you never would in life? And why isn’t that reassuring? The internet is a stage with a costume party on it, not merely a news service/messaging board.

I personally see it as a big part of health care, and it disgusts me that anti-vaxxers, who yell about how awful doctors and immunizations are, still want bones mended, tumors taken away and appendixes removed. They shouldn’t expect any sort of treatment at all.

However big a piece of health care, it’s just one health part of health care, and I wouldn’t deny life-saving care to anybody, even if they’re stupid. I especially could never conscience doing that to children. But then, like I said, I like children. I realize some people might be able to think of them as just little “disease vectors,” but every job except one that I had before grad school involved working with kids. (The one that didn’t was a year I worked providing in-home care for developmentally disabled adults.) Kids are people – particularly vulnerable little people who don’t have much control over their own lives.

The only pressure they might respond to is social pressure- if the neighbors won’t speak to them because the doctor moved away because of them, that might make anti-vax people reconsider.

Uh, what? Do you not realize that taking away healthcare from an entire “area” would be an immensely larger evil than a small percentage of people not vaccinating their kids? The whole point of medicine is to help people. I mean, Holy Christ. I don’t want to see anybody suffer needlessly, even people who dumb things, but especially not people who just happen to live near those people. But then malice in general is genuinely foreign to my soul.

@JP

Don’t bother. PGP is a misanthrope. She has very black-and-white thinking, absolutist opinions, and is generally extraordinarily offensive. She also stubbornly refuses to learn from her past gaffes. Nuance and ethics are lost on her.

JP: “However big a piece of health care, it’s just one health part of health care, and I wouldn’t deny life-saving care to anybody, even if they’re stupid.”

Well, the whole point of the anti-vax movement is that they’re smarter than the doctors, and diseases will recognize their natural superiority and shy away. As far as I’m concerned, the parents deserve to be called on their bluff. I would, however support efforts to uncouple the medical care of minors from their parents, since so many parents are making bad decisions, and quite a lot aren’t suited to taking care of disabled youngsters. As far as I’m concerned, being anti-vax should disqualify a parent instantly from being a caretaker of a disabled minor.

Funny thing about Brian Hooker and his autism study re-analysis. I have not been up to dig up the original data set, and Hooker is not talking, but at one point he lets slip a vital detail: in his chi squared test he says that the bins are redefined from 36+ months to 31+ months so that every cell would have an occupancy of at least five.

While it is good that he followed the recommendations for bare-minimal-acceptability, the strong implication is that his data set is tiny. Every practicing scientist knows that odd things happen sometimes, especially with small populations, so I am perfectly happy to conclude that a minimal significance criterion was met by the specific data set in hand yet it would be unlikely to see the result confirmed by an independent investigation.

Which is actually the function of significance testing, to guard against fooling yourself with spurious data sets, but that important fact has been drowned out by all the shouting from enthusiastic advocates who improperly believe that “p less than 0.05 proves that my theory is true.”

I’d rather my kids endure shots than the diseases they protect against. If it’s a concern about “too many, too soon”, there is a very pointed reason they recommend these shots at the age they do. I once asked my friend, a pediatrician working primarily in the NICU, why the shots are scheduled that way – is it b/c they have/encourage frequent well-child visits during the first 2-3 or 4 years of life? She replied with an emphatic “No! We recommend the current schedule b/c children are most vulnerable to VPDs the first few years of life!”.

I think (and hope to the heavens) most anti-vax/vax-hesitant parents would protect their kids in the end, if faced with an urgent and tangible threat to their children’s health. So I propose we offer, particularly to those who think that these diseases are “no big deal” or “it would be better for them to have the actual disease than the protection from it”, this choice (as they are genuinely and primarily concerned with the “choice” than the shot itself): if you want to place your kids in a public setting where their health status could impact that of others, take your choice of a syringe filled with a targeted protection of a disease or a syringe full of the disease itself. Again, I hope to high heaven that at least half would choose the former. A girl can dream, right??

If you like statistics, you should read this:
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

Vijay, given that you have, of your own FREE Will,* invoked this particular Ioannidis item, please explain – in your own words – the difference between PPV and NPV.

* No, Gordon Liddy’s better than that.

Anyway, here is a question for you

No. If most positive findings are false in this framework, what are most negative findings?

@Narad
Most negative findings are never published. Either the sponsor of the trial buries them, or the journal finds them uninteresting.

Please read this. (The author RS was the editor of BMJ for 25 year):

Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138

BTW, only 15% of doctors who order the PSA test can answer my key question about the test correctly.

The German antivaxxer Stefan Lanka pledged to pay 100.000 Euro to anyone who could prove the existence of the measel virus. Some biologist accepted and sent pictures and more. Of course Lanka wasn’t gonna pay so they went to court where he now was ordered to pay.

http://www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/diagnose/existenz-des-masernvirus-stefan-lanka-verliert-vor-gericht-a-1023189.html

Of course Lanka wasn’t gonna pay so they went to court where he now was ordered to pay.

Needs more Kary Mullis.

Even in 1980s, there weren’t any serious large scale epidemics.

No kidding really?
Hib disease was endemic with ~20,000 children infected annually.
Hepatitis b caused about 26,000 infections annually.
There was a nice little measles outbreak (again primarily amongst unvaccinated) with more than 55,000 cases and more than 150 deaths.

I probably would not add Hep B, chickenpox, HPV, or flu. I haven’t looked at the remaining four vaccines in detail.

But you say you recommend an alternative schedule based on what exactly? The number of jabs? How very scientific.

Even in 1980s, there weren’t any serious large scale epidemics.

Well, sure, if you take the black plagues sweeping whole countries as a reference.

Seriously, anti-vaxers, could we try to implement health policies before situations start spiraling out of control?

rork, not sure if that would be legal. However, I have a Medical Aid (Discovery). They let me get the flu jab for free, and even give me rewards points for doing so. What might work is for Medical Aids to charge higher rates to those who don’t vaccinate or give extra benefits to those who do.

@vijay

I have looked at the paper you have referenced and it seems that you either did not read it or your thinking is a bit muddled, or both. Actually, the answers to your questions are all there for your perusal. You are fearmongering about the vaccine because the frequency of deaths due to HepB increased for some years after the introduction of vaccination and yet you fail to notice that since than the frequency plateaued and started to decline (see fig.7 you cited). Surely you did not expect that the trend would be reversed immediately by vaccination of newborns (it takes some time before the people, who acquired the disease before the start of vaccination, die of it), didn’t you?
You would be much more effective troll if you did not cite papers that contradict what you want imply.

Martin

Regarding the hep B vaccination, I recently was evaluated for my fitness to donate a kidney to my brother. My first sets of bloodwork indicated that I was not exposed to hep B. However, later in the process a different test came back positive. After a work up with an immunologist, they still don’t know why I tested positive. While I could have had it and it resolved without me knowing it, that appears unlikely since I did not have a significant reaction to the vaccine. But given the risk, I am incredibly glad I had all 4 of my children vaccinated at birth.

Denice Walker @ 78
I could not get the player to work at Natural News,but the video has just been posted on YouTube this morning.The weapons grade burning stupid is something you might want to see.

JGC@ 93
That gets to the message of the video.Any prerequisite is a forced government mandate that leads to Nazi “death panels”.

Jen Phillips @101
Unless I see anything to the contrary,I am convinced these people believe their “freedom of choice” trumps everything.Including herd immunity,protecting medically vulnerable populations.As has been said many times before,generations of vaccine compliance have given antivaxers an unrealistic picture of how serious diseases like measles are.

I don’t even think the reemergence of polio is going to change these people’s minds,and I do think that is around the corner.

Vijay@131

The comments to this article are especially telling,and worth a read.

@ Science Mom
Yes, an epidemic is in the eyes of the beholder. Do you know that over 300,000 Americans die every year from hospital and medical errors, and over 100,000 die from adverse drug reactions. Ten times as many are seriously injured.

But that does not qualify as an epidemic because it is not in the news. Why? Because no newspaper benefits (commercially) by talking about it. Nor is any shill paid to talk about those deaths.

And Vijay finally dove into the shill conspiracy.

And actually, plenty of people talk about adverse events in healthcare. It’s publicly reportable and CMS takes money AWAY (in the form of reimbursement, as in, that big shill money making enterprise will show they can be safe or they won’t get reimbursed) from hospitals that don’t meet patient care/safety benchmarks. Several states require public reporting so the public can look. Even hospitals formally exempt (PPS-exempt) due to high patient risk for complications (such as cancer hospitals, research facilities with transplant and burn units) are no longer going to be exempt. So yes, there are plenty of people talking about patient safety. YOU just don’t know enough about what you’re talking about to look for where it’s mentioned. And EVERYONE can look at it. https://data.medicare.gov/data/hospital-compare

Also, you said The older vaccines are also likely to be safer (more time-proven). Your kid would also get fewer shots during any single office visit. indicating that yes, you did want to use the 1985 versions and therefore have no idea what you’re talking about.

Vijay,

Yes, an epidemic is in the eyes of the beholder. Do you know that over 300,000 Americans die every year from hospital and medical errors, and over 100,000 die from adverse drug reactions. Ten times as many are seriously injured.

Errors happen, and measures are taken to prevent them. Things have improved greatly over the past few decades. When you consider that over 50 million medical procedures are carried out each year in the US, many of them that carry a serious risk, that’s a 0.6% fatal error rate, which puts it into perspective.

As I wrote in reply to a similar claim a couple of days ago, even assuming that the claim about fatal drug reactions is true (it isn’t), it is meaningless unless we consider the benefits of these drugs as well. How many people’s lives are saved by these drugs? How many of these patients would have died anyway, without conventional treatment? How many patients have their quality of life improved by these drugs?

For example, anticoagulant drugs are among the most dangerous prescription drugs; they cause an estimated 2,800 excess major bleeds a year in the UK. They also prevent an estimated 16,100 strokes a year, including 4,400 fatal strokes (PDF) and the NHS estimates that prescribing more of them would prevent an additional 3,500 deaths each year. I’m sure that the figures in the US are very similar.

The primary reason the vaccine companies want to take away all vax exemptions is so that no unvaccinated or undervaccinated kids remain around for comparison with fully vaccinated kids.

Because the worst thing for them is a future study which shows that unvaccinated or undervaccinated kids remain healthier and live longer on average than fully vaccinated kids.

Meanwhile, if all vax exemptions are taken away, the least we should do is to change the US national anthem from
“Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave”
to
Land of the Sheep, and Home of the Fascists”

@Todd
“This suggests to me that you really have not properly researched the subject and do not know what you are talking about.”
Thanks for your extremely kind and profound comments.

@ Roger Kulp:

Oh I know! I saw it via NN’s direction to Natural News TV.
Mike’s videos compete with Gary Null’s films for egregious quotes and un- restrained inappropriate analogies.

But then I would expect that.

Thanks to all you guys for an entertaining discussion. It is interesting to see than one pro-choice guy can keep several vaccination-fascists busy for a long time.

Don’t flatter yourself. Most of the effort that goes into debunking the BS you’re spouting isn’t for your benefit, but to try and provide resources for those who might be seeking honest, objective answers. So thank YOU for being such an excellent foil.

Yes, an epidemic is in the eyes of the beholder. Do you know that over 300,000 Americans die every year from hospital and medical errors, and over 100,000 die from adverse drug reactions. Ten times as many are seriously injured.

Just goes to show how much you know about epidemiology and argument fallacies. There are specific criteria for what constitutes an epidemic. Your Tu Quoque fallacy has been noted and slapped down by others.

The primary reason the vaccine companies want to take away all vax exemptions is so that no unvaccinated or undervaccinated kids remain around for comparison with fully vaccinated kids.

Someone’s tin foil beanie is too tight. “Vaccine companies” (as if there is even such a thing) have nothing to do with vaccine exemptions; those fall under the purview of state legislatures. You are clearly using the braindead rallying cry of your fellow dimwitted anti-vaxxers re: health freeeedumb!!!11 Even if non-medical exemptions were removed you are still free to keep your spawn unvaccinated, pure and toxin-free.

Thanks to all you guys for an entertaining discussion. It is interesting to see than one pro-choice guy can keep several vaccination-fascists busy for a long time.

In what way is that interesting, Vijay?

I am glad to see this article, but I confess I did not read through all of the comments as it seemed to be descending into another pro vs. anti argument. As someone who is pro-science, I think it is key for us to recognize that our “we are right because we are the experts” approach to this discussion is failing us. I understand the frustration felt when you spend a large portion of your life studying a subject only to have your expertise dismissed by individuals who have little knowledge on the topic but spread a lot of rhetoric. However, it is key for us to ask ourselves what has happened that public trust has been lost, and how do we change that? We can not expect everyone to know or understand science, just as we do not expect all scientists to know and understand art, literature, poetry, economics, business, humanities etc. So how do we regain our expert status and regain public trust. Scientists solve puzzles. Complex, layered puzzles. So this should be a really fun challenge. I hope we can start to have more productive conversations about how to resolve this issue, because all we are doing now is driving more people away.

It is interesting to see than one pro-choice guy can keep several vaccination-fascists busy for a long time.

While your accomplice ransacks the vault? Is that what you mean? What happened while you so cleverly distracted us with your idle chitchat and meaningless banter? ZOMG – we are in the presence of a criminal mastermind!

Everybody count the spoons.

As someone who is pro-science, I think it is key for us to recognize that our “we are right because we are the experts” approach to this discussion is failing us.

I haven’t been seeing anyone taking that approach, however.

Instead, I’m seeing the approach “The following evidence demonstrates the anti-vax claims you’ve offered are false”.

“You may note I am not happy with those who think kids should get sick” chris

You have to qualify what sick is. When your child had chicken pox did you give them anti pyretics before the seizures?

johnny,

Where are you finding that the child was vaccinated for measles? All official sources have confirmed he WAS NOT vaccinated. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/german-health-official-mandatory-measles-vaccinations-child-dies

Also, the presence of a heart condition is EXACTLY why vaccination is important, especially since so many indolent conditions exist and only come to light when someone is exposed to a disease that can kill them.

Yes, citation please Johnny – and how about examining the actual course of the German epidemic, which started in unvaccinated enclaves…..even if 95% of the people are vaccinated, guess what happens when large numbers of the other 5% live in the same communities together…..

@Johnny – stop displaying your profound ignorance….mortality and incidence are two completely different things.

Thanks for correcting the grammar. With so much stuff going on, the Internet could always use a good grammarian.

The comment itself was nonsensical. Again, it’s not my fault that you happened upon the bright idea of invoking something that, to the extent it is apropos of anything, works directly to your detriment.

Why on earth would you believe CDC dictat on vaccine benefit?

Oh, look, it’s Philip Hills, aka “pop sucket,” aka “pop socket,” aka “Johnny Labile,” etc., etc., here to ramble on about the NICE guideline that only he is unable to find.

Johnny,
As Frequent Lurker has shown, you are a liar.

As did HDB a week ago.

As an aside it is clear that Robert Kennedy Jr.’s activities are in fact anti-vaccination in spite of his assertion that he is pro-vax because he and his children were all vaccinated. He leaves out the part that they were all born years before his foray into really bad anti-vaxx pseudoscience. A typical claim by those who wish to avoid the dreaded anti-vaxx label.

“Though before she was born, the oldest child got a disease we now vaccinate for and had seizures, wtf does that mean?

How does anyone get a disease before they were born?

So do you believe in Disney or vaccination?

So the rates of medically induced atopy are not suffering right?

“The measles outbreak in Germany has been traced to an unvaccinated Bosnian child. There are significant numbers of refugees from the former Yugoslavia in Germany, many of them unvaccinated — odd how a little thing like a civil war can throw public health activities like childhood vaccinations completely off track.” Shay

there is always a convenient excuse for vaccine failure, if Germany has a 95% uptake rate of MMR how come herd immunity failed – again? Was it a dodgy batch, when exactly is the vaccine supposed to work.

Blame it on the foreigners. Why are all the flu’s called Beijing, Asian, Spanish etc. Why don’t we have Bush flu or whitehouse flu? All this empire crap is rather shallow.

We are waiting. Who traced it – please qualify

Weave us a magic EBM reply please, make it Disney

Johnny, your evidence that routine childhood vaccination is ineffective at reducing the incidence of the infectious diseases targeted, and that last year’s whooping cough, seasonal flu and the current MMR vaccine is ineffective at reducing the incidence of those diseases , would be…what, exactly? Be specific.
I mean, you do have some-right?

In the Western world mortality rates from wild measles are the same as 50 years ago, so years of vaccination have made no difference.

Made no difference, or made no difference in one’s risk of dying once they have contracted the disease? We don’t expect vaccines to make a disease less deadly, only to prevent you from acquiring it. And if you’ll check the incidence rate before and after vaccination was introduced, you’ll find it’s made a very, very large difference.

What we do have though is epidemics of atopy…

Citations needed: your evidence that such epidemics are occurring and that the atopy observed is causally associated with vaccination would be what? Be specific.

…and now as reported in the UK hundreds of cases of narcolepsy in kids from flu vaccination.

Citation needed. To the best of my knowledge narcolepsy was associated only with the 2009 Pandemrix flu vaccine, and there were less than 100 cases observed in total.

Further to Moon’s comment, here’s the story on the BBC website.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31864218

<Who traced it – please qualify

The German Ministry of Health.

if Germany has a 95% uptake rate of MMR how come herd immunity failed

You truly don’t understand how herd immunity works, do you?

OT: But a child is death by measle in my country, Italy. A four years old, unvaccinated.
🙁 I fear that it is only a matter of time before more will join the count.

The child was a vaccinated child and also had a heart condition.
This seems to have become a tenet of faith in the disease-apologist catechism. Meanwhile, according to the hospital and the German authorities,
The child was not vaccinated against measles and had no pre-existing conditions.

Do you know that over 300,000 Americans die every year

That’s impressive. WIthin 24 hr, 3 different people came on RI and posted something like this.
Except one time it was 100,000 people, next time 200,000, and now 300,000 people.
At least, I hope for their sanity that these are different people.

Now, could our opponents please compare notes and come back with some consensus? It’s a bit confusing right now.

This is the high point of woo. It’s soon going to go downhill and fast.

Why? Because Google is going to replace its easily-gamed PageRank system with a system that ranks pages according to how reality-based they are.

And the Usual Suspects are already freaking out.

The UK checks in with 70 total cases (PDF) reported to the European Medicines Agency. There are 68 plaintiffs in the class action. The estimates suggest that around half of those are bona fide.

You lose again, Philip Hills.

Because Google is going to replace its easily-gamed PageRank system with a system that ranks pages according to how reality-based they are.

I’m afraid that this remains a hopelessly primitive misunderstanding.

Vivian: However, it is key for us to ask ourselves what has happened that public trust has been lost, and how do we change that?

Americans got dumber and affluent, it’s as simple as that. There are also fewer people who actually suffered those diseases, so people don’t grow up listening to horror stories about mumps, measles, and etc. People also don’t read anymore- Little House on the Prairie, Little Women and Eight Cousins and the Mirror Crack’d ought to be required reading for new parents, since all mention mumps, measles and rubella and the consequences thereof.

Vivian: “We can not expect everyone to know or understand science, just as we do not expect all scientists to know and understand art, literature, poetry, economics, business, humanities etc. ”

I don’t know where you’re getting this. Every single undergrad student at my college was required to have classes in art, literature, theology, philosophy, at least two writing-heavy courses, sociology, history and math. Granted, that was just one college, but lots of people go to liberal arts colleges for their bachelors. And in the professional world, scientists have to understand politics and economics so they can keep their jobs.

@Vijay, As for “Herd Immunity why do you believe human beings have to be treated like cattle, after all cattle are not given a choice or given free will, but aren’t most free human beings who are not enslaved or imprisoned granted that right by their creator?

@ PGP:

Most of the relevant background in general science, bio and chemistry should be acquired before students attend universities. Hopefully.

DW: Of course, high school students should have had some science courses, especially those who chose to go to college. But in the states, science education has become so politicized that most high schools teach only a very watered down version of biology- if they think they can get away with it and not earn the ire of the school board. A lot of districts have probably done away with biology all together.

Interesting-
Unaswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced
Brain Injury http://www.digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context=pelr

I think that we cannot expect the general public to understand the science to the depth required to refute many of the anti-vax studies.

Beth, you yourself have stubbornly refused to do your own homework regarding MRLs and complained about the quality of others’ doing it for you.

Beth: “Most young parents will make their choices based on their trust in the system making the recommendations.”

And not understanding the pain and suffering many of these diseases cause. Since they have grown up after measles and mumps was common, and often not seeing younger siblings suffer from chicken pox… they simply do not understand the gravity of the illnesses.

It was twenty five years ago when my oldest as a toddler had a seizure from a now vaccine preventable disease. Which was about the time that another mother I met later had her child die from Hib meningitis. Then later “just” a bit over twenty years ago all the kids had chicken pox including the baby (who turns 21 in two months).

Perhaps this would be useful: Vaccine Preventable Disease – The Forgotten Story

Seriously you expect parent whose children they suspect were seriously damaged by vaccines, to ever trust vaccinations again? Don’t bet on it!

^ Should have been a blockquote for that last paragraph.

@ ken:

Orac has already dealt with that article : “Another swing at the fences,,,,” , May 11, 2011. Place “Mary Holland” in the search box.

And exactly on cue, Dan Olmsted has an article @ AoA asking people EXACTLY that- believe him, not the evidence-based consensus.

@ Beth:

People may place their trust in these people because they advance stories that present them in a sympathetic or admirable light:
parents may identify with another parent whose child was ‘damaged’; people may want to emulate a brave, idealistic scientist/ journalist who is sweeping dirt into public view and airing out the rancid inner sanctum of power.

And you are correct- one of the ways they get others to believe in them is by demolishing trust in institutions. For the past 15 years, I have been monitoring alt media messaging and this is the groundwork for all of their endeavors. Thus, I observe how the material changes and transforms to fit whatever is next on their agenda. ANYTHING that shows imperfect transparency is utilised to create mistrust HOWEVER the presenters themselves keep changing their own stories and re-assembling facts as they dissemble.The same stories are told and re-told and as we know, repetition increases what is remembered. In addition, pointing your finger at others’ malfeasance distracts your audience from looking at your own

A few days ago I watched a documentary, Citizen Four, about Edward Snowden in which he compared informers on the internet to the mythological Hydra- if you cut off one head, five more pop up.
Unfortunately, this applies for misinformation purveyors as well.

It’s kind of depressing, but using facts and logic to show people how they’re wrong doesn’t really work. There are numerous studies about it, and I have all kinds of anecdotal experience that agrees. People don’t like to be told they’re full of horsesh*t, I guess, even if you try to do it as nicely and calmly as possible.

Building trust doesn’t really seem to work all that well either, though. There’s a pediatrician I know in Portland – one of my old housemates used to work as his secretary – who is about the nicest, most trustworthy guy you could meet. He runs a pediatric clinic which bills insurance but also runs on small yearly dues. The idea is to provide the kind of personal, attentive care that people seem to be seeking with “alternative” practitioners, but to do so with evidence-based medicine. I mean, he’s a nice, hippie doctor who plays guitar and sings goofy songs to the kids – and yet he’s got anti-vaxxers bringing down his g–gle scores because he doesn’t “respect their choices.”

All I can really come up with is that an actual skeptical or scientific worldview is profoundly countercultural, probably because it goes against something pretty deeply ingrained in human nature. “Question everything” is a hard row to hoe, a lot harder than “question the mainstream media” or “question the CDC” or whatever. Constantly being open to the possibility that you yourself could be wrong is not something most people are interested in doing.

(sorry, blockquote fail) 🙁

@JP

All I can really come up with is that an actual skeptical or scientific worldview is profoundly countercultural, probably because it goes against something pretty deeply ingrained in human nature.

Of course it goes against something pretty deeply ingrained in human nature… it goes against every aspect of consciousness that isn’t the rational intellect. Emotions, feelings, intuition, insight, inspiration. The list goes on and on.

Rational materialism is obviously important to scientific inquiry. But attempting to elevate rational materialism to a worldview encompassing the whole of human experience is absurdly ludicrous. It doesn’t even make rational sense.

JP- Never said you were. I was trying to agree with you.

BTW, Matt, I’m still waiting for the follow-through on this one:

Laws are much more difficult to change. As evidenced by the plethora of outdated (and ridiculous) laws on the books. For example, laws forbidding one to swear in front of a lady, or have sex in any position other than missionary.

Curses! Blasphemy, profanity laws still on the books

Since this article was from 2009, I thought I’d follow up on some of the links to the statutes in question. Yup, still on the books. Here is an example:

Michigan Penal Code

750.337 Women and children; improper language in presence.

Sec. 337.

Indecent, etc., language in presence of women or children—Any person who shall use any indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar or insulting language in the presence or hearing of any woman or child shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Sex laws? Here is a reference guide:

The Complete List of Weird Sex Laws in the U.S.A.

Beth: “Building trust is a long term process. How do you convince someone who doesn’t really trust the system that they should for vaccines? ”

Ask which parts of the system they do trust and why. Point out that a surgery or chemo is a lot riskier than a simple poke.

Alternatively, call the parent’s bluff- give them a first aid kit, wish them well, give them a fake phone number and contact their main doctor and say they no longer want medical treatment, ever. If they think they’re smarter than the medical system, let them prove it.

Also, make perks dependent on vaccines, like airlines reserve humane treatment for first class travelers. If enough parents vaccinate in a ped’s practice, they should have a party thrown for them, and the anti-vaxxers parents get to hear about the perks. Since the typical anti-vaxxer is a high-strung type-a, hearing about other parents (especially people who are doing parenting wrong in their opinion) something like that would bring ’em running.

@Beth

Building trust is a long term process. How do you convince someone who doesn’t really trust the system that they should for vaccines?

How about… by making the system trustworthy? By actually addressing and correcting all the serious flaws in our medical system?

Sex laws? Here is a reference guide

That’s not a “reference guide,” it’s an unsourced listicle.

Jamie, I used ‘self-improvement; for lack if a better catch-all.
Perhaps there is no self.

Be that as it may.
and obviously scepticism will remain a minority view but hopefully it will inform general culture in some manner.
After all, the Enlightenment was not a mass movement but…

Now I have to run …

‘Building trust is a long term process. How do you convince someone who doesn’t really trust the system that they should for vaccines?’

Matt: “How about… by making the system trustworthy? By actually addressing and correcting all the serious flaws in our medical system?”

You know, even with Medicare abuses, faulty medical devices, pharmaceutical company gouging, research fraud and other problems incompletely addressed, I still would accept antibiotic therapy for a severe infection, get my appendix removed if clinically indicated, or follow the vaccination recommendations that have eradicated or severely curtailed dangerous infectious diseases.

The alternatives aren’t very attractive.

United States v. Flowers is similarly a dud.

But to criticize for simply questioning? I don’t see how that is productive.

As demonstrated in the Seneff comments, your modus operandi is pretty much to throw out specific items, wait for other people to examine them for you, and then resort to increasingly nebulous positions.

There’s <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions"a name for this.

I disagree that one needs data in order to question. It’s the question that drives the data-seeking. Not the other way around.

Then you’re just JAQ’ing off. How did you arrive at the question that can potentially challenge a consensus?

Besides- not everybody is in a position to go about acquiring such data, or even being able to freely access that data which exists.

Oh so any schmuck with an internet connection is qualified to refute scientific consensus?

How did you arrive at the question that can potentially challenge a consensus?

You don’t arrive at the question. You start there.

@Matt

How about… by making the system trustworthy? By actually addressing and correcting all the serious flaws in our medical system?

That would be ideal. In the meantime, children are born and parents make a choice for them. That shouldn’t change.

@Victor #238

Thank you for the kind words. It means a lot to me. I think your suggestion is excellent, but rather improbable for the U.S. I’ve heard they do something like that in China. I recall hearing about some Chinese company executive being executed when his companies product turned out to have poisoned babies. It will be interesting to see how that strategy works out for them.

You don’t arrive at the question. You start there.

Not in Matt’s case I’m afraid.

@JP:

Although it’s a long story, I do recommend the 1977 Bench Press edition as a reckoning point if you’re interested in Millbrook. I picked up a library binding for $5 or so a couple of years back. (I’m also mildly surprised that the price of the hardcover has dropped by an order of magnitude in the meantime.)

@PGP

Ask which parts of the system they do trust and why. Point out that a surgery or chemo is a lot riskier than a simple poke.

*sigh*
Sorry to rain on your parade, but…
Did you miss the part where a lot of people are completely freaked out by chemo? Or surgery, for that matter. Just read the recent threads on the late wellness warrior. Chemo is not a good reference for risk comparison.
I also suspect that there is a lot of overlap between people wary of vaccines and those suspicious of chemo. They will just tell you they trust no part of the system.
Also, telling people poking is less riskier than chemo doesn’t answer their question: is the vaccine safe? They don’t care if chemo is riskier, they don’t consider taking chemo, they consider taking vaccines. And they will also call you on your assertion, if you don’t gave them evidence. After all, this little poke is just the Troyan horse for injecting a lot of ZOMG CHemicalz!!!

Beside, people who are sick are willing to take more risks than people who feel healthy. So healthy people are going to say it’s not the same risk/benefit assessment. And they will be entirely right.

@ matt

How about… by making the system trustworthy? By actually addressing and correcting all the serious flaws in our medical system?

*re-sigh*
In a recent thread, we just agreed that one “cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into”.
Fear could have rational triggers or enforcers, but at its core fear is in no way something rational.
The system could be perfect and there would still be people mistrusting it and other people interested at feeding this mistrust. Just look at all the threads these past 6 months about people refusing chemo for some nonsensical treatment. Even in cases where science can trot out numbers and testimonials of its success.
We have anti-vaxers in US, Canada, UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, Japan… All countries with different medical systems, different healthcare management, and different cultural biases towards science. Seems to me the issue is more generic and widespread than just some local misbehavior.

That’s not a reason not to try to improve things. Obviously, if only we scientists were only a little less asocial and a little more better at sharing our knowledge… If only physicians and nurses and all the others had more time and resources to take care of their patients… If we were better at rooting out corruption and incompetence (an issue of will, but also of resources – my country doesn’t have that many nurses and doctors to spare, so in a way better have half-competent ones rather than none)…
If the individuals in the society at large were a little less prone to common fallacies and a little less more than ready to follow the first false prophet…

Oh, but what am I saying? People reaping that they sow?
In Florida, you have politicians writing in the law how much the sea level is going to rise, if any. You have states willing to enforce by law the teaching of Creationism in biology classes.
These laws are made because people like you elected these nutjobs in position of leadership.
So take a good look in the mirror and keep your advice on what scientists should do to get trust and respect.

Beside, you are talking about human endeavor and medicine, i.e. biology. I will tell you a little secret: humans, for all their smartiness, are very prone to buggering even the most simple tasks, and biology is very messy (well, since human behavior is just applied biology, no wonder we mishandle things).
It’s bell curves all the way down. A few outperforming individuals, a big blob of more-or-less average individuals, and at the low end a few individuals who obviously got the biological short straw.
There will always be outliers who modern medicine wouldn’t be able to help, and there will always be people being people and mucking things up.

tl;dr: trust isn’t something which will be achieved rationally.
And medicine will never be perfect, and especially never be staffed only by jolly good – and all-knowing – fellows.
That’s the reality we have been dealt, and going on “just do it” tangents isn’t going to solve anything.

@Science Mom

First off… I really like your gravatar there. Secondly, don’t be a ninny.

I wasn’t questioning the scientific consensus on vaccines.

Sheesh.. talk about a strawman! (I’m sorry- does strawmanning get a free pass on this blog as long as the person doing it is on the “right” side of the debate?!)

@Narad

… and your modus operandi appears to be to start off with some causal trolling, and then make increasingly intrusive demands for evidence for every little comment that somebody makes once you’ve targeted them for elimination. (Or whatever it is that you do.)

Fact of the matter is: I’ve said nothing here that is anti-vaccine, and I’ve said nothing in the other thread that is anti-GMO.

I just don’t happen to agree with some of the tactics that are being employed in order to deal with all the disinformation that is out there.

Victor may be confused about actual polling that was done in 1988, after a U.S. military shootdown of an Iranian jetliner that was mistaken for a hostile F-14 (the polls, which were done before the U.S. version of events was substantially challenged, strongly supported the U.S. action):

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1988/Public-Backed-U-S-in-Downing-of-Iranian-Jetliner-in-Early-Polls-With-AM-Airliner-UN-Bjt/id-c1fb47cefddb28eff273e6df361b4b5e

As to who is more believable now, the U.S. government or that of Iran – 93% of Americans in a recent poll said that Iranian development of a nuclear bomb was a critical or important threat to the U.S., which is as strong or stronger a stance than the American government has taken on the issue.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iran.htm

Matt: “Fact of the matter is: I’ve said nothing here that is anti-vaccine, and I’ve said nothing in the other thread that is anti-GMO.”

But of course, you are Just Asking Questions, and expressing Concern about the tactics of pro-science advocates which might jeopardize acceptance of the science that you obviously hold in high regard.

@Dangerous Bacon

But of course, you are Just Asking Questions, and expressing Concern about the tactics of pro-science advocates which might jeopardize acceptance of the science that you obviously hold in high regard.

Yes, that’s right. I don’t think that shaming, ridiculing, or using the force of law, to get people to accept science is wise or ethical.

Most importantly- I certainly don’t think it is effective. And unless you’ve got some hard data to prove that it is, you’re just operating on conjecture. Hardly scientific.

I wasn’t questioning the scientific consensus on vaccines.

I never said you did. What was that again about ninny and strawman?

Ah yes… the hallowed halls of science. So noble. So pure. (Well if it weren’t for all the JAQ-off splatter all over the walls.)

Christ on a cracker; you really don’t know how this stuff works do you? Magnets anyone?

@Matt:

I’m in the humanities; I’m also a poet. I make sh*t up all the time.

The grant is actually intended to defray the costs of a summer internship in the city government of L’viv. I’m considering a possible career in the Foreign Service, or maybe making connections that could lead to future ex-pat-hood, given the dearth of tenure track jobs in the humanities in general, my field in particular.

@Denice:

Aw, c’mon, it could be fun.

Well, I *could* have gone all David Hume on the subject of the self

You say “bundle of sensations”, I say “Skandha”.

G-d! I’ve had an interesting life!
But let’s not go there. I wouldn’t want to get sued.

JP, I know so much awful stuff about people – and I exclude clients as a matter of course- just relatives, friends,
paramours and extended contacts through them. It’s a veritable horror show**, not good at all. Sex. corruption, malfeasance, greed and incredibly nosey people who have no lives of their own to speak of so they have to mind others’ business.

Right now I am trying to intervene for two extremely emotionally vulnerable cousins who are being harassed by distant relations seeking money and probably, entertainment at their distress.

** pun.

A lot of therapists are into Buddhism of a sort
Theravada OF COURSE.

That’s quite literally nonsense.

You’re talking to someone who thought this made sense in the You Fools Don’t Know The MEANINGS Of Words Department: “A policy is different from a law. Policies are set by agencies which are typically authorized by law to create said policies.”

Because laws have nothing to do with public policy. Or something.

Helianthus: “Did you miss the part where a lot of people are completely freaked out by chemo? Or surgery, for that matter. Just read the recent threads on the late wellness warrior. Chemo is not a good reference for risk comparison.”

Actually it is- anti-vax parents have no life outside of their kids, therefore they will do anything to keep the kids alive, and it isn’t just chemo- I imagine that they might be a little more tractable once the pediatrician explains that the parents will have to set any bones kid breaks, and oh, yeah, the ped can’t do anything if it heals wrong. Or that emergency surgery/transfusions/stitches are also off the table. Like I said, the parents need to be called on account- if vaccines are off the table, so is everything medical. Ever. Here’s the first-aid kit, here are some bandages, there’s the door.

@ Pgp

Like I said, the parents need to be called on account- if vaccines are off the table, so is everything medical.

A bit harsh, especially since the ones which will suffer are not the ones deciding but rather their children.
But right now, I’m so tired of all this sh!t that I could go for this suggestion.

There is an old adage about the foolishness of ignoring the advice of experts.

Sadly, though, people who are deep enough into alt med won’t do anything to keep their kids alive. (Think of Makayla Sault, for instance.) And then the kids die. Poor kids.

That’s funny, feelings come up in my Buddhist practice all the time.

@Ann

The concept of law is not predicated on the fabric of linguistics. That’s quite literally nonsense.

Yes- you are right that doesn’t really make sense the way I worded it. Good thing I wasn’t attempting to draft a law with my post.

Of course, they will either ignore this comment or mock it. But if their goal is to win more trust in the vaccines, they are not succeeding.

ZOMG!!11 ZOMG!!!!11 YER ALL PHARMA SHILLZ.

There Victor, how’s that.

@Victor

I’m not on your “team” dude. I’m not on any “team” here.

According to my view- this whole “You’re either for us or against us.” attitude which seems to pervade just about every topic nowadays is the problem, itself.

You’re projecting your view on to my words just like some other supposed “pro-vaxxers” here.

The problem is: Nobody ever really asked me what my view on vaccines was. They just jump to assumptions.

Well here… why don’t I just tell you. Especially since I have a baby due in just a few weeks it’s particularly relevant for me right now.

My view is: I distrust anybody who claims that vaccines are 100% safe, and that anybody who has a question about them must be an “anti-vax” nutter. I also distrust anybody who claims that vaccines are 100% unsafe, and that anybody who supports the current vaccination schedule is a “Pharma shill.”

Why? Well first off, because there are different types of vaccines. Secondly, because each vaccine has a different risk/benefit profile.

So here’s what I’m planning to do. I’m planning to vaccinate my kid, and to consult with a pediatrician about exactly which vaccines to give and when.

I’m hoping that the pediatrician can actually formulate a more nuanced opinion than simply, “Vaccines are the BEST THING EVARRR and you should do whatever the CDC says you should do because government agencies are AWESOME, and you should blindly trust whatever they say. And if you DON’T do whatever they say, I will kick you out of my practice, call CPS on you, and hope that you get put in jail.”

(I’m exaggerating for effect BTW.)

We’ll find out next week. Wish me luck.

@lilady

Why don’t you provide some suggestions about posting comments which are evidence-based/science-based, with some proof, that do not *antagonize anti-vaxxers, Matt?

I imagine that “anti-vaxxers” will be antagonized whatever you say. But here are some suggestions for the vast majority* who live somewhere between black and white. (*no I don’t have a citation for that)

If somebody rolls in with a “stupid” question or a nonsensical “anti-vax” trope that keeps rearing its ugly head no matter how many times it’s been slapped down… first of all don’t sit idly by while other members of your “community” (or whatever you want to call it) make troll-ish antagonistic comments about them.

You should have a zero-tolerance policy for trolling, name-calling, and other juvenile behaviors here.

Next up- you should attempt to establish rapport with the person by acknowledging that their concerns (however misguided you feel them to be) are actually coming from a place of love and care.

Assure them that’s a good thing. For example: “It seems to me that you must really care about the health and well-being of yourself and your family. That’s great! We also care a lot about people’s health. We want people to be healthy too, and we applaud your efforts to look out for yourself and your loved ones.”

How about starting there… and seeing if the conversation goes in a different direction.

@Matt

Congratulations on the coming baby. You will love it!

I think what you say about vaccines makes a lot of sense. Your approach is similar to what my husband and I did with our kids. It’s great if you have the time and ability to research each vaccine a bit to make your decision. You are correct that the cost/benefit equation is a bit different for each vaccine. It certainly made sense to me to evaluate them based on our family history and the risk of each disease in our local area. For example, we decided to skip the Hep B vaccine back in 1999 due to low risk of our newborn becoming infected. On the other hand, measles is so contagious that despite it being essentially non-existent in the US then, I had no qualms about making sure they got that vaccine.

Victor, you failed to answer this question: “Now, explain to us how Wakefield’s fraudulent actions were the fault of the CDC and any pharmaceutical company.”

@Science Mom #311

Just as I thought. Mocking comes easy when you don’t have anything better to say.

But I still see no takers on the simple suggestion that pharma executives who are guilty of criminal wrongdoing (in relation to drug testing, promotion, etc.) MUST go to prison.

Everybody loves to hate Wakefield. But I think he should probably get a Nobel Prize if only for making people realize the extent of corruption inside the pharma industry and the drug marketing journal (aka medical journals) industry.

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138

Victor, so Wakefield’s actions are forgiven by you because he was being paid by a lawyer while working for the NHS? Do they give Novel prizes for those who lie about their work?

So exactly how did the CDC and pharmaceutical companies cause Wakefield to commit change the data on the several of the dozen kids?

And exactly which of the three MMR vaccines that the UK introduced in 1988 was his research on? And why was there an American kid who got the American MMR vaccine?

@Chris

Wakefield’s ethics do not matter in the bigger picture. The ethics of pharma industry do. Vaccines are made by the pharma industry, not by Wakefiled in his garage.

I don’t really care that much if Wakefield goes to prison or gets a Nobel prize. But I do care a lot about the ethics of people who test my vaccines. So what do you think of the suggestion that pharma executives who are guilty of criminal wrongdoing (in relation to drug testing, promotion, etc.) MUST go to prison?

^aren’t FFS.

Victor: The arrogance of the vaccination fascists is beyond belief. They will make you an offer (a la Godfather) you can’t refuse.

Nope, simple logic. If the parents don’t trust a pediatrician to give vaccines, they won’t trust the pediatrician to provide other sorts of medical care. And why should the pediatrician have to put up with that? Also, the parents already believe that the education they have is superior to the ped’s and therefore, only went to the office to antagonize the doctors. They don’t actually want any medical care.

Matt: But here are some suggestions for the vast majority* who live somewhere between black and white.

I pointed out a while ago, that on this issue, there are no fence sitters. Pretending that there are is a flat-out lie.

Matt, again: Next up- you should attempt to establish rapport with the person by acknowledging that their concerns (however misguided you feel them to be) are actually coming from a place of love and care.

Oh, boy, you haven’t actually met many anti-vaxxers have you? I dare you to read any ten posts at Age of Autism and Thinking Mom’s Revolution. If you still think the parents at those blogs are capable of “love and care” for any one but themselves after reading their posts, I just don’t know what to say. And these are the people who bankroll the famous anti-vaxxers, not a bunch of random trolls.
A lot of the other posters here have had more direct engagements with the people at those blogs. Rappaport isn’t possible- I’d rather deal with pond scum any day.

@Politicalguineapig #331
Looks like the arrogance here is really deep-rooted. You are forgetting that the doctors work for the patients and not the other way around.

Businesses always put up with the whims of their customers even when they seem irrational.

So what do you think of the suggestion that pharma executives who are guilty of criminal wrongdoing (in relation to drug testing, promotion, etc.) MUST go to prison?

It depends – what are the prescribed punishments for the crimes for which they’ve been found guilty? If they’re guilty of a crime and the law says they must serve prison time, then of course.

I’m here to argue against making laws to enforce the scientific consensus about vaccines. (Or any other scientific consensus, for that matter.)

Rules on vaccination aren’t intended to enforce the scientific consensus – they’re intended to preserve public health and should be based on the scientific consensus for what will best achieve that goal.

Victor: “I said I really don’t care about Wakefield that much.”

Ah really, fanboi? Here are your words: “Everybody loves to hate Wakefield. But I think he should probably get a Nobel Prize if only for making people realize the extent of corruption inside the pharma industry and the drug marketing journal (aka medical journals) industry. ”

Oooh, you have become a bit shouty: “BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE SUGGESTION THAT PHARMA EXECUTIVES WHO ARE GUILTY OF CRIMINAL WRONGDOING (IN RELATION TO DRUG TESTING, ETC) MUST GO TO PRISON?”

You have no real evidence that anyone associated with the development, manufacturing, testing and distribution of vaccines have engaged in any illegal activity. If you did you would not have made vague pronouncements.

Do tell us who is guilty and of what crime with real specifics. Just don’t mention this one, which is just silly.

@Chris #334 and #336
You are so obsessed with Wakefield!
May be you are one of the pharma executives that I was referring to in #334.

@Chris

http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/bigpharma

So what do you think of the suggestion that pharma executives who are guilty of criminal wrongdoing (in relation to drug testing, promotion, etc.) MUST go to prison?

Well first, what crimes have been committed and by whom?

may AFFECT THEM.

Victor: “http://projects.propublica.org/graphics/bigpharma”

None of those have anything to do with vaccines.

Again what comes have been committed by the vaccine divisions of pharmaceutical companies? How are they worse than Wakefield’s fraudulent deeds, and the Geiers chemical castration treatment, Boyd Haley selling an industrial chelator as a supplement and those who promote MMS, a bleach people are giving children in enemas?

You cannot claim unnamed persons need to go to jail for unnamed deeds, yet let the scams perpetrated on desperate be ignored.

Do tell us who is guilty and of what crime with real specifics. Just don’t mention this one, which is just silly.

Actually, Krahling & Wlochowski would be one good place for Victor to start sorting out his now-shrieking thought-blob into something vaguely connected to the actual world.

the relationship can be a bit Sid and Nancy at times, to be honest

“Mutually assured self-destruction” is a phrase that just occurred to me.

So what do you think of the suggestion that pharma executives who are guilty of criminal wrongdoing (in relation to drug testing, promotion, etc.) MUST go to prison?

If Vijay was right back at #157, vaccination laws are a huge drug-company conspiracy to cover up the fact that vaccines shorten life-spans:

The primary reason the vaccine companies want to take away all vax exemptions is so that no unvaccinated or undervaccinated kids remain around for comparison with fully vaccinated kids.
Because the worst thing for them is a future study which shows that unvaccinated or undervaccinated kids remain healthier and live longer on average than fully vaccinated kids.

If they’re that powerful, I’m sure the executives can conceal any evidence of how much they know

@MOB #348

1. If a crime is committed by an employee X in marketing, the R&D folks should not have to worry about it. Only Mr. X and the people in the chain of command above X would be potentially liable.

2.Re scapegoating: If a guy is innocent, and does not want to be punished for the misdeeds of others, all he has to do is to notify his boss about any potentially criminal activity in his group through emails. Then his boss will be the one going to prison if he does not act to stop the illegal activity.

Victor, what kind of punishment do you think is fair for chemically castrating children?

Also, what about trapping a five year old down to push drugs into them until they died, only because the child was autistic?

If a guy is innocent, and does not want to be punished for the misdeeds of others, all he has to do is to notify his boss about any potentially criminal activity in his group through emails. Then his boss will be the one going to prison if he does not act to stop the illegal activity.

To go to full on corporate intrigue/conspiracy mode: If I, as that person’s boss, had deliberately set that person up as scapegoat, I would ensure I never read those messages and that they were accidentally deleted. Likewise, I’d ensure that the person I was trying to protect sent said messages to my chosen scapegoat at every opportunity – preferably in a way that would be ignored.

@ PGP:

That’s a hilarious image: doctor-barista.**
Perhaps the woo-entranced carp about doctors’ elitism so much because the latter DON’T cater to their every whim.

** and I’ll leave the diverse medicinal uses of coffee aside

@lilady

You’ve got your colossal nerve to presume to give me advice about how I comment

Why don’t you provide some suggestions about posting comments which are evidence-based/science-based, with some proof, that do not *antagonize anti-vaxxers, Matt?

*blink*

Here is another question

Howsabout you deal with your first incoherent position rather than trying to escape to another dopily ill-posed one?

So what do you think of the suggestion that pharma executives who are guilty of criminal wrongdoing (in relation to drug testing, promotion, etc.) MUST go to prison?

You imagine that pharma companies cannot be trusted at all, yet you propose that they can be trusted on who they want to throw under the bus when someone does something deemed bad. Uh huh.
OTOH, we know of a famous vaccine developer/researcher who committed blatant fraud against his competition, also accepting Legal Aid funds in the process. Are you suggesting that Wakefield s[pend time in the pokey?

@Bill
Wakefield is not that important to me. He is not making and testing MY vaccines.

Even if the pharma companies throw a few scapegoats under the bus, it would eventually lead to a less corrupt system. Employees will become smart enough to avoid becoming scapegoats. They may document/record critical conversations with their bosses to protect themselves, or have witnesses (or do whatever works). The current system has no accountability for criminal actions that threaten the health of tens of thousands.

Plenty of people don’t trust the drug companies today (including me). And as someone said earlier, you cannot earn trust through bullying, mocking, trivializing, patronizing, and so on. You cannot even earn trust by presenting tons of statistics and scientific evidence. Building trust is a slow process and it requires doing things that seem trustworthy to others.

@Dangerous Bacon

How about an alternate antibiotic schedule? You could take half the recommended dose on alternate days, or maybe skip the antibiotics entirely until you see whether an alternative remedy is working.

If I have a life-threatening bacterial infection- I will take the antibiotics as prescribed.

However, if for some reason I didn’t… I don’t think I should be fined or jailed for endangering public health, or have my child taken away for exposing them to dangerous pathogens.

Victor: “Here is another question”

How about you answering our questions on what specific malfeasance has been committed by any employee connected the development, testing, manufacturing and distribution of vaccines?

Plus compare that to the real crimes committed by those who prey on parents of disabled children. What punishment should Dr. Usman after her treating disabled children with unproven and unnecessary methods. By the way, she is the one who ordered Dr. Kerry to perform the treatment that killed a kid.

I am tired of this bahviour; make a statement, people criticize it, and rather than dealing with that, just move on to another point.

I am tired of being asked questions by one party, and then being jumped on by a third-party when attempting to answer the question.

Or in at least one recent case… being asked a question by one party, and then being jumped on by the SAME party when attempting to answer the question.

@Denice:

I wonder if various methods ( meditation et al) of emptying the mind might be replaced effectively with ways of filling the mind instead with better stuffing. Might be easier to manage.

Actually, it’s a common misconception that meditation means “emptying the mind,” at least in regards to zazen. In fact, I was drifting away from the practice over the past couple years, due to being busy and also not in the best place mentally, sort of.

The practice is actually to let whatever comes up come up, without clinging to it or running away from it, which I think is actually psychologically useful. Some people do fall into trying to suppress thought or emotion, which is actually not recommended – it’s like trying to climb out of one’s humanity, which is impossible, really. In any case, since coming back to a more earnest practice over the past month or so, I have found it to be helpful in a certain way.

@Bill

The company does not merely nominate a scapegoat. The company also allows FDA, DOJ, etc. to investigate individual culpability. It allows access to internal documents and emails. It cannot stonewall.

The judicial process determines the ultimate culprit. But if the FDA determines that there was a criminal violation, they would be required to nail down at least one employee (the senior-most possible). They cannot merely fine the company.

But if the FDA determines that there was a criminal violation, they would be required to nail down at least one employee (the senior-most possible).

At least now you’ve made it irrefutably clear that you have no fυcking idea how federal criminal prosecutions work.

@ JP:

I’m somewhat familiar with that from reading, training for working with people ( relaxation techniques etc) Some of the mindfulness ideas may be related.
My own approach is rather to actively *build* whatever one builds in the mind’s eye/ ear. More related to direction via inner speech, self-talk, rehearsal, preparation. Writing.
Rather than allowing a stream, directing a stream.

See this article, for instance.

Anger is also not very effective at building trust.

I’m not “angry,” Victor, I’m pointing out a simple fact.

I will offer a protip, though: Tediously evading the implicit observation that you’re full of shіt isn’t a great trust-builder, either. Now, perhaps you could go Occupy!1!! your Propublica link instead of treating it like a magic talisman, and get back with the specific causes of action, the specific outcomes, what you would specifically disallow among those, what you augur the effects would be, and how you come to that conclusion.

Victor: “Why? Because in the best case, you are trying to “sell” me vaccines. In the worst case, you are trying to impose your will on me. ”

Your my customer?

Oh, really? Point out the comment where I tried to sell you any vaccine.

You made a claim, and I am trying to get to prove that claim. You have not clarified what crimes have been made by any vaccine division employee of a pharmaceutical company. You have also not condemned any of the actions made by the Geiers, Roy Kerry, Boyd Haley, Wakefield and the other vultures who prey on parents of disabled kids.

Come on, tell us… do you support selling worthless and sometimes harmful stuff to be used on disabled kids?

^That was @Denice.

In the worst case, you are trying to impose your will on me.

It’s a little-known fact that Wille zur Macht and Thelema were actually the underpinnings of common law before someone like Julie Christie birthed of The Age Of Impurity.

Yeah, “spiritual method” and “way of self-control” are pretty different things. I just feel a little bit weird, to be honest, about the way that Buddhist meditation has been taken out of its 2500-year-old context and community in order to use it as a therapeutic modality. I mean, there are reasons why these communities and teachers exist.

That said, I do think there’s a lot of value in what has been termed “mindfulness” meditation – I just wish that there was more recognition, within the psychotherapeutic community, that’s it’s not a panacea, and it’s not a trivial thing.

the way that Buddhist meditation has been taken out of its 2500-year-old context

I’m not so sure that those two noun phrases connect easily.

@Matt
“If I have a life-threatening bacterial infection- I will take the antibiotics as prescribed.

However, if for some reason I didn’t… I don’t think I should be fined or jailed for endangering public health, or have my child taken away for exposing them to dangerous pathogens”

In the interest of exploring your legal philosophy, should the state take your children if exposing them to the infection risks their life? Let’s say that you don’t believe HIV causes AIDS or that your spiritual beliefs will clear your Ebola. Are you a caregiver who can be delinquent, an owner who can do what he wills or something else?

^ For example, the whole Mahakashyapa thing with the flower was invented out of whole cloth as a matter of Ch’an political jockeying.

I’m not so sure that those two noun phrases connect easily.

Yeah, okay, I was being very general. There are a lot of different kinds of “meditation,” and many different philosophical traditions within Buddhism. But there are certain “freak-outs” that can certainly occur even within the context of what’s lately been termed, in a secular sense “mindfulness meditation.” If you’re really unlucky, for instance, and you don’t have anybody around to set you straight, you might become convinced that you’re the latest Incarnation of God, or whatever, and become a millionaire guru or something. These things do happen.

Or gassing a Tokyo subway or something, say. I’m fairly sure that Asahara probably had some sort of “awakening” experience, but without any sort of proper context within which to deal with it. Like somebody smacking you upside the head and telling you you’re not that freaking special, for instance.

Victor: “If you support mandatory vaccination and I don’t, then you are (at least indirectly) trying to impose your will on me”

Where did I say that? It is okay dokay if you don’t vaccinated your kids. Just make sure you don’t whine when they have to stay home during an outbreak. If you are going to get an exception, then follow the rules.

Also thank your responsible neighbors who vaccinate their families, because they are protecting your kids by maintaining community immunity. Except, as we have seen recently, that did not work for several American and Canadian families who caught measles.

I want you to provide the evidence of the crimes of employees of the vaccine divisions of pharmaceutical companies.

Also I want to know why the misdeeds against disabled of Usman, Bradstreet, Buttar, the Geiers, Wakefield, and others are not given the same scrutiny.

Stop changing the subject and answer the questions.

Like somebody smacking you upside the head and telling you you’re not that freaking special, for instance.

IIRC, this sort of behavior finds its ground in the Pai-chang/wild fox story, which didn’t make its way into the Wu-men kuan without emendation.

IIRC, this sort of behavior finds its ground in the Pai-chang/wild fox story, which didn’t make its way into the Wu-men kuan without emendation.

Yeah, it’s been around for a while.

[whoops, sorry]

@Niche Geek

In the interest of exploring your legal philosophy, should the state take your children if exposing them to the infection risks their life? Let’s say that you don’t believe HIV causes AIDS or that your spiritual beliefs will clear your Ebola. Are you a caregiver who can be delinquent, an owner who can do what he wills or something else?

In the interest of exploring my philosophy… being ALIVE exposes one to all manner of risks, and the only [apparent] certainty is that we are all going to die one way or another.

I don’t believe it is the state’s place to swoop in and protect everybody from all the dangers lurking around every corner.

I don’t believe I own my [future] children. I believe I am their caretaker, and discharging that duty will surely come with all manner of ethical choices- none of which I believe the state has any business making on my behalf.

What if I allow my kid to play hockey, and they take a puck to the face in a freak accident and die? What if I allow my kid to subsist on cheetoes and happy meals, and they become obese and get diabetes and have their leg amputated?

What if…? What if…? What if…? Where does it end?

Heck- why not sterilize people with a high probability of passing on a fatal genetic disorder to their children? Or why not charge somebody who DOES pass along a fatal genetic disorder to their child with murder?

Why not force everybody to undergo daily cancer screenings under the guise of “preventive care” and then charge those who refuse treatments with crimes?

Why not form a Tooth Brushing Brigade to go up and down the streets every morning and night to issue citations to naughty citizens who don’t follow their dentist’s advice?

I know. I know… slippery slope fallacy. I get it. But sometimes you just don’t know you’re on the slope until it’s too late.

Philosophically speaking- I want to know what is the principle upon where we draw a line. When do we say “enough” to the government “protecting us from ourselves.”

I don’t purport to have the answer. I don’t know that there is an answer.

But what concerns me is that there appear to be a whole LOT* of people around that seem to have no problem willy-nilly banning “this” and mandating “that” all for the “greater good.” (*no I don’t have a citation for that.)

It concerns me. And I think you should be concerned too.

^ As is civil liability for negligent transmission of infectious disease.

@Narad

It doesn’t have anything to do with mandatory vaccination directly. I was asked to comment on my philosophy.

To your other points… yes if somebody feels they can make a case that an unvaccinated child negligently transmitted measles to their own child, thus resulting in harm, then maybe the parent can be found liable. Sue the parents.

Problem? No problem. I have -no- problem with that. Actually, I think that’s a really great idea. Maybe people should try that.

Matt, you still haven’t answered the question about whether the state should allow the sale of lead paint and lead soldiers (among other toys.) Is that a case of “the state swooping in” to prevent children from harm? If it is, is that a bad thing?

Re: seat belts: I used to quite a bit more “libertarian” in my thinking on certain issues. This was partly due to my anarchism (which, in certain ways, I have to admit, I still hold to in my heart of hearts) and partly due to a certain frontier mentality I picked up from my relatives growing up.

I remember, though, a conversation I had with a friend when I was in college. I was sort of arguing the philosophical position that the state shouldn’t be dictating safety measures to adults – for kids, okay, but not adults. She made a good point, though:

“Well, your decisions about these things don’t affect only you. What about the onlookers who get to witness you flying through your* windshield? What if you fly into somebody else? What about the EMTS who’ll have to pry your bloody corpse off of the freeway and deal with that experience, which will only add to the day-to-day trauma they experience? What about your friends and family who care about you?”

*I’ve never owned a car or had a driver’s license, so this conversation was largely hypothetical. I am often enough a passenger in other people’s cars, though, I suppose, so the point still stands.

@Chris

My legal philosophy is this: If harm is shown to have occurred, then the person(s) responsible for causing the harm should be held liable.

^ But people shouldn’t be held liable for what “might” have occurred, or what “could” occur, or any sort of “what if.”

If my unvaccinated kid harms your vaccinated kid, then I should be held liable. But not until then.

If a restaurant serves up some funky chicken and people get sick, they should be held liable. But not until then.

If my septic system leaks into your yard and my feces infiltrate your garden, causing you to fall ill, I should be held liable. But not until then.

And so on.

Comprehensive bullshit. You reveal yourself as a complete sociopath.

I mean, should we just let buffets keep chicken salad out all day at any ol’ temperature, and rely on people suing them for damages if they get food poisoning and maybe, uh, die from it?

Niche Geek: “Are you a caregiver who can be delinquent, an owner who can do what he wills or something else? “

In the US, letting children die for your spiritual beliefs is legal in many states.

Cynthia Maurer: Those people opposed to vaccines for their own children are not anti-science. In fact we have yet to see the science that confirms vaccines to be safe or to be effective. Rather is the pro vaccine cabal that are the loonies in this situation because they can’t see the forest for the trees. You think we are not going to go down without a fight to let anyone rape our children with toxin containing syringes.

1. You people are anti-science. Vaccines have been studied to death, you just stick your fingers in your ears and howl.
2. Comparing vaccines to rape. Really, lady, get some class. Or better yet, go back to Age of Autism with the rest of the scum-sucking amoebas.
3. I hope you get diptheria.

Chris: “Why is it okay to torture autistic kids?”

Short version is that to most anti-vaxxers, autistic kids don’t make it into the category of human. Neither do depressed kids, kids with ADD, kids with cancer, or, in short, kids with flaws of any sort.

If my septic system leaks into your yard and my feces infiltrate your garden, causing you to fall ill, I should be held liable. But not until then *plonk*.

FTFY.

If my unvaccinated kid harms your vaccinated kid, then I should be held liable. But not until then.

The legal system is limited in what it can do by way of repairing damages. If it’s monetary, you could be ordered to pay, and the person you injured could try to collect. The me! ME! ME! attitude that comes through your writings is a strong hint that collecting monetary damages from you would be a nontrivial task.
But no amount of monetary compensation is enough to make up for the three weeks o downtime from the measles your VPD vector is distributing, much less any permanent damage—or death—your antisocial behavior caused. Yes, your willful failure to vaccinate your kid is definitely antisocial.
An ounce of prevention, as trhe saying goes, is worth a pound of cure; but only when cure is possible. VPDs are not always curable.

^ But people shouldn’t be held liable for what “might” have occurred, or what “could” occur, or any sort of “what if.”

If my unvaccinated kid harms your vaccinated kid, then I should be held liable. But not until then.

If a restaurant serves up some funky chicken and people get sick, they should be held liable. But not until then.

If my septic system leaks into your yard and my feces infiltrate your garden, causing you to fall ill, I should be held liable. But not until then.

And so on.

Pure Libberish.

“But no amount of monetary compensation is enough to make up for the three weeks o downtime from the measles your VPD vector is distributing, much less any permanent damage—or death—your antisocial behavior caused.”

I think a bigger antisocial behavior may be driving cars on roads used by pedestrians.
Thousand of peds are killed or maimed every year. It is easy to prevent it too. Just ban car-driving on roads used by pedestrians.

JP: We were both weird kids, weird “girls” growing up, yeah? Both smart, etc. We both got along better with guys than with gals, etc.

That’s true. Though I got the memo that girls don’t hang with guys outside of school pretty young. It helped that I ended up in a private school where I was often placed in classes with older kids. And my class was almost all boys, which, thankfully, eliminated much gossiping. Most of my friends are now female, which is less me changing than me being unwilling to navigate the minefield of being friends with dudes, which can get very unfortunately complicated very quickly.
As for emotional stuff, I tend to have a series of small crisises rather than big huge crashes. As far as spiritual things, the only thing I know is that I’m going to see a black rail before I die, if I have to crawl to the marsh. I’m far too high-strung and fidgety for meditation, and any other religion requires giving up too much.

Hey, Matt, I have a question- do you want a kid or a perfect kid? Are you planning to take them to a doctor if they break a bone? Get cancer? Get bit by a dog? And how miserable do you plan to make your child’s life if they have ADD or autism?

I see the “Oh you can just sue” argument come up all the time, in many different contexts, and it just seems so hopelessly naive.

Even with the lower standard of evidence in civil cases, it is going to be difficult to show responsibility for many things. Think you have food poisoning? It might be from that restaurant you ate at the day before, maybe, and we often attribute to that, but since it can take days for food poisoning to present itself, it might have been that egg salad sandwich you made for lunch. Unless there was a mass poisoning, it is going to be rather hard to find evidence.

It is also very classist. Lawsuits require resources, if you are poor, you are kind of screwed. Maybe you can find someone who will work on a contingency basis but maybe not. And as others have mentioned, suing someone might result in you getting some money, if you are lucky enough to sue someone with assets, but it is hardly compensation in many cases.

If my septic system leaks into your yard and my feces infiltrate your garden, causing you to fall ill, I should be held liable. But not until then.

So, Matt, if one were to dump a pile of human feces onto your lawn but nobody got sick, ‘sall good?

You cannot even earn trust by presenting tons of statistics and scientific evidence. Building trust is a slow process and it requires doing things that seem trustworthy to others.

That’s because you don’t know science. Science is a method where we eliminate a truckload of hypothesis including the one you (or I) prefer in order to have the best hypothesis possible. That’s it.

As for you, you have a bias that other have to overcome, i.e. being trustworthy but how can we determine that we got your trust? Post your criteria and definitely don’t deviate from them; or at least, tell us so. The onus is on you. Period.

Alain

Matt: “If my septic system leaks into your yard and my feces infiltrate your garden, causing you to fall ill, I should be held liable. But not until then.”

Is your last name Sisley? Because we have one in our city, and he has totally blighted a neighborhood:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/city-pocket-park-may-replace-roosevelt-area-blight/

Matt, you are quite welcome to live as you see fit. Just don’t be anywhere near other people. I hear Somalia has the kind of government you would like, and it has (or had) nice beaches.

@Matt:

But people shouldn’t be held liable for what “might” have occurred, or what “could” occur, or any sort of “what if.”

Matt, you are talking utter horse puckey.
If a person is caught driving drunk, that person is arrested, even if he or she hasn’t caused an accident. If a building is not built to code, the authorities can get a demolition order, even before the building collapses and kills someone. The law entitles the authorities to take measures to prevent tragedies, and rightly so. We’ve had libertarians commenting here before, and we’re most unimpressed with your (and their) “I’m fine Jack, toughies for you” attitude.

Ooops-might have confused Matt and Victor…

@PGP

If enough parents vaccinate in a ped’s practice, they should have a party thrown for them, and the anti-vaxxers parents get to hear about the perks.

This is actually not a bad idea. I’m reminded of stopped clocks.

The distrust about vaccination has nothing to do with trusting/distrusting a pediatrician. It has to do with distrust in the government, in CDC, in pharma companies, and so on. They are the ones who have to repair the distrust.

Yeah, the antivaxxers I know in real life mistrust the medical system as a whole and aren’t specific about the individual parts.

@ Narad:

I would have to agree.
It always seemed to me that the philosophical exemption was just the religious exemption that was conveniently used by the non-religious.
Although if you think about it, perhaps anti-vaccinationism IS religion.

Though I got the memo that girls don’t hang with guys outside of school pretty young. It helped that I ended up in a private school where I was often placed in classes with older kids. And my class was almost all boys, which, thankfully, eliminated much gossiping.

Huh – I never got that memo, or if I did, I ignored it. I missed a lot of memos, though, growing up.

I went to public school, and I pretty much hated it it after elementary school, mainly because, let’s be honest here, I was too smart for the place. I particularly remember getting in trouble a lot in junior high for reading during class – I mean, hey, it wasn’t my fault I’d known how plate tectonics worked since second grade. I had a bit of an attitude, too, I suppose, which is not a welcome thing in a basically rural, working class school.

Most of my friends were guys pretty much just because most of the other weirdos and bad seeds were guys, with one or two exceptions. I actually got more flak for looking like a boy than for hanging out with boys, I think.

As for emotional stuff, I tend to have a series of small crisises rather than big huge crashes

I envy you. I have been cursed with a certain amount of northern reserve, or stoicism, or whatever you want to call it, and I tend to neglect my mental health, or bottle things up or whatever, until the point where I do have a major crisis. Other people have noticed this as well.

I’m far too high-strung and fidgety for meditation, and any other religion requires giving up too much.

It’s not my intention to proselytize, but if meditation is something you’re interested in, being high-strung and fidgety is not an obstacle; a lot of people get into meditation for that reason. If you have a hard time sitting still, you could start with, say, 5 minutes a day and work up from there. Jumping into an hour long meditation-with-chanting-service kind of thing would probably be a little much, though if you kept going with it, you’d eventually want to find a community to practice with.

JP: “have been cursed with a certain amount of northern reserve, or stoicism, or whatever you want to call it, and I tend to neglect my mental health, or bottle things up or whatever, until the point where I do have a major crisis.”

I’m fairly stoic too, I just tend to prefer small controlled detonations where people can’t see. Or in some cases, in public areas where screaming, shouting and elbowing people is acceptable.

JP: “went to public school, and I pretty much hated it it after elementary school, mainly because, let’s be honest here, I was too smart for the place. I particularly remember getting in trouble a lot in junior high for reading during class – I mean, hey, it wasn’t my fault I’d known how plate tectonics worked since second grade.”

That was second grade for me, and a major reason why I transferred. Since the primary school in the school I transferred into was kind of a jumble, I took sixth grade classes in reading, and as long as I was quiet, and did a reasonable amount of work, no one noticed if I zoned out for a half hour or amused myself by working ahead. High school was okay, though, thankfully I was geographically isolated from the other kids and had a reputation as the tough chick- so, I didn’t deal with the other girls outside of school much.
I have friends, yeah, I just don’t see them much. I prefer solitude, and kinda fret over misunderstandings. Plus there’s the problem of accidentally ruining a dude forever, not a responsibility I want.

There were a few classes where I annoyed the teacher in high school- one persistent mistake I make is pronouncing words as they are read, not as they are said, and I get defensive about mistakes like that. My health teacher was a creep- not an overt one, just having a general air of creepiness, and I disliked the shop teacher, as he took over from a guy I liked.

one persistent mistake I make is pronouncing words as they are read, not as they are said, and I get defensive about mistakes like that.

I had a particularly mortifying experience in my first year of grad school when I asked what the word “enjambment” meant, as I had always pronounced it as “en-jam-ment,” and I think hadn’t ever even heard the Frenchy pronunciation.

@Matt

Thanks for the response, but it feels that you are rather muddled in your libertarian views. One of your first examples was a court enforcing a contract. Isn’t that *exactly* what you say you want? That the contract is between two parents and concerns medical treatment should be irrelevant if you are following libertarian principles.

As for the issue of vaccination, you seem to be implying that public school is a right without any corresponding responsibilities. It isn’t. For example, a child can be excluded from public school as a result of disruptive behaviour. That means we have an implied contract between the school (government) and the students/family. That contract includes rules intended to facilitate community learning. That includes minimizing the risk that children will miss lessons or die or, through their actions, cause other children to miss lessons or die.

On re-reading my last post I feel that I imply that I’m a libertarian. For the record, I’m not a libertarian in any meaningful way.

If I have misunderstood your Matt’s position then he is obviously free to clarify it. I recognize that I applied a label (libertarian) that he didn’t claim for himself and that is always problematic.

Lastly, there are many libertarians and conservatives that see government regulation as inherently evil. They seem to forget that many of the health and safety regulations and systems that we have in place exist because we tried the alternative and realized that it didn’t work (or caused a whole lot of suffering… same thing).

We’ve had private fire departments that only put out fires when you paid for their services – and we had whole cities burn.

We’ve had free-form construction where anyone could build anything they wanted – and we had whole cities burn.

We’ve had private land owners use their land to the fullest extent they want – and we’ve denuded whole islands resulting in mass starvation and societal collapse.

We’ve allowed people to sell any medicine they like and make whatever claims they want – and many people died and were disfigured.

A court cannot make you whole. Money does not replace a dead child or spouse. Smart contractors form shell companies and declare bankruptcy before they can be sued for shoddy workmanship (and reopen under a different name) – why wouldn’t drug, device and other manufacturers do the same thing?

Why do we only hear about rights and not responsibilities?

Niche Geek: “Why do we only hear about rights and not responsibilities?”

Which is why I suggested that Matt try Somalia, as it has a government more in tune to his philosophy. Especially after his comment on how well he would deal with a septic system.

Definitely need more gov’t regulations-
(Friend just developed nasty intestinal infection after hospital operation)
http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/organisms/cdiff/Cdiff_infect.html

Based on the decrease in these infections, ken, over the past few years, it seems like hospitals are taking the problem seriously and addressing the problems.

#474
I’m not sure I follow your logic. If your child is vaccinated how can one without vaccinations put your child at risk unless he is immunocompromised. My children were vaccinated-why would I worry?

If your child is vaccinated how can one without vaccinations put your child at risk unless he is immunocompromised.

1. What do you have against those who are immunocompromised?
2. Vaccines train the immune system to respond to infections, but this is not a 100% guarantee. Some percentage of those vaccinated will not become immune to the disease, just as some percentage of those who catch the disease are not completely immune. If my child were vaccinated but not immune, your unimunized child places my child at risk.

2 were vaccinated-2 were not out of 4 cases. Is this a 50%failure rate of the vaccine?

No.

2 were vaccinated-2 were not out of 4 cases. Is this a 50%failure rate of the vaccine?

Only if the entire vaccinated population consists these two plus two others, for a total population of four people.

That would be a total population of 6 people (the 2 vaccinated who became infected, the 2 vaccinated who didn’t become infected, and the two unvaccinated).

Also worth noting is that these students tested positive for pertussis; it says nothing about the severity of their symptoms. The pertussis vaccine doesn’t always prevent infection, but it stimulates antibodies to the pertussis toxin, thus reducing or eliminating symptoms even if infection occurs. This means that a vaccinated person may be infected but not exhibit symptoms, or at least have much milder symptoms than an infected unvaccinated person. This reduces contagiousness by reducing coughing, which play a major role in spreading the disease.

Sorry. Replace “Matt” with “Ken” in my above comment.

Can someone here (including orac) direct me to some collection of definitive studies that prove the claim of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines? Please leave out the ridicule, the arrogance and appeal to authority, the appeal to popularity, the appeal to emotion, the name-calling and general immaturity. What I am looking for is: objective peer-reviewed studies that clearly show the a) the relative safety and the b) effectiveness of any number of vaccines. It would also be helpful to see evidence refuting anti-vax claims. Seriously, I want to see this. I have genuine concerns about vaccines and I don’t trust the hype on either side, because that is what it seems like to me, hype. And not just the CDC’s site. Where is the sober, unbiased information about this?

@Concerned Parent

I appreciate that you want a serious answer, but it would help if you asked a slightly less open-ended question. You ask for evidence that vaccines are effective, in general. Vaccines have been in use for more than a century. In that time there has been a lot of research done by a lot of different people in a lot of different countries (and, to be clear, funded by a lot of different entities). A search on PubMed (an open tool that anyone can use) returns 246,674 publications with the key word vaccine. Of those, 3,038 are systemic reviews. Many of those are in animals, many are for vaccines you likely don’t need. Of course that doesn’t include the studies that were done in the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the 20th century that aren’t online or indexed. I’m not saying this to be a jerk, I’m saying it because you’ve asked a very broad question. Perhaps if you specified which vaccines concerned you, or even what kind of evidence you’d like to see then you might get a more direct answer. For example, I could point to the eradication of smallpox as evidence that vaccines, at least one of them, work very well and can be, at least in that one case, far far far less harmful then the diseases they treat.

Politicalguineapig #486 “Concerned Parent: Well, for a start, you could check the WHO webpage and track how many smallpox outbreaks there have been lately. Get back to us when you find them. (Spoiler alert, there aren’t any. And the reason why starts with a v. )

And you know, when you refer to facts as hype, it really, really suggests that you aren’t actually interested in the studies. I think you took a wrong turn on the internet.”

Thank you for your response. Although it is an interesting starting point to seeking more evidence, the lack of smallpox outbreaks isn’t entirely conclusive for me. I’m sure you understand that correlation does not equal causation.

It really does seems to me like there’s an awful lot of hype on both sides of this issue. It is very difficult to get through to the actual facts when there is so much posturing and emotion. I don’t think I took a wrong turn on the internet. This seems like a good place to get some answers, although it seems to contains its fair share of emotion and hype as well. There seem to be a lot of scientists or otherwise pretty intelligent people here, most on the pro-vaccination side of the issue. So a sober presentation of that side shouldn’t be hard to find here.

Chris #488 –

Thank you for your response. That link seems to be just what I’m looking for, thank you. It will clearly take me some time to get through it, but I am looking forward to finding evidence there.

As far as the decline in measles, as I mentioned to the 2 other posters about smallpox – it does seem to point to a link, but correlation can’t be considered ultimately conclusive. We would have to rule out every other potential reason, with some degree of certainty, then it would be pretty strong circumstantial evidence, but still not hard evidence.

Concerned Parent:

It is true that correlation does not necessarily equal causation, right?

Correct. The belief that the MMR vaccine causes autism was initially plausible because the MMR is given at a time when the symptoms of autism become very clear. After thorough investigation, it was confirmed that there was no causation.

As far as the decline in measles, as I mentioned to the 2 other posters about smallpox

*koff*

– it does seem to point to a link, but correlation can’t be considered ultimately conclusive. We would have to rule out every other potential reason

*KOFF*

with some degree of certainty

“Were those hysterical screamsI could hear in the kitchen?”

then it would be pretty strong circumstantial evidence, but still not hard evidence.

Please define, specifically, (1) whether the “some” in “some degree of certainty” is supposed to mean anything in particular, (2) what the “degree of certainty” that underlies your “concerns” is, and (3) why you bothered to use the foregoing words in the first place if you can’t answer Nos. 1 and 2.

You don’t have many options, and none is promising other than changing the subject and pretending that nothing happened until you sniff the possibility to circle back around.

So choose. “Vaxxed/unvaxxed study” as ‘stealth’ payload fails immediately on your own terms. Ever-diminishing slices of “vaccine injury susceptibles” fails on your own terms.

There’s something plainly self-consistent left, right?

Has Concerned Parent seen this?

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/matthewherper/files/2013/03/c6fb5feb7f1ee71b7e725277d30999161.jpg

Those statistics should be very difficult to wave off as “hype”.

OT (almost)

One of my current banner ad is about “Should parents be forced to vaccinate their kids”, from some EasyHealthOptions dot com group.

@Concerned Parent: like the others, I do understand you want answers. And thankfully, Chris has posted one excellent site. But, as noted above, if you would be a bit more specific, and list the vaccines and concerns you have, we can point you in the right direction for good information.

As far as smallpox: one really good read is “Inside the Outbreaks”, about the history of the CDC and the EIS. One section focuses on how smallpox was eliminated – by vaccination (sometimes forced, to be honest) and mandatory quarantine of infected (and possibly infected) persons. Probably neither would have worked alone as fast as the two together.

As a parent, like many of us, I had my children fully vaccinated with all the vaccines – and on time – that were available when they were infants/children. Unfortunately, my kids had to suffer through chickenpox. It’s not fun to be up for days with a crying child who is in so much pain you have to give her narcotics for a “simple childhood disease”, who is so covered with pox that she can’t eat, drink, sit, or lie down. I’d have given anything for them to have had the vaccine, which came out 2 years later.

Concerned Parent: “As far as the decline in measles, as I mentioned to the 2 other posters about smallpox – it does seem to point to a link, but correlation can’t be considered ultimately conclusive.”

Answer my question which was about measles. You questioned vaccine effectiveness, therefor I chose a dramatic decrease of a disease in modern times.

Again why did measles cases in the USA drop 90% between 1960 and 1970? I repeat: Do not mention mortality, any other decade, any other disease nor any other country (despite Mr. Stone and Mr. Miller delusions, England and Wales are not American states).

Then there is the resurgence of diphtheria in the former Soviet countries, followed by a reduction of cases. I am sure Concerned Parent has why vaccination rates have nothing to do with that phenomena:
Diphtheria in the former Soviet Union: reemergence of a pandemic disease.
and..
Successful Control of Epidemic Diphtheria in the States of the Former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Lessons Learned

@Concerned Parent

I suspect you have a lot of reading in front of you. I think others have provided you with more summarized answers than I did, but here are my key takeaways:

1. The evidence for vaccination isn’t in any one study. That’s true of pretty much everything in science and certainly true in medicine. The evidence builds year on year. The evidence is in the hundreds of thousands of studies done over a century. I’m not saying that to hype vaccination. I’m not saying that to put you off. I’m saying that to highlight that this is the kind of topic where people spend years and years to become experts.

2. I totally understand your correlation/causation argument, however I think that the best counter, as pointed out in several different ways above, is to look at how there is a pattern that virtually every vaccine follows. If the incidence of a disease dropped coincidentally with the introduction of a vaccine for that disease then I wouldn’t expect that to happen again in another country and again with another disease. Yet we do. That is evidence to me that this is causative. Every new country, every new vaccine is a new experiment and we get consistent results.

3. Note that nobody is saying that there are no side effects associated with the vaccines. The fact-based argument is that the diseases are WAY worse and we are balancing risks. Unfortunately human beings seem to be biologically hard-wired to suck at probability and so we fear rare events more than common ones. As you can see above, we understand the biology involved in eliciting an immune response. The evidence to support vaccination isn’t just all the hundreds of thousands of studies of vaccines. It’s the entire field of immunology. We can definitely be wrong about details, but it is highly unlikely that everything we know about the human immune system is wrong.

@ PGP:

We don’t necessarily do it for the scoffer alone: other people can benefit from our writing including us/

@ LinnieMae

Last spring, my mother and I were walking through a very very old graveyard in Chester, Nova Scotia (Gorgeous spot, totally worth a visit but I’m biased). We were both in a contemplative mood, the weather was wonderful and the yard itself rather beautiful. We paused in front of a row of 8 or ten markers, all dating from the early 19th century. I’m sure you can guess where I’m going – Annual graves as child after child died, in some cases clusters that likely represented an outbreak. The whole line ends with the grave of the wife and mother. We found the father further down with his second wife and another string of children. Nature has never been friendly.

@PGP
I don’t know if Concerned is a troll or not. I read far far more than I comment on any site and I learn a lot from good comments, even when I lurk. Life is far too short to assume the worst of those around you.

Niche Geek: “Life is far too short to assume the worst of those around you.”

Well, life is much, much shorter if you don’t assume the worst of other people. Though, maybe I should try it- murder has the advantage over suicide or any other crime, since it’s not usually considered the victim’s fault.

@PGP

Even if CP is a troll, I’d rather baffle her with civility than push her away with aggression. It’s a national weakness.

DoesItMatter: “Oh, I dunno, why not start here.”

Hmmm, let’s see. I guess I should never ever fly in an airplane or drive a car, because surely somewhere in one of those many large companies a person has lost stuff or stored something inappropriately.

CP: “Every pediatrician I’ve dealt with thus far has had an attitude of “do it my way or you’re an idiot,” which doesn’t really help me trust them.”

So you have not encountered the ones that say if you don’t vaccinate to find another doctor? I don’t believe they call you an idiot, it is just that they would prefer you not bring vaccine preventable diseases into their waiting room.

“The rarity of adverse events is not enough for me, because even if it were only 1 in ten million kids that got damaged from vaccines, it’s not a risk I would subject my children to unless I were convinced there was definitely a much greater benefit.”

Why is a risk of one in a five chance for pneumonia (with one in ten chance of hospital care) or a one in thousand chance with measles better? Are you seriously thinking you can get a free ride by your community’s immunity? If you do, please thank your responsible neighbors who vaccinate, because they are actively protecting your family.

In the mean time, you need to provide a reason of why the rate of measles incidence in the USA dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970.

Concerned Parent, you still have not provided us with your specific concerns about vaccine safety. If you want us to answer your questions, you have to provide us with more information.

P.S. No one is forcing you to have your children fully vaccinated. You should be aware that your failure to meet vaccination school entry requirements in your State may result in your child(ren) not being eligible to attend school…and will definitely result in your child(ren) being barred from attending school if there are confirmed cases of vaccine-preventable-diseases in the school or in the school district.

CP: “2) No, I don’t need to provide you with anything. I came on here to get information and evidence, not to convince anyone of anything.”

No, because it is all about you and no one else.

Seriously, do thank your responsible neighbors who vaccinate because they are the ones protecting your family by maintaining community immunity.

Though I would think you should scold your high school science and math teachers for failing to provide you with the basics because you lack any understanding of the issues under discussion.

Also scold your the folks who raised you who made sure you became a very selfish adult without any sense of empathy towards others because you are just so special. They must be proud to have produced a leech on society.

Concerned Parent

I have been leaning against getting the full vaccination schedule due to the dangers, which seem undisputed.

Exactly what undisputed dangers? Can you specify them? Or could you at least list those which you fear the most?

The you say:

The rarity of adverse events is not enough for me, because even if it were only 1 in ten million kids that got damaged from vaccines, it’s not a risk I would subject my children to unless I were convinced there was definitely a much greater benefit. If one of my children were that 1 in ten million, then I would have failed them in my duty to protect them.

How will you feel once your child suffers a vaccine preventable disease? You will have have failed them in [your] duty to protect them.

CP: Okay, let’s take a look at, say, chicken pox. There is now a vaccine for it. I had chicken pox when I was a kid. I don’t remember much of it, except for being itchy all the time and cranky. Twenty years later, I developed something called Bell’s Palsy, a variety of shingles. I lost all movement on one side of my face, since it paralyzed a few facial nerves. Luckily, I got treated for it, and it cleared up. But..if I’d been older, I might still be paralyzed. And that’s one of the LESSER effects of the disease. Imagine your adult kids, waking up one day and worrying that they had a stroke. So… is avoiding a less than one billion chance of an adverse reaction worth watching your kid suffer for a week? Or developing shingles later on?

And then there’s measles and the rest. I’d advise you to read Eight Cousins, Little House in the Big Woods and the Mirror Crack’d- all mention consequences of measles and rubella.

Now would be a good time to ask yourself if you’re up to the task of raising a child who’s not perfect or may have disabilities. Most parents who are anti-vax proceed to make their autistic children’s lives hell. (You say you’re not anti-vax, but I’m seeing a lot of the talking points anti-vaxxers use.) Raising a child who’s lost hearing or sight is at least as difficult as raising an autistic kid. Just sayin’.

I’ll just leave this here;

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=concerned+parent

CP have you read On Immunity by Eula Bliss? She is a heck of a writer exploring the social reasons why such a reasonable thing as protecting your kids against VPD’s has become so contentious.

I also agree that, as a species, we tend to rationalize the risks in everyday activity – driving for example – while exaggerating the risks of limited activities – I think of all my co-workers who are sure they’re going to win the lottery.

Oh, and if you really are who you say you are, and just a “Concerned Parent,” you’re doing a lot more than I did. I never did any research – just assumed much of the ant-vaxxers’ talking points were true, or at least reasonable. I thought the debate would be very nuanced and it would be difficult to sort out right from wrong. So, I purposely avoided the topic … and vaccinating. *After* our son’s illnesses, I started reading and researching. And I was completely blown away by all the research showing the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. I couldn’t believe I’d made all those assumptions without checking the facts. I’m just glad we didn’t have to pay the ultimate price to learn all this. We came dangerously close to that.

Concerned Parent,

I have children and I have been leaning against getting the full vaccination schedule due to the dangers, which seem undisputed.

The dangers, such as they are, are very remote. I’ll use MMR and measles as an example, though I could make a similar argument for other vaccines and diseases. Severe reactions to MMR occur after fewer than one in a million doses, and are so rare it is difficult to establish for certain if they are caused by the vaccine at all.

Measles itself is far more dangerous, even in countries with good health care:

High numbers of measles cases in Europe which began in 2010 continued in 2011, with more than 30,000 cases in each of those years. Overall, with more than 30,000 cases of measles in Europe in 2011, there were 8 deaths, 27 cases of measles encephalitis, and 1,482 cases of pneumonia. Most cases were in unvaccinated (82%) or incompletely vaccinated (13%) people. France was the hardest hit, with over 15,000 cases of measles and at least 6 deaths last year, 651 cases of severe pneumonia and 16 cases of encephalitis.

Assuming you are in the US, you might think that your child’s risk of getting measles and suffering pneumonia, encephalitis or death is small. This is true, currently, though recent outbreaks should give you pause for thought, thanks to most people vaccinating their children.

However, if you do not vaccinate your child with MMR, what happens then? Either he or she will contract measles as a child, with all the risks that entails, or s/he will reach adulthood with no immunity to measles. Since the risk of serious complications is much higher in adults, that really isn’t doing him or her any favors. If s/he ever wants to travel outside the US s/he will be at serious risk of contracting measles and suffering serious complications. S/he will either put him/herself at that increased risk, or s/he will have to get the MMR as an adult. I can’t find any information on it, but since measles itself is more dangerous in adults than in children it seems likely that the (tiny) risks associated with MMR are greater as well. Why not just get your child vaccinated with MMR without leaving him or her vulnerable to measles for years and then putting him/her at this increased risk.

At the moment, I am doubting myself and honestly seeking sober, evidence-backed advice that could change my mind. I am currently looking into the studies that Chris posted, as time permits, and I will look at the links that others have posted. I will also be going back into seriously researching this for myself. This is going to take some time, since I have many other obligations in my daily life.

Good luck with that. I spent two years studying immunology part-time and that was enough to make me aware of the extent of my ignorance of the subject (though I passed the exams). This isn’t something you will be able to pick up from Google University, especially if you mistrust what most people consider to be reliable sources of information. You will very likely come across the vast reams of misinformation about vaccines and immunology that infest the internet.

The rarity of adverse events is not enough for me, because even if it were only 1 in ten million kids that got damaged from vaccines, it’s not a risk I would subject my children to unless I were convinced there was definitely a much greater benefit. If one of my children were that 1 in ten million, then I would have failed them in my duty to protect them.

How would you feel if your child got measles or whooping cough and ended up permanently injured as a result? Would that feel better than him/her suffering damage from a vaccine?

Do you travel in a car with your child? Let’s assume the risk of a serious adverse reaction to MMR is 1 in 1 million (almost certainly an overestimate). The fatality rate for road traffic accidents in the US is about 1 for every 82,000,000 miles traveled. That means that you are subjecting your child to a greater risk of death by driving 100 miles with him/her in the vehicle than you are risking a serious adverse event by giving him/her the MMR.

Not vaccinating to reduce the risk to your child makes about as much sense as getting him/her to cycle to school on a busy road instead of driving him/her because you would feel worse if s/he was hurt while you were driving, even though the risks of cycling are far higher. In other words it seems to be about minimizing the risk of you feeling bad, not reducing the risks to your child as much as possible.

Hi Everyone-

I kind of find “vax vs. anti-vax” to be a bit of a false dichotomy. For example, I feel a lot more comfortable with vaxes that have been around for a while- like MMR- and more skeptical about newer vaxes like HPV.

Background: I have an undergrad biology degree (immunology was one of my best courses!), so I have somewhat of a framework to discuss these things. Yet I find it kind of frustrating because it seems that having any kind of concerns about vaccines, whatsoever, results in me being labeled an “anti-vaxxer.” I’m hoping that won’t happen here.

Now my understanding about HPV (and correct me if I’m wrong) is that:

1. There are 30-40 strains of HPV.
2. Some strains are more dangerous than others.
3. Some strains might possibly confer protection against other strains.
4. Almost everybody will be exposed to HPV sometime in their life.
5. About 90% of people who contract an HPV-related disease will clear it on their own, with no intervention, within 2 years.
6. Even if somebody DOES get HPV-related cancer, it is very treatable with very good outcomes.

Now assuming all of those are true- I am having a hard time finding the justification for mandatory HPV vaccination. What is the rationale here?

Also- I’m wondering about cross-reactivity between different HPV strains. Do we know for sure that getting an HPV vax only induces immunity against the “bad” strains that cause disease?

To the basics of the timeline, the vaccine will allow your system much better odds to clear the virus before it can mutate a tissue cell.

That our immune system can clear a virus without a vaccine is only part of the big picture in disease progression. Most people who get the measles will recover without even needing to see a doctor/go to the hospital. But, then again 25% will need hospitalization for supportive care, and 1 out of every thousand to three thousand will die.

Along the same lines HPV developing into cancer is not common, but the vaccine does offer you an advantage so you don’t go down the road of mutation to metastasis.

“6. Even if somebody DOES get HPV-related cancer, it is very treatable with very good outcomes.”

Only if it’s caught at an early stage. Deeply invasive/metastatic HPV-induced cancer (cervix, oropharyngeal and other sites) is difficult to eradicate and does not have a very good prognosis.

Even if HPV-related neoplasia or dysplasia is caught early, there’s still a considerable toll on the patient, including regular followup and invasive (and sometimes painful) procedures like cryotherapy and cervical cone biopsies, which can also affect fertility. It is not currently possible to tell which dysplasias will clear up on their own, which results in invasive precautionary treatments, made unnecessary if one never contracts high-risk HPV infections in the first place.

I’m not convinced mandatory HPV vaccination is justifiable, but getting it voluntarily if in a high-risk group seems like a good idea.

“Yet I find it kind of frustrating because it seems that having any kind of concerns about vaccines, whatsoever, results in me being labeled an “anti-vaxxer.””

Not at all. If you state those concerns intelligently and are receptive to good information that should allay them, you’ll get a civil and even friendly reception. Those who reject solid evidence as “biased” and stubbornly repeat common antivax tropes over and over again are another story.