Anti-Vaxxer thread (New York Reports 1st Polio Case in Nearly a Decade)

[twa]

12 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I am NOT an anti-vaxer.  I also do not pretend to be smart enough to understand all the science presented.  That said, I do wonder how vaccines affect the ability of people to fight off illnesses later.  What is the line between preventing a disease and weakening your bodies ability to fight things off because it hasn't had to before?

 

you could argue it possibly weakens our species evolution, but mankind intervening in the natural laws is part of our charm.

 

a bigger herd is my preference,though it comes with complications .

 

add

 

it and antibiotics and such do bend the evolutionary curve

not just for us but the pathogens themselves

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002236

 

do you swing for the fence or lean into the pitch?

 

 

Edited January 21, 2019 by twa

[HOF44]

53 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

But isn't it a weaker version of a virus injected?  To stick with your analogy, is it like knowing you have to go into a weight lifting competition so you only do 10lb curls?

 

I have read that things like the rampant use of hand sanitizer actually hurts your immune system in the long run.  I laugh because at work, the people that use it the most seem to be sick the most.  

 

Again, I'm not expert.  Just kicking around ideas.

No it's not a weakened virus, it's a dead virus.  The point is the white blood cells, from engaging the dead virus, now recognize it, now how to attack it, and immediately and will attack any live ones that should enter your body. This lessons the possibility of the virus creating a "beachead" and causing other problems.

 

edit--- there are live virus immunizations, but they are rarely used and mostly on researchers in specific fields.   

Edited January 21, 2019 by HOF44

[China]

Why vaccine opponents think they know more than medical experts

 

One of the most contentious areas of health policy over the past two decades has been the safety of vaccination. Vaccines prevent the outbreak of diseases that used to be widespread, like polio, and scientific consensus strongly supports their safety. Yet many Americans refuse or delay the vaccination of their children out of fear that it could lead to autism, even though scientific consensus refutes this claim.

 

Anti-vaccine attitudes have been fueled in large part by growing rates of autism diagnoses as well as a now debunked study in The Lancet that linked autism and the measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine – pushing many parents to see vaccination as a potential explanation for their child’s autism diagnosis.

 

The growing “anti-vax” movement here and abroad has seen parents refuse to give their children mandatory school vaccinations, growing numbers of celebrities questioning vaccine safety, and even pet owners refusing to vaccinate their dogs – forcing the British Veterinary Association to issue a statement in April that dogs cannot develop autism.

Given the consistent message from the scientific community about the safety of vaccines, and evidence of vaccine success as seen through the eradication of diseases, why has the skepticism about vaccines continued?

 

One possibility is that attitudes about medical experts help to explain the endorsement of anti-vax attitudes. Specifically, building on past research, our research team contends that some U.S. adults might support anti-vax policy positions in part because they believe they know more than medical experts about autism and its causes. We wanted to test this theory.

 

We wondered: Could the inability of anti-vaxxers to accurately appraise their own knowledge and skills compared to those of medical experts play a role in shaping their attitudes about vaccines? This inability to accurately appraise one’s own knowledge is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, first identified in social psychology. Dunning-Kruger effects occur when individuals’ lack of knowledge about a particular subject leads them to inaccurately gauge their expertise on that subject. Ignorance of one’s own ignorance can lead people who lack knowledge on a subject think of themselves as more expert than those who are comparatively better informed. We refer to this as “overconfidence.”

 

To test our hypothesis, our research asked more than 1,300 Americans in December 2017 to compare their own perceived levels of knowledge about the causes of autism to those of medical doctors and scientists. After doing that, we asked respondents to answer a series of factual knowledge questions about autism, as well as the extent to which they agree with misinformation about a potential link between childhood vaccines and autism.

 

We found that 34 percent of U.S. adults in our sample feel that they know as much or more than scientists about the causes of autism. Slightly more, or 36 percent, feel the same way about their knowledge relative to that of medical doctors.

 

We also found strong evidence of Dunning-Kruger effects in our sample. Sixty-two percent of those who performed worst on our autism knowledge test believe that they know as much or more than both doctors and scientists about the causes of autism, compared to only 15 percent of those scoring best on the knowledge test. Likewise, 71 percent of those who strongly endorse misinformation about the link between vaccines and autism feel that they know as much or more than medical doctors about the causes of autism, compared to only 28 percent of those who most strongly reject that misinformation.

 

We recently published our findings at the journal Social Science and Medicine.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[GhostofSparta]

2 hours ago, China said:

forcing the British Veterinary Association to issue a statement in April that dogs cannot develop autism.

[China]

5 minutes ago, GhostofSparta said:

 

[China]

5 cases of ‘whooping cough’ confirmed at schools in Moore County

 

MOORE COUNTY, N.C. – Five cases of pertussis – also known as “whooping cough” – were confirmed at schools in Moore County on Monday.

 

The identified cases are all Moore County School System students attending West End Elementary School, Southern Pines Primary School, and Pinecrest High School.

 

Pertussis is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing that may last for weeks. It can live on surfaces such as desks, but it’s nearly always spread through direct contact like coughing and sneezing.

 

The students who were diagnosed are all being treated, according to school and Moore County Health Department officials.

 

The Moore County Health Department urges all residents, especially infants and young children, to be current on their immunizations.

 

 

[LD0506]

 

[redskinss]

On 2/5/2019 at 10:23 AM, China said:

5 cases of ‘whooping cough’ confirmed at schools in Moore County

 

MOORE COUNTY, N.C. – Five cases of pertussis – also known as “whooping cough” – were confirmed at schools in Moore County on Monday.

 

The identified cases are all Moore County School System students attending West End Elementary School, Southern Pines Primary School, and Pinecrest High School.

 

Pertussis is a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable, violent coughing that may last for weeks. It can live on surfaces such as desks, but it’s nearly always spread through direct contact like coughing and sneezing.

 

The students who were diagnosed are all being treated, according to school and Moore County Health Department officials.

 

The Moore County Health Department urges all residents, especially infants and young children, to be current on their immunizations.

 

 

O.m.g. I got whooping cough 5 years ago.

Worst experience of my entire life and I'm not exaggerating. 

Had it for 5 months and around 8 to 12 times a day the coughing would knock the wind out of me.

I'd wake dead bolt upright in the middle of the night not being able to breath and in literal full panic mode.

The doctors all said there was nothing anybody could do and I just had to wait it out.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. 

 

Ps. I'm not anti vax I have all my shots but whooping cough i guess doesn't last very long or isn't terribly effective.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Mr. Sinister]

On 2/6/2019 at 6:20 PM, LD0506 said:

 

 

****, I had no idea this show was still a thing! I rremember watching it as a youngin 

[China]

Good for him:

 

Teen defies parents, gets first vaccinations during measles outbreaks in US

 

An 18-year-old from Norfolk, Ohio, recently made the decision to receive his first-ever vaccines for a number of diseases despite his parents’ beliefs.

 

Ethan Lindenberger discussed his decision in an interview with NPR News that was released on Saturday.

 

In the interview, Lindenberger said he had gone without vaccines for diseases like the measles, rubella, mumps and hepatitis for his entire life due to his mother’s anti-vaccine beliefs.

 

He told the publication that his mother, Jill Wheeler, was influenced by online misinformation, including a debunked study that claims certain vaccines could lead to autism and a theory that claims vaccines were linked to brain damage. 

 

Throughout his childhood, Lindenberger said his mother would tell him about the negative side effects of vaccines and how they were bad. He also said he thought it was normal for children not to receive vaccines.

 

But after he realized his other friends and classmates had all been vaccinated, Lindenberger said that’s when he began to do his own research into the matter. 

 

"When I started looking into it myself, it became very apparent that there was a lot more evidence in defense of vaccinations, in their favor," Lindenberger said.

 

Lindenberger said he later approached his mother with research that debunked some of her claims, including a report from the CDC that explained how vaccines did not cause autism. 

 

"Her response was simply 'that's what they want you to think,'" Lindenberger said. "I was just blown away that you know, the largest health organization in the entire world would be written off with a kind of conspiracy theory-like statement like that."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

**** you, Mom. I'm going to get my flu shot. Teenage rebellion has changed.

[China]

Facebook under pressure to halt rise of anti-vaccination groups

 

Facebook is under pressure to stem the rise of anti-vaccination groups spreading false information about the dangers of life-saving vaccines while peddling unfounded alternative treatments such as high doses of vitamin C.

So-called “anti-vaxxers” are operating on Facebook in closed groups, where members have to be approved in advance. By barring access to others, they are able to serve undiluted misinformation without challenge.

 

The groups are large and sophisticated. Stop Mandatory Vaccination has more than 150,000 approved members. Vitamin C Against Vaccine Damage claims that large doses of the vitamin can “heal” people from vaccine damage, even though vaccines are safe.

 

Health experts are calling on Facebook to do more to counter these echo chambers. Dr Wendy Sue Swanson, spokeswoman of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said: “Facebook should prioritise dealing with the threat to human health when falsehoods and misinformation are shared. This isn’t just self-harm, it’s community harm.”

 

Swanson recently met with Facebook strategists and raised her concerns. “Parents deserve the truth. If they are being served up something that is not true it will likely increase their levels of anxiety and fear and potentially change their uptake of vaccines, which is dangerous,” she said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Darla Shine doesn’t get it. Childhood illnesses of old are no joke.

 

Everyone has nostalgia for parts of our childhoods: spending summer days from sunrise to sunset outside playing with neighborhood kids, grandma’s cooking, television shows and movies. But last week Darla Shine, the wife of the White House communications director, expressed nostalgia for a strange part of her childhood: the diseases we now have vaccines for.

 

Shine wrote on Twitter that “The entire Baby Boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids.” She added: “I had the #Measles #Mumps #ChickenPox as a child and so did every kid I knew — Sadly my kids had #MMR so they will never have the life long natural immunity I have. Come breathe on me!” Shine is correct that many baby boomers alive today had all of these diseases. Unfortunately, there are boomers who aren’t alive today precisely because they didn’t have access to the lifesaving science of vaccines.

 

Was life before vaccines really so carefree, and were these diseases really so inconsequential? It’s impossible to travel back in time, but one can step on a plane and, in under a day, be transported to places where vaccines are not nearly so universally available. Nine years ago, I did just this, spending the year in rural Cambodia teaching fifth grade gifted students. It was in Southeast Asia where I became a passionate defender of the importance of vaccines, because I witnessed the ravages of these diseases firsthand.

 

The first of these vaccine-preventable diseases I encountered was the mumps. At an orphanage I visited, I met several children spread out on rugs in one of the common areas hooked up to IVs filled with coconut water. At first, I had no idea what I was seeing, so thoroughly has mumps been eradicated in the United States: My guide had to explain what was making the orphans so ill.

 

While I had seen many cases of dengue fever and malaria in my time there, the mumps was frighteningly different. The necks of several of the children were swollen several times their normal size, and they looked like they were struggling to breathe. I’m unsure if that was because of the swelling around their airways, sitting in tropical temperatures with high fevers, or a combination of the two. They were immobile on the floor, ignored in the bustle of all of the other children present, lethargic and in visible discomfort. It was a painful sight to witness and, I can only imagine, unimaginably miserable to experience, even if the children survived.

 

Over the course of the year, I also saw children similarly afflicted with the measles, felled by a rash, pain and a raging fever in daytime temperatures of more than 100 degrees in the shade, always accompanied by suffocating humidity. I heard of children in nearby villages dying and of women miscarrying their unborn babies.

 

It has become a trend for Western parents to eschew vaccinations, to spend their time searching out doctors who will agree to treat children whose parents refuse vaccinations, and to find ways to obtain legal exemptions to send their children to school without the required immunization. I witnessed parents in Cambodia spending their time quite differently.

 

Often, nongovernmental organizations and nonprofit hospitals would offer Cambodian parents free vaccinations during clinic hours. It was always clear when these clinics were open, because lines of dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of mothers with their babies and young children would appear. Standing in the heat and direct sun, shaded only by their own scarves, families would line up for hours to obtain lifesaving shots for their children.

 

There were Cambodian children who, like Shine, survived measles, mumps and more. But their parents knew firsthand what kind of suffering accompanies these vaccine-preventable diseases. They also knew of families who weren’t so lucky and who buried children.

 

The movement to avoid vaccines is one of the most glaring examples of privilege in the Western world. The volunteer who took me to that orphanage where I saw my first case of the mumps reminded me that childhood shots were one of the invisible and forgotten luxuries granted to me by virtue of where I was born.

 

That luxury is no longer guaranteed to American children, thanks to an anti-vaccine movement peddling false fears about vaccine ingredients and their side effects. These fears don’t take hold in Cambodia and other less developed countries nearly as easily, because rumors of autism cannot trump the real-world experience of seeing children suffering and dying needlessly.

 

As parents in the West become more familiar with what exactly these diseases look like as outbreaks spread, the casual outlook on these quaint childhood diseases shared by individuals such as Shine will inevitably fade. 

 

Click on the link for the rest

[FanboyOf91]

I wish the GOP would stop rehabilitating communism.

[NoCalMike]

I hope Trump weighs in on the Measles Freedom movement.

[Springfield]

No, America shouldn’t have to force people to vaccinate their children but unfortunately people are just so ****ing dumb that we need to mandate it.

[NoCalMike]

I wish Americans were forced to understand science vs junk science.

[China]

The anti-vaxxers' impact

 

After being officially eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, measles is making a comeback. Officials blame low vaccination rates. Here's everything you need to know:

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Zguy28]

These people are stupid.

[China]

A Brookfield man with measles went to the gym while he was under quarantine, complaint says

 

In violation of a health-department quarantine, a Brookfield man and his wife were charged after visiting a local health club while the man had the measles.

 

Jeffery Murawski told a deputy he hid in his car while his wife drove him to Gold's Gym in Waukesha — so he would not be spotted by another deputy stationed outside his house to keep him from leaving.

 

Although the alleged incident took place 10 months ago, Christine Bennett, 58, and Murawski, 57, were charged with one count each of exposing the public to communicable disease, a misdemeanor, on March 1 in Waukesha County Circuit Court. 
 

Murawski was ordered to be quarantined in his home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until he was either deemed non-contagious by Health and Human Services or until May 7, the complaint said.

 

Murawski said he needed to get out of the house because "he was going crazy" and has been on quarantine at his home on Carpenter Road since April 26, the complaint said.

 

Murawski was asked if at any point he had exited the car and stated no despite the fact that an off-duty deputy had observed Murawski walking down Moreland Boulevard carrying a gym bag. 

 

Murawski eventually admitted to going inside Gold's Gym to work out, but said he was only there for a few minutes because he felt guilty and sick to his stomach for deciding to leave his house, the complaint said. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

Anti-vaxxers are the flat earthers of the young earth creationists. A subset of stupidity so myopic that it makes your brain hurt. I'd have no problem with then if they weren't a public health nuisance.

[Hersh]

RFK Jr really went off the deep end. Used to be known as an environmental activist. Now he’s just know for spouting crazy ****.

[techboy]

On 11/18/2018 at 10:11 PM, bcl05 said:

Early on in my medical training, I watched a 5 year old with treatable leukemia die from chickenpox.  I will never forget that kid, and I will never forgive anti-vaxxers.

 

This should be stickied to the top of every page of this discussion.