It’s odd how public figures can make a series of untrue or insane statements, and they don’t get hurt by them, and then they go one more, and it sticks. Is it cumulative, or does the one statement (which is not really any crazier than all the others) just resonate?
I don’t know that she ever lives this down:
When Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) recently suggested that the human papillomavirus vaccine — recommended for girls and young women to protect against cervical cancer — was dangerous and might cause mental retardation, the American Academy of Pediatrics pushed back hard. The AAP, which represents 60,000 pediatricians, issued a statement saying the claim had “absolutely no scientific validity.”
As I wrote here, I was enormously grateful for that strong, unequivocal rebuttal, not really on public health grounds, but just because it was like music to hear someone say “this is not true”. I fully expected pundits to be asked for their opinions, then we’d look at the poll numbers, and if 56% of Americans polled thought there was scientific validity to Bachmann’s claim we’d have to listen to her for weeks.
When repeated efforts to educate parents fail, some pediatricians are now taking action: They’re refusing to treat children unless their parents agree to have them vaccinated according to guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pediatricians who go this route say they’re concerned about more than the health of the children. They’re also worried about other patients in the waiting room, some of them too young to be immunized or with health problems that compromise their immune systems. Unvaccinated children put those kids at risk.
“It’s my job to do the very best we can with patients in this practice,” says Dr. Harry Miller, a pediatrician with Four Seasons Pediatrics in Clifton Park, N.Y., whose practice stopped treating unvaccinated children last year. “Exposing that small percent who don’t vaccinate to those who do is a disservice.”
When vaccination rates fall below roughly 80 or 90 percent, a population loses the benefit of “herd immunity,” which protects even those who can’t be vaccinated or for whom the vaccine didn’t work, experts say.
According to the CDC, vaccination rates for children ages 19 to 35 months were at or above 90 percent for many illnesses, including polio; measles, mumps and rubella (MMR); and hepatitis B. Fewer than 1 percent of children received no vaccines. Vaccination rates for teens are significantly lower but increasing, the CDC found.
Although overall refusal rates may be low, they vary widely by location. In Washington state, for example, the rate of nonmedical exemptions from school vaccination requirements was 6 percent in 2007, with one county recording a 27 percent refusal rate.
States require that children be vaccinated before attending school, but in 2008, 48 states allowed parents to sidestep the requirement for religious reasons, and 21 states permitted exemptions for philosophical or personal reasons, study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (All states permit exemptions for medical reasons.)
I assumed there was a religious exemption and the medical reason exemption makes sense, but “philosophical or personal”?
Southern Beale
Kay:
Please. When Bachmann went after Gardasil, she was attacking the WRONG FUCKING PEOPLE. She was attacking Big Pharma. She was attacking the corporate money mongers who own her and her ilk. That was her fatal mistake. Not that she went one lie too far.
She should have stuck to mouthing pablum about teaching our girls abstinence and silver rings and crap like that. Attacking the money behind the GOP was the wrong thing to do.
I predict as right-to-lifers start getting bolder attacking birth control we’ll see the same thing. You know how much money there is in birth control pills, etc.? Wait for the push back on that one …
cleek
do philosophers have a lot to say about vaccines ?
Zifnab
I felt like there was substantially more push-back on the vaccine issue. Maybe that’s because it was so clearly out-of-the-blue and not tied to any particular special interest group (as soon as the oil industry or an agriculture giant finds profit in tuberculosis that could change). Maybe that’s because Michelle’s star has been fading and she hasn’t been garnering the same kind of insider support as Romney and Perry. But there was definitely more unilateral “WTF?” bouncing around than in the face of the traditional global warming or evolution or tax revenues spat.
I also don’t really know if this is a good thing per say, because it severely limits the scope of political conversation. I get the feeling that Bachmann was pummeled not so much because she said something untrue, but because she said something so terribly off-platform. Vaccination isn’t a hot button issue in Washington like abortion is, so she wasn’t supposed to have touched it.
Brian R.
As a father with two kids under 4, I can only say, good for them.
If the anti-vaccination idiots want to risk their own children’s health, fine. But don’t put my kids at risk too.
Culture of Truth
The Road to Diptheria
Atlas Coughed
Measles and Nothingness
Quaker in a Basement
It’s worth noting that in this case, 27 percent seems to be an upper limit, not a lower limit.
It matters.
Comrade Dread
Speaking as someone who is moderately religious, I can’t imagine why there would be any exemptions at all.
I’m not familiar with any religion that would say “Sure God gave us the brains and cognitive ability to come up with a Polio vaccine, but you shouldn’t get it because God wants you to roll the dice with your kid’s health anyway.”
Then again, I don’t really understand the mindset that would want to use the fear of cancer as a method of keeping their kids abstinent.
Guster
What’s the difference between “philosophical or personal” and “religious?”
Brian R.
@Comrade Dread:
May I introduce you to the Christian Scientists.
MikeJ
@Comrade Dread: Ask Mary Baker Eddy about it.
Southern Beale
@Comrade Dread:
Some religions are funny, what can I say. Which is the one that doesn’t believe in blood transfusions? Is that the Jehova’s Witnesses or the Seventh Day Adventists? And of course there’s the Christian Scientists, they don’t believe in traditional medical care. I’m not CS, so I don’t know what if any limits there are to this … we had some CS neighbors, they all had awful teeth, refused to go to the dentist.
Anyhoo .. did you know there’s a religous exemption for contributing to Social Security? There’s religious exemptions for everything.
Svensker
@Guster:
Atheists can be nutty, too.
Wag
For Whom the HPV Tolls
Polio and Juliette
Of Meales and Men
Gardisil’s Rainbow
This is fun
Quaker in a Basement
Philosophical or personal = without Jeebus
Religious = with Jeebus
The former is included as a fig leaf to cover the latter.
cathyx
What I don’t understand is how does a unvaccinated child hurt those who are vaccinated? Aren’t you immune if you are vaccinated? Wouldn’t an unvaccinated child only affect those others who are not vaccinated?
Comrade Dread
@Brian R.: Ugh. I forgot about the Amish too.
That belief system that technology is an evil is just so alien to me.
@Southern Beale: Yeah, don’t get the JW’s stance on blood transfusions either. But at least that bizarre stance isn’t endangering everyone else too.
The Other Bob
Yet state courts have had to step in and force parents to treat children for treatable diseases that they wanted God alone to cure.
I agree with you though. I am starting to question why we have religious exemptions in law at all. Who decides what a real “religious” exemption looks like and what is just crap? Maybe any person’s religion that is against vacancies should be relegated to the junk religion pile?
Guster
@Svensker: I understand how a philosophic or personal belief can exist without being religious, but I don’t understand how a religious belief can not be philosophical or personal.
lacp
@cleek: I’ve heard that the noted philosopher Jenny McCarthy cleaned the Oxford faculty’s clock in open debate.
beltane
@Guster: The hippie variety of anti-vaxxer doesn’t identify as religious so they have to cloak their ignorance under the mantle of “philosophy”.
Steve
Honestly, while religious exemptions are the price we pay for living in a peaceful pluralistic society, it’s hard to articulate any difference between “personal and philosophical” exemptions and religious exemptions, and not just if your religion is Confucianism.
It’s hard to say that you can skip your vaccinations if you think God or the FSM wants you to, but if you’ve studied the science and think the risks are too great you’re out of luck. Maybe both categories of people are silly, but at the end of the day the political judgment is that it’s better if we vaccinate 95% of the people than to get bogged down in a big screaming match over trying to compel the last 5%.
It’s worth noting that with certain religious objections, like the Amish exemption from paying Social Security, the laws are written to make the exemption a little tighter than just “oh, my religion doesn’t believe in that.” We don’t want the government scrutinizing people’s religious beliefs, but neither do we want people to just be able to make up a god who doesn’t believe in individual mandates.
Anonymous At Work
“Philosophical or personal” includes religious but couched in terms that apply to atheists and for other reasons. It’s the catch-all exemption.
Brian
@Culture of Truth: Anthraxem.
Comrade Dread
The Invisible Hand and his prophet St. Ayn frown upon your dismissal of their religion.
beltane
@cathyx: Herd immunity. Vaccines work most effectively when everyone uses them, as on their own they are not 100% effective. There are many unvaccinated children at our elementary school which had led to whooping cough being quite common. I now live with the nagging fear that one of my (vaccinated) kids will be one of the unlucky ones.
Brian R.
@cathyx:
They don’t, exactly. But some vaccinations can only be given after a certain age (or don’t take effect until multiple doses given over a period of time) and with some kids the vaccination doesn’t take.
So even if you intend to give your kid the vaccinations, they’re still at risk from the idiot parents who don’t vaccinate their children.
MikeJ
@cathyx:
Sometimes you are, sometimes you aren’t. If the vaccine makes you 90% immune it’s in your best interest to minimize the number of carriers of the disease in question.
It’s less about protecting one kid than minimizing the number of kids that will expose the herd. If the whole herd is immunized and one kid gets the disease, the odds of a big outbreak are low. If half the herd is unimmunized, you’re exposing the whole herd to much greater threat.
Allen
@Comrade Dread: Actually there was a huge religious uproar over smallpox inoculations. There were preachers that felt smallpox was “Gods” way of punishing the “sinful”. See the Wikipedia article regarding Cotton Mather and the Revolutionary War and smallpox.
PeakVT
When vaccination rates fall below roughly 80 or 90 percent, a population loses the benefit of “herd immunity,” which protects even those who can’t be vaccinated or for whom the vaccine didn’t work, experts say.
That’s a good article, though I wish that sentence had been expanded. I think what is meant here is that above a certain vaccination rate, a disease doesn’t have enough hosts in which to incubate and circulate, so the un-vaccinated just don’t come in contact with the disease. The un-vaccinated individuals in a well-vaccinated population can still get sick if they travel to an area where a disease is prevalent. So, if a parent expects their children to never to travel outside of rural or exurban America, I suppose they can get away with not getting their children vaccinated.
David in NY
@cathyx:
Well, except that having an epidemic among the unvaccinated affects even even the vaccinated in indirect ways, and it gets worse, the more unvaccinated there are.
Add: And what the others said, sometimes vaccinations are not effective, and even the compliant are threatened by those who resist vaccination.
Ken
For more background, head over to the Respectful Insolence blog (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence). The blog owner “Orac” has been writing about the anti-vaccination movement for years, and has looked at the exemption laws in detail several times.
hhex65
@cleek: Really, really deep thinkers among the Alchemists, Rosicrucians and Anti-New World Orderists have philosophical objections to vaccines.
Sly
@cathyx:
Not all people can be vaccinated due to certain health conditions, but these people gain protection from the disease if everyone who can be vaccinated is vaccinated. You’re less likely to get measles when you’re not vaccinated against it if you’re not coming into contact with lots of people who also aren’t vaccinated. It limits any chain of infection from developing.
This is the basic principle behind herd immunity, and there is no reason why someone with a health risk to vaccination should be put at risk just because someone else who believes in spooky nonsense (whether sectarian or otherwise) thinks that mystical spirits or drinking an elixir of pomegranate juice, lilac, and the fur of a dead yak will keep their body “pure” and protected from harm.
Gin & Tonic
@Comrade Dread: The Amish do not believe technology is evil, they believe it is unnecessary. It’s more a question of being able to control your day-to-day environment. You can fix your own buggy, you can switch to another horse when the current one gets too old, you can cut and chop enough of your own wood to get through the winter. But if BigPowerCo has a problem and you’re reliant on electricity and can’t get it, there is nothing you or your neighbors can do to fix the problem.
Quarks
@cathyx — A very small number of children suffer from illnesses or treatments for diseases such as cancer which means that a) they cannot have these vaccinations for medical reasons and b) have low immunity to these diseases to begin with.
These would be the unvaccinated children put at risk because a parent objects to, say, the whooping cough vaccine.
“Personal” strikes me as an overly broad term. Couldn’t that also cover the “I hate needles please don’t give me a shot?” reaction?
singfoom
/snarkon
Well, my faith tells me “X” which is totally not what the scientific method ells the scientific community, they say it’s “Y”. Why should I listen to those godless scientists?
I have faith on my side.
/snarkoff
As others have stated upthread before this, religious reasons are just personal reasons of a large group.
Felinious Wench
@cathyx:
As long as the amount of people who are not vaccinated is small, everyone is protected by “herd immunity.” (see the article Kay quoted).
I’ve got a good friend who is convinced the mercury in a vaccine is why his son is autistic. No amount of research will ever convince him otherwise. He refuses to have his other kids vaccinated. OK. His decision isn’t risking my sons, they’ve had their shots. But he IS putting his own kids at risk, and those kids can’t make that decision for themselves. And he is potentially putting other children at risk who can’t have their vaccines, or for whom the vaccine didn’t work.
It’s going to take a few kids getting polio, small pox, measles, etc. before this no vaccine trend stops.
Southern Beale
@Comrade Dread:
Some religions don’t believe in voting. Seem to attract primarily African American followers. Found this out when I was registering voters before the 2004 election. I was surprised at how many African Americans told me their church didn’t believe in voting. Actually, it was mostly women .. maybe their church didn’t believe in women voting, maybe it was everyone. I didn’t ask which church they belonged to but I should have. Bet there’s a Republican plutocrat behind it.
Elliecat
@cathyx:
Yeah, this is the excuse my sister’s daycare provider gave years ago for not informing my sister that her own children had the measles—“Your kids are vaccinated, so they can still be around my kids.” Not so.
And even if the unvaccinated “only affect” other unvaccinated people—not everyone who is unvaccinated is unvaccinated by choice. Babies don’t get all their vaccines at birth, and many vaccines take multiple doses. So babies and small children are at risk. People who failed to get a booster vaccine as adults are at risk. People with immune issues who can’t be vaccinated are at risk. I have known people who would definitely get their kids vaccinated but those kids have serious medical issues that mean they can’t have certain vaccines—these parents really depend on the people around them being vaccinated.
cleek
@Southern Beale:
J’s Witnesses, for one.
NonyNony
@Guster:
Religious beliefs that are not philosophical exist in all religions. Non-believers tend to label them as “superstitions”. Catholics are supposed to believe in transubstantiation. There isn’t really anything philosophical about transubstantiation – it’s just magic done in a religious context. It’s a non-philosophical religious belief. Biblical literalism is another – there is no philosophy behind a literal belief that the King James Version of the Bible is the Inerrant Word Of God written in the King’s English Just Like Jesus Spoke It (“Because I said so” is NOT a philosophy). If you’re objecting to vaccinations because you believe that the Bible indicates that vaccinations are an abomination before the Lord you might have a religious objection, but it ain’t a philosophical objection.
But as for why the law is written that way – imagine the uproar if it was written as “philosophical and personal” but WITHOUT “religious” explicitly carved out. In fact, it started as a move for religious exceptions and philosophical and personal get tacked on because Jenny McCarthy believers wanted to be able to use the exception and don’t have an organized religion (yet).
Cat Lady
Every one out of four people is a stone cold moron. That’s just scary.
Spencer Neal
I don’t agree that the superstitious, i.e., the religious, should have an exemption. But if you allow the supertistious an exemption, why not others?
PeakVT
@PeakVT: I should have checked for an article before typing all that out.
Southern Beale
Sorta OT but there’s no open thread and we’re talking religion soooo:
Comrade Dread
@Allen: Yeah, but if it were the case that God were punishing people with diseases for their sin, I would have expected Wall St. to be a quarantine zone by now. :)
beltane
@Southern Beale: They have an interesting way of showing fellowship at Grace Fellowship Church.
kindness
Yea, philosophical and/or personal reasons to not vaccinate are appropriate.
Myself…I think vaccinating for many things are good and have had mine vaccinated. But I disagree that every vaccine out there is a must have. Polio? Sure. Measles, rubella? Yes. We had our daughter vaccinated for HPV as we wanted to protect her against cervical cancer, even though it was all out of pocket (and pricey but hey, it’s cancer).
But not all of them. Sorry. I’m a pick and choose person. If I feel it merits it, I’ll do it. I won’t do it just because it’s on the list of all available vaccines.
YoohooCthulhu
The increased number of unvaccinated kids has actually led a number of physicians to advocate research into vaccinating pregnant women (transmits immunity to the fetus) or vaccinating kids at birth. This carries higher risks, but at some point prevalence of these often fatal diseases in the population equals the (small) risk of prenatal vaccination.
http://the-scientist.com/2011/08/09/opinion-vaccinate-at-birth/
singfoom
@Southern Beale: How very Christian of those people. Fuck, that’s just so enraging.
Slightly more enraging than the use of “sick ’em” when it should be “sic em”, or am I pedantic AND wrong?
Brian S
Just watched a Frontline on this from last year (thanks, Netflix Streaming!) that was really good. It didn’t quite go as far as I’d like in pointing out just how full of shit Andrew Wakefield was in his “vaccines cause autism” study, but it did a solid job in general, especially when explaining herd immunity and why the idea that just because there’s no polio in the US today, that doesn’t mean we should stop giving the vaccine.
Southern Beale
@beltane:
If that’s their idea of fellowship, I hate to be at one of their baptisms. Bet they really DO baptize with fire. Especially if you’re gay.
Mike E
Nice Nancy McFarlane ad! We’re now a very desirable city, Mayberry is, and that means Repubs have a shot at taking it down…certainly our school board is stomping on the flush handle with all their might. Don’t know if Nancy wants to preside over this madness but she’s the only choice after Meeker. Keep your fingers crossed!
Brian S
@kindness:
Just out of curiosity, what’s your basis for picking and choosing? What’s your area of expertise that suggests you’re the best person to make that call? I mean, I tend to trust doctors and nurses because they’re professionals–they have a ton more education and training in those sorts of things than I can ever hope to match. By the same token, I expect that most doctors and nurses probably don’t know as much about teaching a college English class as i do, and so if they suggested I do something differently, I’d tend to defer to my own expertise in the matter.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t question doctors, but I am saying that barring some extraordinary circumstances, they’re probably in a better position to make calls about health issues than most lay people are.
Southern Beale
@singfoom:
Pedantic but correct. But hey, it’s Tennessee. We don’t need no book larnin’. We’s just needs our GUNS.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Southern Beale:
Not a branch of the First Church of Samaritans then, I take it?
Stooleo
O.T. Really great series of photos taken at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration.
Lizzy L
When I was a child, my next door neighbors’ kid had polio. He was in my class. (Yeah, I’m old.) I was part of the group of kids in the 1950s who (proudly) was used to test the efficacy of the Salk vaccine. They told us what we were doing, and just about everyone’s parents said, Go for it. I can remember not being allowed to swim in the local swimming pool, for fear of polio. I had measles, mumps, and chicken pox as a child, and have the scars to prove it. Yes, people used to send their kids to other people’s houses to deliberately expose them to diseases: better to get a light case of measles (always the hope) as a child, then to come down with it as a adult.
I have sympathy for those people who have serious scientific or medical issues with multiple vaccines, but little patience for people who reject vaccines entirely due to assertions about research which has been proved false.
daveNYC
@Lizzy L:
I got chicken pox senior year of college. That sucked, but I can’t even imagine how miserable (and dangerous) getting measles or mumps would be as an adult.
And not getting a polio jab? That’s just nucking futs.
Arclite
@Brian R.:
Exactly. My kids are up to date. Side effects from vaccines are rare and usually mild, especially compared to the damage done by the actual disease.
Ricky Roma
When we walked in for the interview for our Pediatrician, first question we asked was her groups policy on vaccination. We could tell she was uncomfortable as she started to explain why vaccination were good. I cut her off and said ‘Sorry, we should clarrify. We are not signing up with a pediatricians office if they allow for substantial deviations from the guidelines.’ You could see the relief on her face.
I don’t understand why any parent who isn’t a vaccine crazy would let their child set foot into a medical office that lets vaccine crazies in the building.
Southern Beale
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I’m curious why they were there. There’s something a little fishy about this story. Not saying they asked for it, no one deserves such treatment, but just wondering why they’d go to a church where they were so obviously not welcome.
Plenty of GLBT welcoming churches, even in TN.
Elie
@Svensker:
Not only atheists but speaking with familiarity about the WA state anti vaccination scene, these folks are also against fluoridation. The are a riff on the old hippies — “naturalists” who do not believe in any chemicals or un-natural substances in their bodies or around their kids. We have a whole hoo ha over fluoridation of Bellingham WA’s drinking water. I was amazed and fairly new to the area then, but am pretty dialed into it now. We also have bunches of home schooled kids who are not home schooled for religious reasons, but to get to that pure state of naturalness their parents believe is only available through being taught their world only through their eyes.
Out here, the far right and far left meet in their suspicion of government and any formal authority. The neighbor in back of me (and we live in a regular type neighborhood with small lots, though in a rural area), likes to burn his trash — even though he is not allowed by ordinance to do that, he always tries at least once or twice a year, making horrible, noxious smoke that makes anyone with asthma go nuts. He is surrounded by neighbors on all sides but insists on doing this.
singfoom
@Elie: You need to stop hating on your neighbor. Obviously, his freedom to burn his trash trumps the freedom of others to breathe freely. The unthinking entitlement, it burns us all!
Delia
@Allen:
To be fair, the procedure of inoculation that was known at the time, which involved taking some pus from the smallpox pustule of a sick person and scratching into the skin of a healthy person, did carry some risk. About 1 in 20 people inoculated died of smallpox. In the 1790s Edward Jenner began running tests on cowpox pus, which we now know is a related virus. Cowpox is a nonfatal illness and made for a safe vaccine.
Jewish Steel
@Brian S: Yeah, I feel the same way about my car mechanic.
I mean, I have a good idea what I’d like him to fix if I could pick and choose; the cheapest, quickest option. But alas, that ain’t necessarily the thing that’s broke.
twiffer
@Brian S: the only thing that springs to my mind would be something like a hep-b vaccine, but unless things have changed, something like that is generally only offered if you are going to need it. for instance, i got vaccinated for hep-b because i worked as a lifeguard. part of the job requirements, as there is the potential for blood exposure. but, not something that i think most people get.
just guessing here though.
Elie
@Ricky Roma:
a parent here in WA state sued a pediatrician for allowing unvaccinated children in his office. Her child was immune suppressed due to being treated for cancer and during an office visit, contracted measles from one of the unimmunized kids in the office that day. The child went on to have a number of complications from the measles infection and though survived the cancer, had a number of ongoing neurological problems from the measles infection. They won the lawsuit.
Elie
@singfoom:
Yeah, I descended on him like a harpy… the stench, much less the smoke was horrible…
And what makes me think he is nuts is that it stunk up HIS house more than anyone else’s… burning wet garbage is not like a wood fire, after all.
Yeah, I hate him for his freedoms…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Southern Beale:
Why were they (the victims of the attack) there? From the bit you posted an intra-family conflict sounds pretty likely:
No fatted calf for this prodigal son, apparently. The sad thing is, you could teach a whole New Testament Bible Study class on everything the pastor and his congregation did wrong during this incident. Fucking parables, how do they work?
Delia
@Elie:
Yeah, Eugene is pretty much the same. My kids grew up in dirty ol’ SoCal, but they had fluoridated water and great teeth. I can’t believe how many otherwise intelligent people up here think the stuff is poison.
Lysana
@singfoom:
You’re pedantic and (mostly) correct. It is “sic ’em.” Annoyance on top of anger for me there.
And the immunization thing continues to stun me when I come across it. They just make sense, damn it.
David in NY
@Elliecat: Example of what you say. Nine babies died in California in 2010 after contracting pertussis (whooping cough) before they were old enough to complete the vaccine series. About 2% of children go unvaccinated in California (prob. higher in some locales), but it appears that adults can also get and pass it on if they have not had a booster shot.
Redshift
I think antivaxxers are nuts, but if there are going to be exemptions, I approve of them not being only religious. Separation of church and state and all that — you shouldn’t have to have a large established religion behind their firmly held beliefs who have them respected by government.
Cermet
@Brian S: Oh, please! As any person knows, read some article, get a gut feeling and stick with it by reading that in every few tens of thousands of shots one kid gets seriously sick. Perfect and always works.
As for many vaccines, they are recommended or totally for people who want them (Like your kid will be with a few hundred strange kids and could be exposed to meningitis. That is purely a ‘you make the call’. But if covered, why not get it then? Never seen any vaccine that carried a risk factor that is significant enough to warrant avoidance especially for those rare but terribly deadly illnesses – maybe some day another such ‘bad’ vaccine will be made but most of those vaccines in the past were removed (Thank you lawyers! Really!) and testing is far, far better.
nancydarling
@Southern Beale: Christian Scientists will take anti-biotics and a pain killer if they have an abscessed tooth. Most of them practice their religion like the cafeteria Catholics.
Tony J
@Southern Beale:
Well yeah, there is that. Pittman Junior’s father is the Pastor there, so he obviously knew what his Papa thinks about Teh Gayz. Then again, there’s a very big, wide and meaningful space between “Son, you know we don’t hold with your kind here, now go away” prejudice and “Don’t even let those faggots soil our carpark” assault and battery.
Was the son out to make a point? Probably. Doesn’t mean his father gets to have his son and his boyfriend beaten up by the good Christian deacons of the church.
Then again, the Grace Fellowship Church in Fruitland? Really?
The Gay conspiracy clearly goes deep in that part of the country.
Tony J
@Tony J:
Uh, any idea why my comment is in moderation?
joes527
@Brian S: The one that was the biggest question when my kids came to it was chicken pox. I mean, we all had it when we were kids and look at us now…. Never mind, bad example.
We looked at all the information and in the end went with it, but we did give it some thought.
A _lot_ of the information that doctors get comes from folks with a $$ interest. I’m not saying that doctors are out to fleece you* More that there are folks in the healthcare field (I’m looking at you big pharma) who are in it for the money, and doctors, unfortunately have to depend on them for information some time.
Doctors are also immersed in a world of action and treatment. There is a bias to do something. Our doctor was quite positive on getting my son circumcised. We looked at the available information (which was all quite ambiguous) and said no thank you. Not a comfortable place to be, ignoring a doctor’s advice, but it seems to have been the right thing to do.
*Auto mechanics … now don’t get me started on auto mechanics …
kindness
@Brian S: As an example I don’t get the seasonal flu vaccines. I don’t feel they are all that important for those of us who have healthy immune systems. Those in particular are a combination of which viruses the labs have decided are going to be the big ones the next year. They are not the virus that actually circulates but a guestimate.
And, yea I have had enough post graduate Biology to know a little.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Gin & Tonic: The Amish do believe in technology, like the plow and the wheel and the button and the horse collar. They just don’t believe in technology post 1800.
jacy
I try not to say I “hate” people, and instead only that I disagree with people. (I have small children, and I’m trying to teach them more tolerance than I have myself). But, man, I really, really, really would like to punch the anti-vaccine nutjobs in the throat. As has been mentioned anecdotally upthread in several cases, they literally put others who are helpless in danger of severe lifelong complications or death.
elmo
@Southern Beale:
I can’t believe I’m the first one to point this out, but the church was in Fruitland, after all.
Lizzy L
I get the flu shot every year; it was necessary during the years I cared for my mother, whose immune system was severely compromised. I continue to get it, both for myself, and for the folks I might encounter, that I might not be an unwitting carrier. I think in 16 years I’ve suffered through one, mild, case of flu.
Going to my local Kaiser on Monday for the (free) shot…
dr. luba
@twiffer: Hep B is now a routine childhood immunization. The first dose is given routinely in the hospital, a day or two after birth.
Like HPV, Hep B is sexually transmitted (as well as via blood and bodily fluids), and is given in childhood to prevent disease later in life. Hep B can also lead to liver cancer, BTW.
Nicole
It’s a myth that the Amish don’t vaccinate their kids; the majority do:
http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2011/06/28/anecdotal-amish-dont-vaccinate-claims-disproved-by-fact-based-study/
And, as the article states, those that don’t are avoiding them for the same reason the rest of parents who avoid them are- fear of complications. Religion has nothing to do with it.
So, electricity: unnecessary. Vaccines: necessary. Because the Amish know you have to be careful out there among them English.
elmo
@kindness:
Yeah, I don’t get those either. In my entire life, I’ve had the flu *once*.
I’ve also never had chicken pox, and there was no vax available for it when I was a kid. I’m 44 now.
dr. luba
Good on you. It is up to those of us who CAN take the vaccine to do so, and protect those who either can’t, or for whom it may not work well (elderly and immune compromised).
At our hospital flu vaccine is mandatory for any worker who has patient contact. It is amazing just how many refuse to take it. During flu season, they have to wear face masks and wear gloves during any patient contact, and many consider it punishment. I consider them inconsiderate and not keeping their professional oaths (Do No Harm, etc.).
Cermet
@joes527:
OK, that is one strange doctor. Except for mandated vaccines, I too would be a bit concerned by their motivation.
@kindness: If you learned just a tiny bit more maybe you would have learned that even if they miss the correct virus and develop the ‘wrong’ vaccine, very often the vaccine they do offer does offer some protection and many times also does reduce how severe the illness can be. So, getting the flu shoot even for the wrong current flu can even protect you years later against a similar virus that may spread – yet another advantage to getting a yearly vaccine. I guess a little knowledge can be dangerous …
kindness
@elmo: I had chicken pox as a kid so it’s too late for me. Actually that is one I would do as later in life that is one that can give you shingles. Or at least the vaccine helps suppress shingles later in life. My Grandfather had shingles before he died. Don’t want anything to do with that one.
Jon Marcus
@dr. luba:
Hep-B is (I think) a good example of one there’s legit debate about. The theory is that if you get it into kids when you’re doing all the others (MMR, Polio, etc) then you don’t have to worry about parents forgetting about it later. Because there’s really no reason my toddlers needed to be immune to a disease that’s transmitted via blood and semen.
So there’s very low but non-zero risk of a another immunization leading to a negative outcome, vs what we saw as the zero risk that we’d decide to skip Hep B when they were older, we decided to skip it as toddler’s. Both our kids got it when they started 5th grade. (Still really young, but I’m pretty damn sure my 5th grader isn’t having sex or shooting up, while I *knew* my toddler wasn’t.)
There are also legit arguments about the efficacy and long-term effects of chicken pox vaccine. We skipped it, and our kids got mild cases of chicken pox.
Both of those decisions were made using the “personal and philosophical” outs. I’m damn glad I had that choice, and didn’t have a government agency cramming the decision down my throat, or into my child’s bloodstream.
kindness
@Cermet: Those flu vaccines don’t offer lifetime immunity. So you are talking about putting your body into an immune response for something you probably aren’t going to face. Why? Yea, you can counter with why not? Well, I’ve been taught a healthy (underline healthy) person who is exposed to a flu virus and develops an immune response that does carry you throughout your life. My immune system is important. I’m not going to toy with it over ‘trivial’ things like viruses I’m not going to face.
aimai
@Culture of Truth:
[Golf claps.]
aimai
Gin & Tonic
@Cheryl from Maryland: Good point. But, again, it’s about scale. They (or their neighbor) can make a plow. They cannot make a modern diesel-powered combine.
aimai
@Jon Marcus:
Actually, I heard the exact opposite argument: kids exchange blood and fluids with other kids *routinely* in various schoolyard accidents. In addition, you never know when your kid is going to be hospitalized and need a blood transfusion. Or, g-d forgive, deliberately injured by someone with Hep.
But definitely one reason they try to get the shot in early is that there is some percentage of parents who associate prevention with sexuality and will refuse to do it when its a more appropriate time.
aimai
Gin & Tonic
@joes527:
Find another doctor.
joes527
@Cermet:
Yeah, today she might be out of place … but it used to be a no brainier that you circumcised boys. Our son came along at a time when that whole question was in flux and different doctors had different things to say.
Ken
@kindness:
That’s not quite right. The immunity produced by catching the flu, and the immunity produced by the flu virus, last just as long (which is actually a few years, not your whole life). While they last, both provide protection against that strain of flu. However, the virus mutates so much that neither is likely to be of much use against next year’s strain.
There are still differences in the methods of gaining immunity. The shortcoming of the vaccine is that it might not be a perfect match for this year’s strain. The shortcoming of catching the flu is that it can kill you.
Nicole
@kindness: I used to think just like you did, and bragged to people that I hadn’t had the flu in decades. Then I got smacked by the flu and was reminded that when you have the flu, you want to die. I get the vaccine yearly now. Because life is too short to run the risk of spending any more of it lying in bed in agony than absolutely necessary.
Not getting the flu vaccine (unless for medical reasons, you really can’t) is like not getting homeowner’s insurance. Sure, the odds against anything happening to your house may be small, but if something does happen, you’re in a world of hurt and quite possibly ruined.
Cermet
@Jon Marcus:
And can get a dangerous and terrible case of shingles later in life and worse, your kids will carry a deadly virus that will constantly attack their immune system and test it for the slightest weakness and if they are found wanting, then they too will get ill and as many people can tell you – shingles can be terrible – the pain is far beyond what anyone should have to endure just because they didn’t have parents smart enough to read what happens later in life if (and it occurs when you can least endure/handle it like heavy stress (if luckly) or worse, dealing with another deadly illness) you get it again (and over and over if it gets the chance.)
I only wish they had that vaccine when I was growing up.
kindness
@Nicole: See and I still don’t. I get a seasonal cold when the weather changes in the fall to winter. It’s mild. When I’m older, I’ll get it. For now, I’m healthy.
@Cermet: Dude….scare tactics much? Yes, scare tactics mucho. But see above, I would vaccinate a kid for chicken pox exactly for that reason. But i think you stray over the line a hair.
PurpleGirl
@Cheryl from Maryland: Well, that depends on the item in question. See
http://www.oacountry.com/amishdress1
for a discussion of Amish dress and the fabrics they use. They do use cotton-polyester blends and knits.
Cermet
@kindness: And some people’s immune system can over respond to a flu infection (most often the healthiest people get that type of reaction, at that.) There is really no down side to getting a flu shot but you can get very serious, even life threatening secondary infections after enduring the common flu. Depending on your innate immune system is like rolling the dice – at some point you will crap out.
mish
@joes527:
I felt the same way about the chicken pox vaccination.
My kids were preemies and got every other vaccination as soon as they could but the chicken pox one was too new and came with concerns regarding lasting immunity. We were hoping the last kid would just catch a wild case and solve the issue for us. He didn’t and so I have given him that vaccination as well.
But I never considered withholding any of the other vaccinations. That would be too dangerous for my kids and the herd.
Southern Beale
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
OH totally missed that. Read through the article quickly.
So it’s a family/domestic violence thing. Sweeet.
Nicole
@kindness: I thought like you did until I got a fat 103 degree bitchslap upside the immune system. And I’m decades away from 65. Homeowner’s insurance.
Jinchi
I don’t understand why you consider a religious exemption reasonable if you don’t believe in a personal or philosophical exemption.
Is it an appeal to authority? (You can’t object on personal philosophical grounds, but as long as your minister does that’s fine). Can Catholics simply get a note from their parish priest or does it have to be an edict by the Pope? Are the rules different for ultra-Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. Can a mullah simply issue a fatwa on the issue? How exactly would this work?
Southern Beale
@Cermet:
Whoa there, Seabiscuit! I had chicken pox as a kid, I haven’t had any of those problems. I’m strong as an ox.
Cermet
@kindness: Sorry – but some people may not realize that chicken pox IS shingles and as such, it is a very bad idea to carry through life if you could avoid it. I know people in their thirties/forties who lived in agony for one to two weeks with that illness. It attacked me once, too. Scare tactics, yes and fully correct when someone here posts the disadvantages out weigh vaccinating their children from a mild disease (true) but later in life, a really ugly one that is something I’d love people to avoid.
joes527
@Cermet:
Fighting ignorance with ignorance
* The risks involved are extremely low. (check)
* The benefits outweigh the risks in most cases. (consult your doctor) (check)
* There is really no down side (bzzzzzzzzzzt)
Southern Beale
@elmo:
Tony J pointed that out as well. That’s the first thing I noticed: Fruitland not welcoming to gays? Nobody could have anticipated that ….
Sometimes I’m never sure where the taste boundary lies ….
Cermet
@mish: Makes sense and my statement is concerning what we know now and that ckicken pox is not minor when (and if) it appears later.
Southern Beale
For the record, I don’t get flu shots. Maybe when I’m really old I would but right now I feel like the less of that crap I do, the better. Plus, seems like they make these flu vaccines based on one expected strain of flu virus and invariably it’s a different strain that goes apeshit on the community. So, largely ineffective.
Really, I’m a big believer in just letting my immune system bulk up by exposing it to stuff. Within reason, of course. We had all the traditional vaccines you get as a kid but christ that was back in the 60s and there’s like 10 times more vaccines children today get. Honestly I’m glad I don’t have kids because I don’t know what I’d do if I did.
Everything in moderation, people.
Cermet
@Southern Beale: Wouldn’t that be as strong as a horse for a seabiscuit referance? Still, as you get older, hopefully, you will always get to say that – many will not.
Rome Again
@Guster:
They call it religious exemption so a religious person can feel proud when they claim that mantle. They feel they are doing something special for God.
Southern Beale
@Cermet:
If you’ve had chicken pox, you have a 10-20% chance of developing shingles. That means there’s an 80-90% chance you won’t. Plus, there’s a shingles vaccine for people over 60.
Plus I’ve read that Lysine prevents shingles — it’s a known preventative for other strains of the herpes virus like cold sores. They sell L-Lysine at the drug store.
Meh. Not sold on the chickenpox vaccine. YMMV.
Cermet
@Southern Beale:Please do not advise people to limit proven and mandadted vaccines for their kids – that has been PROVEN to be deadly – moderation? Relative to vaccines? Experts without any axe to grind layout the guidelines on what to take, when and why, so what makes you an authority on what people should do relative to vaccines for their kids? Yourself, of course but you are crossing a line to give advice to be ‘moderate’ in an area when you are not an MD. Unless you mean do get all recommended vaccines and think about optional ones – then that makes sense.
dr. luba
@Southern Beale: I hope, then, that you’re not one of those folks who insists on going to work when sick, and exposing all and sundry to his/her germs. Some of whom might not have a strong immune system, or for whom the vaccine didn’t take.
The flu vaccine is trivalent (covers three strains), and most years the main strain that’s going around does get covered. But taking the vaccine does not prevent you from catching other viruses–rhinovirus (colds), rotavirus, other GI viruses–so many people who do get sick (but not with influenza) assume the vaccine didn’t work.
Southern Beale
@Cermet:
Well, I’m not that young. So …
I was raised by parents who were Adele Davis and Linus Pauling freaks. I grew up having Vitamin C tablets forced down my throat and getting fresh squeezed orange juice loaded with wheat germ. My family would no sooner eat at McDonald’s as eat the family cat.
I thought it was weird then but maybe they were on to something.
gelfling545
@Brian R.: The problem is that many now have never seen these diseases and just don’t understand. In my youth pretty much everybody had someone in the family killed or crippled by polio. I HAD whooping cough. I survived. Many didn’t. I have a brother who is disabled due to my mother contracting german measles in pregnancy which was not a rare thing in my youth. I guess you had to be there, but I was there and hope we never go there again.
Southern Beale
@dr. luba:
Of course I am but I’m self-employed and don’t need to worry about exposing anyone other than my three dogs….
Seriously, people. WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS. A LOT. That takes care of a lot of the problem right there.
Steeplejack
@Southern Beale:
There seem to be some gnarly family issues being played out in public. The pastor is the father of one of the men in the couple.
Allen
@singfoom: Just pedantic.
gelfling545
@Jinchi: It depends on where you live. Here in NY a catholic couldn’t get an exemption because the RC church doesn’t have any doctrine against vaccination. It generally has to be a published doctrine of the denomination. While I was doing some temp work for a lawyer who handles education law a while back there was a case where a parent said god told her not to vaccinate her kids. Since she was RC it didn’t work because hew view was not the same as the church she claimed to believe in and her personal conversation with god could not be documented.
Cermet
@Southern Beale: L-Lysine is an essential amino acid but not an antiviral. Since you are into cutting edge research and your PhD in medical science far trumps my knowledge I will defer to this knowledge and you need to publish this amazing breakthrough in a major medical journal so we can get rid of all vaccines for viruses – good work. Shingles is finally cured.
Rome Again
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Some do. When I lived in central DE (Kenton/Hartly) I saw some Amish who drove cars. Most of them didn’t, but there were about five or so that I knew of. They used to hang out at the corner store. When I lived further north near Wilmington DE (not far from Lancaster, PA) all I saw were horse and buggy Amish.
Cermet
@Southern Beale: OK, you are very correct there on that one.
Cermet
People – no greater advance in health care has ever been achieved, after clean water, then vaccines have done – please do all possible vaccines for your kids after reading up on it yourself.
Aside – nothing wrong with alternative meds desspite my over-the-top and not at all nice post on the subject (apologies, Southern Beale) but always do medical treatments and be aware some alternatives can have harmful sides effects and/or counter know meds. Be careful and do careful research.
Good health.
joes527
@gelfling545: what if you tell them that you belong to a sect within the religion whose first commandment is that you can’t publish its doctrines?
The first rule of Pastafarians is that you don’t talk about Pastafarians…
gelfling545
@Lizzy L: I’m getting mine this weekend. While I was teaching if I got the flu, which was almost inevitable, I’d end up with pneumonia or bronchitis for the winter so I started getting the shots. For many years I too needed to make sure that my mother would not be exposed to the flu as she was in extremely frail condition. She couldn’t leave the house but we sure could bring illness to her. Not carrying the disease to those in poor health or too young to be immunized is an excellent reason to get the shot no matter how quickly one bounces back one’s self
PurpleGirl
@Rome Again: Maybe the car drivers were Mennonites; they are not Amish but are a related group. And they do use modern technology.
ETA: Amish families have been studied for a number of genetic diseases and conditions. They are not averse to medical innovations that will safe-guard their families.
gelfling545
@joes527: Well, NY is pretty strict on it although some have made a case. I guess you’d have to hope it would be reviewed by someone familiar with Pastafarianism and it’s rigid code of silence.
My own impression is that it often comes down to sincerity and whether a similar standard is adhered to in other areas of the person’s life.
Percysowner
Truthfully, flu vaccinations aren’t pushed until you get to be in your 50’s or 60’s. For those who have had chicken pox and are currently doing fine and do not have shingles, shingles tend to hit much later in life. Currently the recommendation is that people who had chicken pox get the Shingles vaccine at age 60. When I hit 60, I’m getting it ASAP. The mother of a friend of mine got Shingles and it was one of the most painful things she ever went through and it can come back after the first attack.
joes527
@gelfling545: I don’t see how they could do that without in effect having to declare that some religious beliefs are valid and others are not. Sounds seriously unconstitutional on its face.
I belong to the church of the foul mouth.
and who the fuck are you to say otherwise?
Allen
@Delia: I know that inoculation had been around for quite a while,since 8 or 10 C.E. in either India or China, but was rare here, hence the outcry in America at the time.
kay
Jinchi:
I didn’t say I considered a religious exemption reasonable or unreasonable.
I said I assumed it would be in there, because it’s in every state law mandate like this that I read.
VOR
I had a very mild case of chickenpox as a child, so mild my parents were not entirely sure I even had it. As an adult, my wife’s step-sister thought nothing of exposing us to her daughter’s chicken pox because “everyone had it as a kid”. I went to the doctor’s office the next day for a test to see if I even had the chicken pox immunity. My brother contracted chicken pox while in college and ran 104+ fevers for days on end. Not fun.
My mother had scarlet fever as a child. This stuff is not that far removed from present day.
Mnemosyne
@Percysowner:
IIRC, studies in Japan have shown that we have it backwards — what we really need to be doing is vaccinating the under-18s for the flu every year and not focus as much on the elderly. When they had a big campaign to do that in Japan, it cut back on the cases of flu in the over-65s by a huge amount, much more than when they got immunized themselves.
Of course, then you run into the crazy anti-vaxers who don’t want to put that “poison” into their kids, even if it means shortening Grandma and Grandpa’s lives.
No one of importance
@jacy:
Fixed it for you. Since it’s not a theoretical risk – dozens of babies have died as a result of antivaxxers.
I don’t even have kids, and I hate this crew with the passion of a thousand fiery suns.
@kindness:
Let’s hope you don’t encounter anyone with a less than healthy one while you’re contagious, and kill them.
No one of importance
@kindness:
You need to get your money back from whoever done taught you, son, because they’re fools. Sure, you may carry immunity against that *individual* virus for a time (I doubt it’s life long) but flu viruses have this pesky ability to mutate. Which is why every year the flu vaccine changes – to keep up with the most recent, most prevalent mutations.
That’s why you can get flu while you have a cold, get a cold when you have a flu, and get multiple cases of flu in a year. And considering your arrogance, I hope you get to experience all of those one day, hopefully while you’re old, or on chemo, or suffering from asthma, or have heart disease, so you can really understand just how dangerous the flu is.
No one of importance
@Percysowner:
Not to mention the pain can just not go away. A friend of ours, 92, had an attack of shingles over 3 years ago and still suffers agonising, constant pain from it. Breaks my heart.
Ken
@Southern Beale:
Then you should be all in favor of vaccination, which is exposing your immune system to “stuff”. In fact, it’s the same “stuff” that your immune system reacts to when you catch a disease. The vaccine contains surface proteins from the virus or bacteria. All that’s missing are the living parts that actually cause the disease.
So, to recap, the two ways to “bulk up” your immune system:
1) Get a vaccination. Your immune system reacts to the proteins in the vaccine, forming antibodies and related cells to recognize and attack that virus or bacteria if you encounter it in the future. Since there’s nothing alive in the vaccine, nothing happens other than this immune system reaction; in some cases you might run a mild fever.
2) Catch a disease. The disease has the same proteins as in the vaccine, and your immune system reacts to these exactly as with the vaccination. But the disease also reproduces in your body, destroying your cells, raising rashes and pustules, giving you diarrhea, damaging your liver, destroying nerves, and so forth (depending on the disease). Your body reacts to these foreign organisms by attacking the organisms and produing protective chemicals. This reaction gives you fever or chills, fills your sinuses or lungs with mucus, causes coughing, vomiting, swelling, sweating, and other symptoms, and so on (again depending on the disease). Eventually, if the disease doesn’t kill you, these symptoms subside, although there may be permanent damage caused by the organism or by your body’s response. Oh, and in some cases the organism hasn’t been wiped out, but merely gone into hiding – as with chicken pox, where the virus is living inside your nerve cells, and if it later reactivates will give you shingles and possibly blind you.
So many tradeoffs to consider…
Southern Beale
@Cermet:
Here ya go:
Antiviral activity and possible mechanisms of action of oligonucleotides-poly(L-lysine) conjugates targeted to vesicular stomatitis virus mRNA and genomic RNA
I’m not advising anyone to do anything. I just have a healthy skepticism of our for-profit healthcare industry which foists the latest miracle drug/vaccine/whatever on us and then, 2 years later, there’s the inevitable flood of TV commercials from law firms asking if you were harmed from said miracle drug.
We used to have the highest standards in the world in this country. I don’t delude myself into thinking it’s still that way.
goblue72
@Quaker in a Basement: Reverse Crazification Factor? For any idea that is completely batshit insane, no more than 27 percent will believe it?
Dave Trowbridge
“I assumed there was a religious exemption and the medical reason exemption makes sense, but “philosophical or personal”?”
First Amendment forbids that distinction.
Comrade Dread #16: “Ugh. I forgot about the Amish too.
That belief system that technology is an evil is just so alien to me.”
They don’t believe that. For them, technology adoption depends on its impact on community. They enthusiastically adopt technologies that build community, and refuse those that weaken it. See Kevin Kelly on Amish Hackers.
Dustin
You do realize that most of those law firms are vultures looking to sue for harm caused by known and listed side effects, right? Or hell, that they’ll sue based on nothing more than ignorant fear mongering? Case in point, the mercury/autism ‘link’. How many lawsuits have been spawned by idiots that refuse to accept the science on that one alone?
Really? Because I’ve got a formerly Amish family as next door neighbors that got kicked out of their community and cut off from their family for having an emergency cell phone. How did they get caught? Simple, someone asked why an ambulance knew to come when their son had a potentially deadly reaction to a surprise hornets nest. Amish communities are all different, just like churches. Some of them area flat-out crazy and painting them as some sort of “noble savage” does nobody any justice.
dcdl
As someone who has literally given thousands of immunizations to adults and probably hundreds to children I’m a vaccination type of person. I’ve seen the results of not getting them and it isn’t pretty.
Sure you don’t necessarily need the varicella vaccine or the flu vaccine, but it does help the herd immunity if you get them. Plus, let’s say you get the varicella vaccine and you do end up with a case of chickenpox it will probably be a very mild case. Which to me is worth a quick poke.
Another thing people don’t think of is that as an adult you need your booster’s. Don’t forget to get your booster shots!
Dustin
@dcdl: You mean to tell me that someone’s “mommy instinct” isn’t going to make them smarter than the medical community? Damn, and here I thought I was just biased as the pro-vaccine (scratch that: the “give your kids the fucking vaccine or stay away from my family”) father of a preemie that spent the first year of his life immunocompromised…
Dave Trowbridge
Dustin, “noble savages” is hardly the term I’d use, but you’re right that the Amish are not a homogeneous group. Give that article a look if you haven’t already. It’s quite interesting.
Original Lee
@dcdl: Amen to that. I have a perscription in my wallet as I type for the pertussis booster. Three of my friends got pertussis last fall and were sick for about 6 weeks. Not cool. What was mildly amusing (to me) was that one friend passed it to her rabid anti-vaxxer sister-in-law who fumed that she should come down with an old-fashioned disease like whooping cough and didn’t they have drugs for that. To which my friend replied, “If everybody who could get vaccinated did get vaccinated, there would not be enough people around with the disease for you to catch it from.” They are now not on speaking terms.
OTOH, I was reading up on the tetanus booster and discovered that the CDC is actually recommending that the boosters be spread out as far as possible, because they are discovering that the immune response weakens the more boosters you get. Apparently EMTs and other people who used to get boosters more frequently than the general population are now starting to lose immunity in their 60s and 70s, and the U.S. is starting to see an increase in the death rate from tetanus.
Barry
@Cermet:
(re: Jon Marcus not having his kids immunized against chickenpox)
“And can get a dangerous and terrible case of shingles later in life and worse, your kids will carry a deadly virus that will constantly attack their immune system and test it for the slightest weakness and if they are found wanting, then they too will get ill and as many people can tell you – shingles can be terrible – the pain is far beyond what anyone should have to endure just because they didn’t have parents smart enough to read what happens later in life if (and it occurs when you can least endure/handle it like heavy stress (if luckly) or worse, dealing with another deadly illness) you get it again (and over and over if it gets the chance.)
I only wish they had that vaccine when I was growing up.”
I’ve known two people who had shingles, and it really, really s*cks the big one. It especially likes moist skin and mucus membranes, so imagine where the pain will hit you.
Barry
@Southern Beale: “Plus, seems like they make these flu vaccines based on one expected strain of flu virus and invariably it’s a different strain that goes apeshit on the community. So, largely ineffective.”
IIRC, they base them on up to three.
Your ‘largely ineffective’ is an interesting claim. What do you have to back that up?
Barry
@Southern Beale: “Really, I’m a big believer in just letting my immune system bulk up by exposing it to stuff. Within reason, of course.”
How do you think that vaccines work? They expose your immune system to things, so that it bulks up.
” We had all the traditional vaccines you get as a kid but christ that was back in the 60s and there’s like 10 times more vaccines children today get. Honestly I’m glad I don’t have kids because I don’t know what I’d do if I did.”
I’m walking and swimming and working out on the elliptical trainer and freakin’ dancing right now due solely to the fact that we have far more good medical stuff available today than in the 1960’s. My mother was crippled by a familial condition combined with the best that 60’s medicine could do for her.
Having more stuff is often good. True, if we were in the 1800’s, your decisions would be simplified for your children, but by the odds one of the remaining decisions would be what style of coffin to bury a child in.
Barry
@Southern Beale:
The stupid, it burns!