Forced vaccinations

[PunaMauka2]

bystander,

sounds like another instance of hysteria and misinformation running amok, driven by the spread of irrational fear, anger, and paranoia. Among those with views on the more extreme end of the political spectrum it seems to occur regularly, particularly among hardcore libertarians and the like. We saw some hints of that starting to emerge here and there earlier in this thread with the typical slippery slope argument, a sprinkling of references to communism, and a stab at invoking xenophobic fear.

[Punatic007]

I've travelled far and wide, still do, and love a challenging adventure. I've probably been vaccinated with every possible vaccine there is including all the follow up boosters.

That said, I don't care how hysterical or paranoid they may appear to some, I value personal freedom and respect those who prefer not to be vaccinated. Perhaps they are on to something, perhaps not, not my business.

[PaulW]

Unfortunately, it becomes your business when a relative dies because somebody was frightened by a big word in a vaccine ingredient list.

If people want to increase the risk of themselves or their children dying, I'm fine with it. But it's bigger than that.

[Rob Tucker]

As the world gets smaller the risk of spreading diseases gets bigger.

[Chunkster]

quote:

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Originally posted by Punatic007

Perhaps they are on to something, perhaps not, not my business.

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It would instantly become your business if polio made a come-back in the USA or if typhoid, diphtheria, and whooping cough became endemic again. As mentioned by several others, herd immunity protects those too frail to be vaccinated who have no choice in the matter.

[ironyak]

Originally posted by Chunkster
It would instantly become your business if polio made a come-back in the USA or if typhoid, diphtheria, and whooping cough became endemic again.


For clarity, typhoid is not commonly vaccinated for in the US and was eliminated (as Kirt noted) through improved hygine and access to clean drinking water. The T in the common DTaP vaccine is for tetanus, which is the only non-contagious disease vaccine required for public school kids.

Despite the simplicities offered by the pro- and anti- vaccination camps, there are both benefits and risks for vaccinations. Consider the several hundred kids dealing with narcolepsy/cataplexy after receiving the 2009 swine flu vaccine in Europe. Weighing a permanent life-altering illness for "the few" kids against the possible risk for "the many" doesn't seem as clear cut as movie quotes make it out to be?

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/...on-dispute

[VancouverIslander]

ironyak: while it's true that there was a statistically significant increase in cases of narcolepsy in Europe (no link was found in North America, possibly differences in the vaccine), it was found that H1N1 itself also caused an increase in narcolepsy, so the problem might be the virus itself (from which the vaccine was created).

Just call me Mike

[knieft]

Also, for clarity, there is now, of course, a typhoid vaccine.

Fascinating to me is that the leading (only?) hypothesis for why 20th century polio spiked in richer, western countries (and not so much in "Third World" countries) is because of the improved sanitation in this countries. Just doesn't fall together for me in the big picture...typhoid falls away without a vaccine because of improved sanitation, but polio wouldn't even spike except for improving sanitation? And polio was falling off before the vaccine.

excerpted from article at

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/ea...wq320.full

"However, with the advent of improved personal hygiene and public sanitation, the transmission of enteric infections was delayed so that some infants were first infected after 12 months of age, when levels of passive antibodies had waned, reducing the barrier against invasion of the central nervous system. Consistent with this hypothesis, all of the early outbreaks occurred among very young children, and the disease was known as “infantile paralysis.”"

Add to this idea that there is evidence that natural immunity is lost in highly vaccinated populations and my cognitive dissonance (ha!) is enhanced.

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/ea...it144.full

I couldn't agree more on the tactics of the anti vaxxer folks--it makes it really hard to sift through the research when so many of the anti websites come up. After checking out the sources of their claims to find it mostly bogus, you are left with a lot of wasted time.

But the pro vax side is very guilty of cherry-picking and fear mongering as well. The interview ironyak posted could be dissected paragraph by paragraph. It's just a lot better said than the typical anti-vax side. Science, especially medical science, is certainly not immune from a reliance on "a prior's" that turn out to be less than useful. Pasteur, himself, said that the "terrain of the body" is more important than the microbe in disease.

And the pharmaceutical companies...whatever.

Makes it hard to find out what's what. And I'm beginning to think it is simply not known what's what.

So I can wear the "pro-geothermal"l, "pro-TMT", and "who gives a rat's arse about" GMO foods, tee shirts. But still its the "IDK-vax" tee-shirt for me.

Cheers,
Kirt

[PaulW]

Good articles!

"And polio was falling off before the vaccine."
I didn't see that in there anywhere. But I did see this:

"Following the introduction of IPV and OPV in the United States, annual incidence fell exponentially, beginning in 1955[...]
The last US polio outbreak occurred in 1979 in an underimmunized Amish population (67, 68), caused by a wild poliovirus imported from Turkey via the Netherlands and Canada (66)."

If you want to push your anti-vaccine agenda, you'd best not mention polio!

"The interview ironyak posted could be dissected paragraph by paragraph."
Please, go ahead. Or would you rather just make vague unsupported insinuations?

[ironyak]

VI-
There were a few different H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines used in Europe - Pandemix used an adjuvant to increase immune response and is linked to a increased risk of narcolepsy, while others (including Celvapan used in the US) do not have the adjuvant and have not shown an increased risk of narcolepsy (based on studies from Finland, China, US, etc). Further studies will hopefully show if this difference played a role or not, but given the CDC's related statement, those "other ingredients" obviously have an impact in determining a vaccine's safety.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concern...y-flu.html

Again, this is not a condemnation of all vaccines (or an anti-vaccine agenda , but demonstrates that the science is not as simple or proven as some of the glib posts seem to believe. There are always risks and rewards and given the limitations of human trials many of these will not be appreciated until the vaccines are distributed to the masses.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/w...narcolepsy