Posted on 02/04/2015 11:01:19 AM PST by Kaslin
This week, controversy broke out over whether state governments have the power to require parents to have their children vaccinated. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, no stranger to compelling his citizens to stay off the roads during blizzards, announced that he had some sympathy for the anti-vaccination position: "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that's the balance the government has to decide." Kentucky Senator Rand Paul doubled down on Christie's remarks, stating, "I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental orders after vaccines. ...The state doesn't own your children."
Christie and Paul aren't the only politicians sympathizing with anti-vaccination fanatics; in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama repeated widely debunked claims of links between autism and vaccination. Skepticism of vaccination crosses party lines, unfortunately -- although the most organized anti-vaccination resistance comes from the New Agey left in places like Santa Monica and Marin County, who worry more about infinitesimal amounts of formaldehyde in vaccines than about death by polio.
Unsurprisingly, older Americans believe that children should be vaccinated against diseases like measles, mumps and whopping cough, by a 73 percent to 21 percent margin. Americans 18-29, by contrast, believe by a 43 percent to 42 percent plurality that government should not mandate such vaccinations.
That's because young people don't remember a time when such diseases claimed lives. They don't remember a time when the vast majority of Americans weren't vaccinated. Older people do. Many of them lost loved ones to polio and measles and mumps and rubella. In 1952, over 3,000 Americans died of polio and well over 21,000 were left with mild or severe paralysis. Thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk's vaccine, there have been zero cases of natural polio in the United States since 1979.
The same is true of measles. According to Dr. Mark Papania of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 90 percent of Americans suffered from the measles by age 15 before widespread vaccination beginning in 1962. From 1956 to 1960, he reports, "an average of 542,000 cases were reported annually." That included 450 deaths per year, as well as 150,000 cases of respiratory complications and 4,000 cases of consequent encephalitis per year, many of which resulted in later death. Then mandatory vaccination kicked in. Until a major upswing in 2014, we averaged less than 100 cases of measles per year in the United States since 2000.
The point of mandatory vaccinations is not merely to protect those who are vaccinated. When it comes to measles, mumps and rubella, for example, children cannot be vaccinated until 1 year of age. The only way to prevent them from getting diseases is to ensure that those who surround them do not have those diseases. The same is true for children with diseases like leukemia, as well as pregnant women. Herd immunity is designed to protect third parties.
But Americans have short memories and enormous confidence in junk science. Parents will ignore vaccinations but ensure that their kids are stocked up with the latest homeopathic remedies, Kabbalah bracelets and crystals. St. John's wort, red string and crystals all existed before 1962. They didn't stop the measles. Vaccination did.
That doesn't mean that all vaccinations should be compulsory, of course. There are certain diseases that can only be transmitted by behavior, like HPV. There are others that are too varied for effective herd vaccination, like the flu shot. But when it comes to measles and mumps and rubella and polio, your right to be free of vaccination -- and your right to be a dope with the health of your child because you believe Jenny McCarthy's idiocy -- ends where my child's right to live begins.
That was the stupidest reason for a vaccination, and I absolutely refused to fall for it.
So, basically, this is a non-issue.
A statistical anomaly has occurred and a small measles outbreak (102 cases to date, out of 350,000,000 people) is being exploited by the media to stoke the fires of panic and urge us to turn on each other.
The major problem with vaccinations is, how do you know for sure that your child will NOT fall in the percentage of those who will be harmed or even die from the vaccination. This is the whole problem. It’s a crap shoot for each set of parents and for each child of parents. If Uncle Sugar or the pharmas could guarantee 100% that no lives will be detrimentally affected, this would not be a problem.
I think a good give/take/informative conversation with your kid’s DR and informing oneself is essential.
Ah yes, if someone says (paraphrase) “I would personally vaccinate and my children, and I am vaccinated myself multiple times, but its a free country and up for families to decide”, then all of a sudden I am a anti-vaxxer fanatic?
Vote for my favorite GF film.
Or from an infected tourist form some country other than Mexico.
Using the calculation methods in the same “Herd Immunity” article that you posted to this thread, a 91% vaccination rate assures that a large-scale outbreak is virtually impossible. The “R” value for measles is not high enough to overcome the percentage of immune population.
OK, I will explain this to you VERY VERY SLOWLY.
You believe you have the absolute right to make a life and death decision on behalf of your children, without any legal restraint. This is exactly what abortionists believe. In my mothers family, there were 17 kids [typical early 20th century farm family]. Five died during childhood because of polio, pertussis, diphtheria, and typhoid.
Until the late 1950's every year in the late summer in the US, children and their parents wondered if this was going to be the year that someone in the family died or was paralyzed by polio.
You think you have the "right" to expose your child to that kind of danger? You're no better than an abortionist.
“”A statistical anomaly has occurred and a small measles outbreak (102 cases to date, out of 350,000,000 people) is being exploited by the media to stoke the fires of panic and urge us to turn on each other.”
Yes, but we extradited measles and measles is very contagious.
And if vaccination rates decline, cases of the measles will increase exponentially
Absolutely. No line Em up at school and give them all the same as they did with the polio vaccine. Luckily my uncle was a doctor and we got what we needed thru him. But a classmate actually contracted the disease shortly after the first cycle was given. No other cases in the community so all thought he probably “caught” it from the cure
With VERY good reason.
I would venture a guess that EVERY FReeper over 50 knew or had a family member who was killed or paralyzed by polio. In my mother's family two died. In my father's family one was paralyzed for life.
I remember at that time saying I would not vaccinate the entire population against anything, with an unproven vaccine since there might be reactions not anticipated.
Some vaccines have a proven track record, and I would get them, or have already gotten them.
I can remember a TV skit with Pres. Jerry Ford siting down, a hypodermic needle sticking out of his arm, and him telling Americans why they should have the swine flu vacine. -Tom
And it needs to stay that high.
There is where you inserted a false analogy.
Aborting a child ASSURES said child's death.
Choosing not to vaccinate a child not only does NOT assure said child's death, it does not even appreciably increase the likelihood of said child's death. Measles and mumps make children sick -they very rarely result in death. But even skipping a vaccination for a deadly disease does not ASSURE death by that disease.
Please stop comparing apples to oranges.
You and I, the same age. When I started Grad School, the University where I got my undergrad, had started the MMR requirement for people like us, who got the “defective” vaccine. I had just gotten married and Catholic-natural-family-planning (lol) and I thought for myself and asked about a medical exemption (same thing when I was applying in the 2001 on for teaching positions). The university tried to pull the old you have to get a new shot. I told them that the shot is NOT recommended if one is expecting and if I was forced to get the shot without knowing I was expecting that I would SUE the hell out of them. Medical exemption form provided.
My first child, I had the usual blood work, one was for immunity to MMR. Yes, I am immune despite the “bad” vaccine.
Okay.
Measles
Tetanus
Polio
Time to bring back GOOD MEDICINES like Eye of newt and toe of frog!
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