Vaccinations have NEVER been proposed as a one size fits all solution! You’ve missed the implications of ‘herd immunity’. By immunizing the majority of those who can be appropriately vaccinated, you protect those who for various reasons cannot.
Many of the vaccinations that exist today, prevent what used to be devastatingly common when I first started in nursing. We used frequently care for children with H-flu type B, which (if the infant survives) causes severe brain damage. We always had a few in our PICU. The vaccination has eliminated this, or at least made it’s appearance less frequent. N. Meningococcimia, can truly kill before you even realize your child is ill. One of my high school classmates pitched in a varsity baseball game, went home, ate, went to bed at his usual time and was dead by morning. It is that quick. The children who become ill in the morning or afternoon have a better chance of survival, those who are vaccinated have little to worry about. Hygiene does little to protect against Polio, chickenpox, measles, mumps, ruebella, tetanus and pertussis.
Unless you know exactly who has been handling you food each step of the way, an scrupulously scrub every raw food you eat, you can also get any of the other water borne pathogens we routinely vaccinate against. In cases of disasters such as that caused by Katrina, you REALLY want your population vaccinated, because those are the pathogens that will come and visit your neighborhood causing a second round of devastation.
Vaccines, like any medical therapy, involve risk/benefit calculations. There are certainly cases where the risk of a vaccine isn’t justified by the protection it confers. I doubt most doctors apply a thoughtless, one-size-fits-all (OSFA) approach to vaccination. Now, if the intent was to characterize common vaccination schedules for children or mandatory vaccination requirements for schools, then I disagree that this is a simplistic, OSFA approach. It is the result of well thought out standards based on a close examination of risks and benefits of the individual vaccines and the epidemiology of the disease in question. The opponents of vaccination sometimes try to cast it in a negative light with the aspersion that it is a cookie-cutter template doctors follow thoughtlessly, but this is BS.
Vaccines, like any medical therapy, involve risk/benefit calculations. There are certainly cases where the risk of a vaccine isn’t justified by the protection it confers. I doubt most doctors apply a thoughtless, one-size-fits-all (OSFA) approach to vaccination. Now, if the intent was to characterize common vaccination schedules for children or mandatory vaccination requirements for schools, then I disagree that this is a simplistic, OSFA approach. It is the result of well thought out standards based on a close examination of risks and benefits of the individual vaccines and the epidemiology of the disease in question. The opponents of vaccination sometimes try to cast it in a negative light with the aspersion that it is a cookie-cutter template doctors follow thoughtlessly, but this is BS.
Vaccinations have NEVER been proposed as a one size fits all solution! You’ve missed the implications of ‘herd immunity’.
I didn’t say they have (though you should never say never). And, no I didn’t.
My critical comment about OSFA was mostly aimed at the herbal hippies. I threw in the comment that vaccinations are not always necessary to balance it out a bit; to show that it applies for all (pun inteneded).
macgyver,
I just wanted to thank you and others for taking the time to challenge the “facts” posted by weldesgin. I never much thought about vaccinations because I assumed the benefits outweighed the rists, but weldesgin had me going for the argument for the first couple of pages. I got tired of reading the thread around page 10, but I want to say that macgyver’s detailed analysis got me back on the vaccination wagon (not that I really got off at any point). You really destroyed weldesgin arguments (pointing out mis-representations and twisted statistics), and did me a favor of not having to double check the facts myself!
Thank you!
You’re welcome. Glad I could be of some help, but this is a never ending battle against ignorance. The mass media ( the ultimate purveyor of misinformation medical and otherwise) is constantly putting out stories about people who are anti-vaccine ( A la Jenny McCarthy), and then presenting the other side of the story as though both oppinions should receive equal time and equal respect. Even some of the media “doctors” haven’t gotten this story right. CNN’s Sanja Gupta ( After seeing anumber of his stories I find it hard to believe this guy has any understanding of the scientific method) has lately been pandering to ignorance by giving the anti vaccine lobby a voice on his site. Time magazine is the only mass media outlet that actually did a fairly respectable article a month or two ago on this issue. They appropriately addressed the weaknesses in the anti vaccine argument, and avoided the common mistake of trying to present a “fair and balanced” view of a debate that does not have two equal sides and shouldn’t be presented as such. Unfortunately it is one of very few places where this has been presented accurately in the mass media. I guess its a battle we will just have to continue fighting until another one of equal merit replaces it. I’m thinking a debate between scientists and the Flat Earth Society on the true shape of our planet.
Yeah, I saw that yesterday. I tried to google the story because I wanted to read the original study. The amazing thing is that within hours of this popping up in the news there were dozens of autism web sites and blogs that were already shooting the study down. These people want so much to believe that vaccines are the cause of their problems that they won’t even look at the evidence.
The article is more of a personal story and doesn’t present any scientific evidence, but I thought I’d include it here as a link to the media discussions of vaccinations.
The article is more of a personal story and doesn’t present any scientific evidence, but I thought I’d include it here as a link to the media discussions of vaccinations.
Anecdotes while heart rending are not scientific evidence of causation. It is unfortunate that so many have forced funding to prove again and again that there is no link between autism and vaccination. This takes away money from useful research to find the real reason/cure. Childhood diseases that are rare, are rare because of, not despite, childhood vaccination, and will only remain so as long as our herds are properly immunized. These ‘rare’ diseases are becoming more common as people are refusing to vaccinate their children. These ‘rare’ diseases, will have some devastating consequences on the health of our communities if they become as common as they once were.
Thanks for the link. It’s always good to try and understand the mindset of people who end up seeing an issue like this so differently than we in the medical community. The sad fact is that by vaccinating his first child he could not have caused the disorder that developed, and by not vaccinating his second child he was putting him at risk for real and preventable diseases. All the legitimate anxiety and best intentions int he wolrd don’t change the brute facts.
Asanta, look at it as a chance for evolution to function. Those who don’t vaccinate will have fewer children who make it to adulthood, thereby gradually decreasing their number in the population.
Asanta, look at it as a chance for evolution to function. Those who don’t vaccinate will have fewer children who make it to adulthood, thereby gradually decreasing their number in the population.
Occam
Most of these idiots were vaccinated as children themselves. Otherwise I would say it would be a great thing if the parents contracted a WORSE case of the disease from their children. Unfortunately, you can’t blame children for having sheep/idiots for parents.
True, but those children who do survive will be taught the same idiotic things by their parents, and will have the additional ‘evidence’ of “See, I wasn’t vaccinated and I’m just fine. They are unnnecessary.” And they’ll continue the practice of not vaccinating their children.
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