How the anti-vaxxers are winning

[the game]

So I read this opinion piece and was wondering what you guys thought about this? Could we see an epidemic soon because of people's unwillingness to protect not only their child but the rest of the population?

HOUSTON — It’s looking as if 2017 could become the year when the anti-vaccination movement gains ascendancy in the United States and we begin to see a reversal of several decades in steady public health gains. The first blow will be measles outbreaks in America.

Measles is one of the most contagious and most lethal of all human diseases. A single person infected with the virus can infect more than a dozen unvaccinated people, typically infants too young to have received their first measles shot. Such high levels of transmissibility mean that when the percentage of children in a community who have received the measles vaccine falls below 90 percent to 95 percent, we can start to see major outbreaks, as in the 1950s when four million Americans a year were infected and 450 died. Worldwide, measles still kills around 100,000 children each year.

The myth that vaccines like the one that prevents measles are connected to autism has persisted despite rock-solid proof to the contrary. Donald Trump has given credence to such views in tweets and during a Republican debate, but as president he has said nothing to support vaccination opponents, so there is reason to hope that his views are changing.

However, a leading proponent of the link between vaccines and autism said he recently met with the president to discuss the creation of a presidential commission to investigate vaccine safety. Such a commission would be a throwback to the 2000s, when Representative Dan Burton of Indiana held fruitless hearings and conducted investigations on this topic. And a documentary alleging a conspiracy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” has recently been shown around the country.

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As a scientist leading global efforts to develop vaccines for neglected poverty-related diseases like schistosomiasis and Chagas’ disease, and as the dad of an adult daughter with autism and other disabilities, I’m worried that our nation’s health will soon be threatened because we have not stood up to the pseudoscience and fake conspiracy claims of this movement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/o...ning.html?_r=0

[Moralgy]

So I read this opinion piece and was wondering what you guys thought about this? Could we see an epidemic soon because of people's unwillingness to protect not only their child but the rest of the population?



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/o...ning.html?_r=0

Not an epidemic, but giant outbreaks in certain locations will continue happening until people get tired of seeing kids dying.

[the game]

Not an epidemic, but giant outbreaks in certain locations will continue happening until people get tired of seeing kids dying.

I personally think it should be required to have full vaccinations before being admitted into public schools. Unless of course there's a valid medical reason to not do it.

[Lenonis]

All it will take is one major outbreak before vaccines are mandated and the anti-vax movement will be stomped out of existence like it should be. If only we could force them to pay for the damage they'll leave behind.

[Halyon]

While I dislike innocent people dying to their parent's being stupid twats, it also serves them right. It's a lose/lose situation though, since the stupidity was allowed to reach a position of enough influence, and took that stupidity out on their children, and as a consequence other children.

[Mormolyce]

Donald Trump's new Health Secretary Tom Price was member of an ultra-conservative anti-vaxxer group

Donald Trump’s new Health Secretary was a member of a doctors’ group that believes vaccinations are “equivalent to human experimentation”.

Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Tom Price was until recently, an affiliate of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, (AAPS).

The ultra-conservative, libertarian group is opposed to mandatory vaccinations, which runs contrary to the recommendations of every major health organisation.

The group also vehemently opposed to Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, which allowed some 20 million previously uninsured Americans to purchase health insurance.

A former member of the House of Representatives for Georgia, Dr Price was quizzed on his views on vaccination by the Senate, amid fears that he supports Mr Trump’s long espoused theory that vaccines cause autism.

Mr Trump told Fox News in 2014: “I've seen people where they have a perfectly healthy child, and they go for the vaccinations, and a month later the child is no longer healthy."

Mr Trump repeated his claim in 2015, telling a Republican Primary debate he believed vaccinations were causing an “autism epidemic”.

He has also met repeatedly with dedicated anti-vaccination campaigners including Robert F Kennedy Jr and disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield.

Dr Price remained a member of AAPS until last year.

A resolution by the group in the year 2000 stated: “Safety testing of many vaccines is limited and the data are unavailable for independent scrutiny, so that mass vaccination is equivalent to human experimentation and subject to the Nuremberg Code, which requires voluntary informed consent”.

Dr Price would not give the Senate any guarantees over funding for public vaccination programmes, but pledged to “swiftly debunk false claims to protect public health” and “make certain that factual information is conveyed to Congress and the President and the American people.”

Senator Bob Menendez asked him directly: “Do vaccines cause autism?”

Mr Price replied: “I think the science in that instance is that they don’t.”

He went on to say that “individuals” in the US are concerned about a link, but was cut off by Mr Menendez who said he wanted to keep the focus on science.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7573196.html





Sometimes I wonder if Trump just likes telling lies. Even when there's nothing in it for him.

[Machismo]

The anti-vaxxer movement isn't much different than the alt-right and pro-Trump movements. It's a bunch of ignorant people in an echo chamber, repeating lies and misinformation until they all believe it. No amount of facts or scientific evidence is going to sway them from their cognitive dissonance. They are willfully ignorant... and proud.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

i don't really care either way but how is there gonna be an epidemic if people have the vax's they shouldn't get it even if others do.

[Deleted]

Bring out yer dead!

[Friendlyimmolation]

Such rampant stupidity always surprises me, even though I should be jaded at this point.

[Alvito]

I personally think it should be required to have full vaccinations before being admitted into public schools. Unless of course there's a valid medical reason to not do it.

It used to be. Then the fearful uninformed started taking over. Fear is a strong motivator, when it comes to topics people don't have a solid grasp on they will buckle to fear due to lack of knowledge.

[ro9ue]

Sometimes I wonder if Trump just likes telling lies. Even when there's nothing in it for him.

While I often agree with the adage "Don't attribute to malevolence what can be much easier explained by stupidity", Trump is a curious case. I often suspect he is basically like a bored billionaire who likes to just fuck with people. If I had to compare him to someone - probably Kefka or The Joker.

[Mihalik]

This is a consequence of the combination of human stupidity and ignorance combined with the effectiveness of the very vaccinations they reject.

We need like 10% of a generation to go blind and deaf from measles, wheelchair bound and disabled from polio or just straight up fucking dead as child mortality rate caused by preventable diseases skyrocket to remind people why the fuck we started vaccinating everyone in the first place.

This enrages me so much, even more than climate change deniers, I don't care whether you are a New Age Hippie or a Jesus Freak I seriously want to slap the shit out of you if you are an anti-vaxxer, because you are so fucking stupid that you have become a threat to the gene pool.

[The Oblivion]

make it so not vaccinating an able bodies child is a crime. same as not feeding them. it is child abuse to not vaccinate.

[Alvito]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7573196.html





Sometimes I wonder if Trump just likes telling lies. Even when there's nothing in it for him.

It emboldens him to the fearful idiots and with one common fear they assume every other nonsensical thing he says is true. Since they are used to skeptics over their own nonsense and can easily ignore mountains of facts they are a lock for his fan base in other aspects.

[Mihalik]

If you refuse to vaccinate your kids for no valid medical reason (immuno compromised) society should reserve the right to beat you to death with a tire iron when your goddamned kid dies of some dumb preventable disease. Hell...I would freaking volunteer to carry out the sentence.

[Breccia]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-au...0NC1WK20150421

MMR vaccine not linked to autism, even in high-risk kids

The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is not linked to development of autism spectrum disorders, even among children considered to be at risk, a large new study finds.

Among nearly 100,000 children, receipt of the MMR vaccine did not increase the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), regardless of whether kids were at higher risk because an older sibling already had the condition, researchers write in JAMA.

"Even for children who are high-risk, the vaccine does not play a role," said lead author Dr. Anjali Jain of healthcare consulting firm The Lewin Group in Falls Church, Virginia. "We don’t know what does unfortunately, but it’s not the MMR vaccine."

The results should be reassuring, she said.

Autism spectrum disorder is a range of symptoms that often includes difficulties with communication and social interaction, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. It's may also include restricted and repetitive behaviors.

The 1998 study that claimed to find a connection between the MMR vaccine and ASD was later debunked. The Lancet, the medical journal that originally published it, withdrew it. Studies continue to vouch for the safety of the vaccine.

Still, some people continue to believe that the vaccine is connected to ASD.

Parents of children with ASD may also believe there is a genetic component, and so they decline to vaccinate their other children, Jain and colleagues noted in their report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the new study, the researchers used insurance claims data on 95,727 children followed from birth to at least age five between 2001 and 2012. They also had data on the children's older siblings.

Overall, about 2 percent of the children had an older sibling with ASD. Those children were more likely to go on to develop ASD themselves whether they were vaccinated or not, according to the report.

The vaccine didn't increase their risk, the researchers say.

For example, among high-risk five year olds, ASD developed in 23 of 269 who weren't vaccinated (8.6 percent), compared to 30 of 796 (3.8 percent) who received two doses of the MMR vaccine.

Among kids not at high risk of ASD, 7,735 were unvaccinated at age five and 56 (0.7 percent) were diagnosed with the condition. That compared to 244 of 45,568 children (0.5 percent) who received two MMR doses.

Furthermore, children with an older sibling with ASD were significantly less likely to have received the MMR vaccine in the first place.

By age five, about 92 percent of the children without ASD in the family had received at least one MMR dose. By comparison, only 86 percent of children with an older sibling with ASD had been vaccinated by that age.

"I think it’s important to show that the degree of undervaccination in the families with children with autism spectrum disorder was significant," Jain told Reuters Health.

Alongside the lack of association between the vaccine and ASD, the undervaccination rate deserves attention, she said.

Roughly a dozen studies have shown that age of ASD onset and its severity do not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children, wrote Dr. Bryan King, program director of the Autism Center at Seattle Children's Hospital, in an editorial accompanying the new study.

The new study, King added, now shows that "the risk of ASD recurrence in families does not differ between vaccinated and unvaccinated children."

[PassingBy]

The anti vaxxers, though, have a point.

Most of the vaccines have consequences and side effects. While those side effects are rather rare - they are still there.

When there is a lot of unvaccinated people around you - your chances of getting sick are high, and the risk of getting sick outweighs the risk of having the side effects.
When 90-95% of the population is vaccinated your chances of getting sick are very low, while the chance of getting the side effects is the same.

So while those anti vaxxers are not the big part of the population they are gucci.
Low chances of getting the disease, while not having to worry for the side effects.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Vaccines are not 100% effective and some percentage of people who receive a vaccine or even multiple doses of a vaccine may fail to develop an immunity to the disease. Furthermore, there are people who simply cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

well ya but that wouldn't really be an epidemic.

[Knaar]

Im probably going to be infracted for this, but whatever.

I wouldnt mind a somewhat big epidemic of one or two big diseases that currently have vaccins againts it.
When the parents go on tv to cry their children died, you asked them : Did they received vaccins? No? Next!