Vaccines. And now my kids don't die...

[SidDithers]

Sid

[Feral Child]

1. REC

Thanks for this, Sid.

[ismnotwasm]

2. I had to get a booster for pertussis

AND take anti-biotics at because at my workplace I was one of a group of nurses exposed to pertussis. When we do dialysis, the Hep B patients cannot be dialyzed with someone who is what we call 'sensitive' or not immune. the machines also have to be cleaned in a special way. There is a nurse who cannot develop immunity to hep B-- he cannot care for them.

The healthcare costs the anti vaxer's (not all hep B folk are, just not something they think about doing, or already had I guess) are a lot more than people think.

My daughter won't let her kids around anti-vaxer's-- her kids are vaccinated, but she is a little anonamolous, developing double mumps at 16 despite being vaccinated. She doesn't want her kids around any of that bullshit. (she was also in the military and has had every vaccine you can think off, the only one she reacted to was the smallpox one)

I can't believe this has to be a debate. I really can't

[demigoddess]

25. grew up in the military

had a lot of those shots too. all the kids did. Never heard of one who had problems from them. I think it is giving a ton of shots to a little kid on one day. Besides they now say Autism may begin in the womb.

[Old Codger]

42. Pertussis (whooping cough)

Had it as a child, thought that made me immune as most others but not true, can get it a second time, didn't know that so got it the second time... A little less severe second time around but not fun at all ..especially an old fart like me


They should start a colony for anti vaxxers and not allow them out... let them live with their diseases and not spread them around.

[tblue37]

43. My brother nearly died from pertussis at age 12, so I have no tolerance

for anti-vaxxers. Back then a vaccine wasn't available, so we had no choice about running the risk, but today there is no excuse for those whose children are not excluded from the group that can take the vaccines.

[Rex]

3. But needles are scary Sid!

You mean purified water and a 'good aura' won't cure my hemorrhoids?

[NuclearDem]

5. I think you treat that with Venus fly trap extract, actually.

Or was that for cancer? I can't remember.

[Rex]

6. Ever had one of those things latch onto your finger?

[NuclearDem]

8. Yes, and it reinforced my hypothesis that I am, in fact, an insect.

[eggplant]

49. Ouch!

Ohhhh, you said extract.

Nevermind!

[SidDithers]

7. I loved the "legal disclaimers" that appear in the video...

"Use of vaccines without proper birth control can lead to explosive population growth causing severe environmental degradation, mass death from famine and heightened incidents of armed conflict due to limited resources"

"Do not take vaccines if you've chosen to die from the mumps"

I've posted that video here a few times, but it seemed appropriate again today.

BTW, frozen, purified water might help with the problem in your backyard.

Sid

[Rex]

11. Yeah that's what made me think of my post!

However, my backyard is all dirt with just small tuffs of grass stubbornly holding on to dear life. We need rain so bad, I might try a rain dance.

[SidDithers]

13. Wait, are we still talking about you hemmorhoids?...

"backyard" was a euphemism.

"my backyard is all dirt with just small tuffs of grass stubbornly holding on to dear life"



Sid

[Rex]

15. Doh!

Never heard it called backyard before...backside maybe.

[NuclearDem]

4. This is as much of a debate

as one between evolution and creationism or AGW and CC denial.

Thanks again, Sid.

[SidDithers]

10. Agreed...

and the nutbars who believe HIV doesn't cause AIDS, too.

Some people just have their heads so far up their own asses that you have to wonder how they survive at all.



Sid

[loyalsister]

32. I know someone who denies evolution and is an anti-vaxxer

Natural evolution can be qualified as good or bad rather than being a neutral process. She misunderstood Hunger Games, and hates the idea of competition.
She is anti-religion, yet believes that we were created with bodies that can fight any illness.
And, of course vaccines are a corporate government conspiracy.
She believes that supplements will cure anything and you can bypass Obamacare and corporations by taking them.

Sadly, she is homeschooling her daughter.

[Sedona]

37. How do you know my sister?

[loyalsister]

41. LOL!!!

I didn't realize there were 6 of us! Welcome to the family.

[Treant]

45. And my cousin

The joke was kind of on her. I'm a German measles carrier, which I know. She's an anti-vax type, which I did not know.

That was a doctor's visit for her new daughter that was probably very interesting.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. That's the thing...

vaccination has been so successful at reducing childhood mortality that people are complacent and don't really fully understand the risks involved in not vaccinating...since kids actually don't die of measles or whooping cough or scarlet fever or polio, anymore (at least not in developed countries).

[Rex]

14. That is the truth! People get complacent. Everything is fine and dandy.

AS IF we've eliminated the actual disease! They don't know what inoculated means.

[NickB79]

18. More people need to take strolls through old graveyards

And read the tombstones.

LOTS of children buried in those graves. Often entire families, or most of them, within a matter of weeks.

Most of them did not die from horse kicks or buggy falls.

[SidDithers]

51. Exactly...

people today have the luxury of being anti-vax, because vaccination programs have been so successful at wiping out the childhood diseases that used to kill and injure thousands and thousands of kids.

People don't remember how bad it used to be, and how thankful parents were when their kids could be protected from a disease like polio.

From the CDC, here's the incidence of polio cases since 1950:



Sid

[zappaman]

12. In before the usual suspects show up!

Anti-vaxxers are just as fucking stupid as creationists...even if their last name is Kennedy.

[Rex]

16. I think the current curfluffle was over calling RFK an asshat.

More than the actual case of people believing in chakras and mineral water. Asshat is a really good addition to our current lexicon.

Curfluffle? I think I used that correctly.

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. "Kerfuffle", actually, but, yes

having a famous name doesn't make your ill-informed and ignorant opinions any more valid than anyone else's. It just tends to give you more of a platform for airing them.

[Rex]

21. True, but there is a group here that gets reactionary if you talk ill of any Kennedy.

As was seen in Sid's other thread. Validity or no validity. I personally find it hard to believe and educated person would be anti-vax, but obviously there are some.

[RobertEarl]

50. Here is RFK being quoted at link posted

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told me that the book he commissioned has a chapter “we were going to leave out, because it’s so controversial, but the evidence is so strong that thimerosal causes autism,” that he’s keeping it in.

Yet in the next breath he said he wasn’t going to publish the book (even though it has a publisher and is going through edits right now) because it is so explosive that he doesn’t want it to prompt a mass panic: “I don’t want parents to stop vaccinating their kids.” (“I’m pro-vaccine,” he insisted several times during the call.)

http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/robert_kennedy_jr_vaccines_aut.php?page=all

[zappaman]

23. It's kerflunkle

You can ask a certain San Diego journo if you are unclear.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3547564

[Rex]

26. Excellent!

Gonna use that today in RL.

[SidDithers]

27. Yeah, I could probably go easier on the language...

but Kennedy has been wrong, and has been told he's wrong, since 2005, when he first published his "Deadly Immunity" article.

My comments are less of an attempt to convince anyone of anything, and more of a rant borne out of frustration at the dumbassery exhibited by anti-vax cranks.

There will be those that agree with my opinion that Kennedy is an asshat. And there will be those that disagree, and don't like the derisive language I use. I can live with that.



Sid

[Rex]

30. I dunno, I think asshat is a great word.

So is crank. I can understand the frustration, kinda like dealing with flat-earth types. You just want to give up and roll your eyes and be done with it.

[onecaliberal]

24. Thank you for saying so...

I said Kennedy wasn't a dem and science deniers were in line with climate deniers yesterday and it didn't sit well with some here. It's ridiculous.
Why do my kids have to be put at risk for backwards thinkers?

[kiva]

17. I was born 5 days

after Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was publicly announced as successful. My mother once said how grateful she was was that she could raise her children without the terror of polio, unlike her older siblings.

Idiots who do not want to vaccinate should be forced to visit countries where vaccines are not readily available and watch children dying of measles and other preventable diseases...then let them have their 'chicken pox parties'.

[Tree-Hugger]

29. Chicken Pox Parties

My son couldn't get the chicken pox vaccine. He ended up getting the chicken pox last year at age 7. Of course, he contracted them from a kid who had been up to date and vaccinated with the varicella vaccine, but ended up with CP anyway (though pretty mild). Just our luck. I mentioned to friends that my son had chicken pox. He did fine with them - all was said and done in a week. One of those friends took the liberty to tell her anti-vaxx crew that we had chicken pox at our house (I ended up with chicken pox, too, despite being supposedly immune - NOT FUN). I had people I don't even know messaging me on Facebook asking if they can have a playdate with my sick child or if I would "be so kind" as to have my kid lick a lollipop and then send it to them for their kids to share. I said no. Just a simple "no." These people then spoke to me like I was the most evil person on the planet - telling me I was rude, nasty, stupid, etc. for not wanting to let my kid expose other children to chicken pox. It was pure insanity. Why do you want to willingly expose your child to a disease that makes them feel like shit and DOES have risks, including death?

[Treant]

46. You terrible parent!

Imagine not illegally sending samples of a disease on a lollipop through the mail!

I had chicken pox, a particularly bad case, and will carry the scars (and the memory, hazy though it is through the delirium of fever) of that incident for the rest of my life.

I wish we'd had the vaccination when I was young. Instead of...that...I might have at least gotten a more mild case.

[Voice for Peace]

47. there is a South Park episode about a chicken pox party

[TBF]

19. My grandmother died later in life (early 70s)

but the cause was damage to her organs from acute polio much earlier in life. This is not something to mess around with. Get your vaccines people.

[ScreamingMeemie]

34. Post-polio. Same thing happened to my grandfather.

He also went through life with a right leg that was much shorter and much weaker than the left.

[treestar]

22. K&R

Great take off on those pharmaceutical ads.

[PasadenaTrudy]

28. Rich, educated parents....

are driving the anti-vax crisis....

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-vaccination-crisis-20140903-column.html

[SidDithers]

31. Along with rich celebrities, who use their oversized megaphone...

to spread their misinformed, dangerous opinions far and wide.

Sid

[xchrom]

33. du rec.

[pinboy3niner]

35. And these days, Library Girl woo is just...disappeared

I'm sure you noticed that.

[SidDithers]

39. She took up roost at Discussionist for a while...

but anti-vax threads bring her out like cockroaches when the lights go off.



Sid

[Dr Hobbitstein]

36. Love it!

This is great!

[Progressive dog]

38. Thanks

I stopped supporting the NRDC when I realized RFK jr. (their bragged about attorney) was an anti-science nut case.

[SheilaT]

40. Several thoughts here.

To ismnotwasm, is it possible your daughter was in need of a booster when she got mumps? I'm pretty sure the MMR needs a booster some years later, but I could be wrong, and please do not in any way construe my question and comment as some sort of attack. I'm thinking my oldest, now 31, was in the early group of those who got the MMR, and around the time those kids started entering college, it was, Oops, we need a booster.

Something similar will probably happen with the shingles shot. Right now there seems to be a lot of uncertainty if it confers permanent immunity. I suspect that in a few years there will be another, Oops, it's time to get a booster. I only got my shingles shot less than a year ago, so I'll have some lead time to find out if one is needed.

DPT is something most adults don't think about, but it's a good idea to get one every ten years or so. I got one about five years ago now, and need to remember to get another one in another five.

It is true that we are born -- most of us anyway -- with an immune system already geared up to fight off all sorts of things, which is why babies born with out a decent working immune system either die very early, or need a lot of special care. That being true does not eliminate the need for vaccines.

Another issue connected to the herd immunity thing, is that even thirty years ago there were far fewer people around with seriously compromised immune systems, the ones who must depend on good herd immunity to keep from getting sick. Modern medicine being what it is, people are alive who in the past would have died from whatever, and so to keep from getting what we used to call childhood disease (and lots of other stuff besides) others need to be vaccinated.

[Voice for Peace]

44. Whatever you choose, be forewarned that pertussis can still be caught AND transmitted in the

vaccinated population. It most likely won't be identified as
whooping cough until it reaches an unvaccinated child, or
a baby not yet old enough for the shots.

[hedgehog]

48. When my grandson was born a year ago - my daughter informed us that NO ONE was going

to be near the baby without a recent pertussis vaccine. I'm not sure if that was a hospital recommendation, or hospital requirement.

(And God bless her in-laws - they had a cold when the baby was born, and didn't visit in the hospital at all! Now, that's real love! )