Gardasil will make your genitals burst into flame.

[varkam]

I know it is teh Troof. I read it on teh Internets.

[Warpy]

1. I don't remember seeing that particular antivax hysteric before

and I think I'd remember him. He seems to have a major axe to grind.

Yes, that was an understatement. It's late.

[lizerdbits]

2. Some girls had redness at the injection site!

Ban it now! People fucking die from aspirin too. Not very common, just like severe reactions to vaccines are, but don't try to tell people that.

This idiocy pisses me off more than the fact that insurance companies say I'm too old and won't cover the shot series for me.

ETA: I just wanted to say after being in the health scare lounge to stop defending big pharma you damn troll! :rofl:

[varkam]

3. The pharma shill gambit reveals the arrogance of those who use it.

It is as if those folks think that no one could possibly disagree with them unless they are either (a) crazy or (b) dishonest. They are impossible to have discussions with, so I think the next best thing is derision and ridicule.

[cosmik debris]

4. derision and ridicule--two of my favorite sports!

The claims about warts and epilepsy are so ridiculous they don't require derision.

:rofl:

[dropkickpa]

6. OMG

The warts one is killing me, shows absolutely NO understanding of how HPV strains function. Of course, if I were that susceptible to other HPV strains, I'd be thanking my lucky stars that I got vaccinated.

[TZ]

11. You know

If I really wanted Gardasil..I could get it (free), since my company (and MY lab) did ALOT of research and testing on it...guess that would make me a shill huh..taking advantage of company benefits...

[dropkickpa]

5. When the hell did the short bus pull up???

Aren't the loons still on summer break?

There were actually several instances of intelligent, non-woo discussion happening at one point in the health lounge. I guess everyone just got back from their woo-cruises.

[Orrex]

7. You're laughing about that because you're not a truly skeptical skeptic

You're just a "$keptic."

[LeftishBrit]

8. I really need to stay out of the health forum for the state of my health!

I can post in certain forums that other people consider as bear-pits and remain calm and collected - but five minutes in that forum and I was SCREAMING!

[cosmik debris]

9. I think you need to be vaccinated against the woo

before you can go in there.

[trotsky]

10. I assume anti-woo vaccine has a double dose of "mercuri"? n/t

[salvorhardin]

12. Wow. That's a pretty serious claim.

I hope to gawd you've got at least a half dozen anecdotes to back that up. Oh, and some dodgy blog post full of wild-eyed paranoid speculation and innuendo. Please don't forget to link back to your own, for profit, website about a gazillion different times because that's the only kind of proof I'll believe.

[varkam]

13. Lol. If that's the case salvor, then I think there's someone in the health forum...

that you would get along famously with :D

[salvorhardin]

14. Hey, I'm just asking questions

I know I'd just hate it if my dick went up in flames after taking gardacil like that guy I read about in the National Enquirer.

[varkam]

15. That was a riot.

I asked for a reputable source, and they came back with...The Sun! :rofl:

Cripes, it took me 2 minutes on the BBC website to find the story, and it wasn't nearly as sinister as they were making it out to be.

[DavidDvorkin]

16. "Do you smoke after sex?"

"I don't know. I never looked."

[HamdenRice]

17. This is an issue of behavioral economics, not medicine

In other words, I think both sides are arguing past each other, because they are using the wrong standards for evaluating each other's positions. With any vaccine, the choice as to whether to take it (or administer it to one's children) is rooted in behavioral economics and not simply in the technical question of safety.

Most vaccines have small, statistical risks. Most provide great benefits to the public health and individual health. But if most people in society are vaccinated, one can get much of the private benefit without also being vaccinated.

If I'm not public spirited, this "free riding" seems to be acceptable behavior, even though the more people who take the free riding position, the less effective the vaccine becomes to the public health.

Imagine if instead of vaccines, we were taking about participating in a war of looting (kinda like what Iraq could have been). The state says: participate in this war, and everyone's income will quadruple as a result our stealing Country X's oil. Oh, yeah, there's a one in one million chance you will be killed in the war.

That's a classic economic problem, not a problem of warfare. If I participate and everyone participates, then I will be very well off. But also, I don't want to risk getting killed, even if the risk is very low. Ahaa! If everyone else participates, and I don't, I'll still get my quadruple income.

The reason the war analogy is apt is because the main interest in full vaccination by government, is in the public health, not in the risk/benefit calculation of the individual. People feel (rightly) manipulated in the vaccine debate, because the public health establishment has to get people to do something that in terms of behavioral economics actually is not in their interest -- kind of like rallying people to go to war for the nation, not the individual.

The vaccination debate is based on that paradigm and for one side to tell the other that they are stupid, a shill or a woo woo, is missing the point. From the perspective of economic rationality, the risk of vaccine looks much bigger than it is to most people, because most of the benefit (against which the risk is measured) will be available to an individual anyway if that individual doesn't take the risk -- but only if few other individuals make the same decision.

This is only heightened in the case of Gardasil, because most parents and indeed most sexually active people, over-estimate the ability of sexuallly active people to practice safe sex. In other words, balanced against the perceived risk is the thought (perhaps unrealistic), "if I'm not promiscuous and make my boyfriends wear condoms until I'm in a committed relationship, why take even the tiny risk that any vaccine presents?" Or to put it another way, I cannot control whether I will get measles, but I have some control over whether I get this virus.

The risk seems so big because the benefit appears easily obtainable by other means -- free riding, safe sex, or abstinence.

[TZ]

18. Bullshit

Try making this argument when an HIV vaccine hits the market. Because HPV is MORE common than HIV and it causes LOTS of STD's besides cervical cancer..Oh and lets not forget that its often transmitted by men who DON'T KNOW they are infected.
You CANNOT substitute economics for basic epidemiology. Please read about herd immunity.

[HamdenRice]

20. Huh?

Try making an argument, rather than simply spewing profanity.

[TZ]

21. Herd immunity

Figure it out...google it. You are good at that.

IE--the more people who get the vaccine, the better the health of the overall community is, especially when its a virus that most people have, but unknowingly transmit--this is why when you do a cost vs risk or other economic analysis it really doesn't mean much.
Basic epidemiology again.

[HamdenRice]

22. uh ...

my post was entirely based on that concept, with which I am familiar.

The point is that economic decisions are made by individuals, even if the benefits accrue to the group. That's called an externality. It's basic economics. It leads to decision making that may seem flawed from the perspective of the individual or the group.

You seem not to grasp that because benefits and risks accrue differently to the group and the individual, that their decision-making or perspective may not be aligned. That's the whole point.

Did you read the post?

[TZ]

23. I told you your analysis was irrelevant

and its not why people "object" to Gardasil. Its because of the woo they read on teh internets. Say like "vaccines contain formaldehyde!"
I'm telling you WHY those objections are not only specious but harmful to society.
I'm done arguing with you.
If you are trying to prove you are more learned or skeptical than the regular posters here, you've done a piss poor job of it.

[HamdenRice]

26. You seem to be missing the big point

In economics there are both individual decisions and group decisions.

Group decision: everyone should be vaccinated.

Individual decision: Should I get vaccinated? If I don't and everyone else does, I get just as much benefit as if I do get vaccinated, and don't run any risks at all (no matter how small).

It's a simple point that public health authorities have been struggling with for years. So they can use one of three rhetorical devices:

-- it's in your interest to get vaccinated, and your public duty to get vaccinated overrides the small risk to you personally (probably the best and most truthful);

-- you have to get vaccinated (various ways of taking the choice out of the consumer's hand, which leads to resistance);

-- lying (if you don't get vaccinated, you will get the disease; or there is zero risk to you personally) -- which breeds false skepticism, or disbelief in everything "they" say.

Everyone who has looked at vaccination as a public health problem acknowledges the free rider/"herd immunity" issue.

[mr blur]

25. ..

[trotsky]

24. Flawed analogy.

Your "war of looting" analogy is missing one huge aspect - you portray it as if the non-participants in the combat bear no risk whatsoever. But in the case of vaccines, they most certainly do - even WITH herd immunity in effect.

[Adsos Letter]

19. Yay!!!...Flaming genitals of lust!!!

or something...

EDIT: sorry, I was just cruising by and couldn't help myself. Actually, I am pretty skeptical about just about everything, and lurk here often.