Mandatory vaccinations vs. right to choose
POSTED BY: canttakesky
UPDATED: Thursday, December 7, 2006 07:56
VIEWED: 21145
PAGE 9 of 21
"Or should your opinion that disease is worse than side effects trump mine in the care of MY CHILDREN"
No one is making your children take a flu vac. We try to get as many children inoculated to SERIOUS diseases as possible, and it has worked over the last century. Really worked. The proof is in the poxxing.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
CITIZEN
CTS:
I understand you're probably ignoring me
Citz what have you done now? Bad Citizen...Bad.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Cit, do you even READ the posts before digging further into your entrenchment ?
Quote:
Here's a hint, I don't have an axe to grind, nor am I guessing, when I make blunt statements, I just expect people to actually do their own investigation and make their own judgement calls - if you come to a different conclusion, that's you.
I didn't say word one about your judgement, I stated that your own thrust, and prettymuch the entirely of your post, was flaming mine, and/or my RIGHT to have my own judgement, something I find repellent and insulting.
If I come to a conclusion different than yours, based on an incomplete set of facts, that is my option, and my right, and any attempt to take that from me will result in me not liking it very much, how simple a thing is this to NOT get across ?
Quote:
Sure no mandatory vaccinations, but if YOUR choice leads to YOU getting that disease your health service or medical insurer is under no obligation to pay for your treatment. If a vaccination is provided I see no reason why other people should foot the bill for your decision. Maybe you can provide me with a reason why they should?
Fine, show me your rabies vacc cert then, and THEN we'll talk, if you wanna be ridiculous about it, no one said that folks shouldn't take responsibility for their decisions, but then the converse must also be true - if the state makes vaccination mandatory they must then also pay for those injured by vaccination or resultant side effects - quid pro quo.
But you came down with a nasty, one-sided, entrenched fullisade against the whole concept, in spite of established, and in my opinion, significant, evidence.
Quote:
I think there should be research into it, but anyone saying there is SOME evidence is merely following a post hoc analysis.
As I suspected, you dismiss two very good studies out of hand because they did not fit your narrow little worldview.
Quote:
I thought parents should have the right to choose to have single vaccinations rather than MMR if they wished, but that since MMR was offered by the NHS they should pay for the single injections themselves. If they make the choice, they pay for it.
Fine by me, that's the whole point you seem to be missing - the idea of informed consent, if you were to offer me the choice between a vacc without Thimerosal and one with it, hell yes - but when you get to mandating such things, you remove even THAT choice because of financial collusion with a mandatory scheme, if the Thimerosal crap is cheaper for big pharma, that's what they'll use, and safety be damned.
Quote:
You turn up and immediately question my decency because you've decided what you want my position to be and you've decided that I don't know what I'm talking about and you think you have a right to talk about “wasting your time on this imminent flamefest”? You're playing more than your part in creating it.
I question your decency because you think you've got some right to make other peoples choices for them, and then on top of it have the arrogance to flame someone who disputes that idea - folks have a right to disagree with you, I just don't see much of the point of trying to when it's pointedly obvious that you intend to ignore any evidence that contradicts what you wish to believe.
And no, as far as vaccination goes, I do NOT have an axe to grind, I drive a cab for cryin out loud, which means I have a pretty damned significant exposure to just about every pathogen known to man - for my own safety as well as that of my passengers I want maximum protection, but I want a SAFE, EFFECTIVE solution as such as possible, and minimum risk from that protection, something only informed consent and personal choice can offer... my axe to grind is on having that choice, because removing it would place decisions best left to the individual, in the hands of untrustworthy entities such as big pharma, the FDA, and the government.
Quote:
Though of course if I do, for once, bother to think for myself and come to a different conclusion its because I have no HumanNOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hi FremD,
At the same time there was a a 373% relative increase in autism, there was a 14% relative increase in MMR vaccination. That was the point of the article - the two weren't ratioed in a way that would indicate cause and effect.
To me the whole thing about mass-health (epidemiology, more or less) is that it gives YOU better odds of good health.
Take the example of polio. Mass vaccination creates a 'polio free' environment where epidemic transmission of polio can't occur. Because of that, whether or not YOUR body produced 'neutralizing' polio antibodies (antibodies that would block polio) you are free of the chance of being paralyzed.
That's the benefit of mass vaccination - an new environment is created that increases everyone's chance at good health, including yours. It's not like you're 'sacrificing' for the good of others - you're reducing your own personal risk by reducing common risk.
(To reprise the debate about polio: Both CTS and PN say that mass vaccination was either minimally effective or downright harmful. CTS said that "polio is mostly a benign disease" and that the impressive reduction of polio cases was b/c polio was redefined. PN says the vaccine 'causes' epidemic polio.
The overwhelming fact is that in 1977 between 254,000 and 600,000 people in the US were permanently paralyzed or had died from epidemic polio. Since the advent of polio vaccines and mass vaccination, there has been NO epidemic polio and no mass numbers of dead or paralyzed people as a result.
In this case, mass vaccination - even with some small individual risk - reduced your chances of death or paralysis from 1/10 to as close to nil as you can get.)
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I suppose I have a different view of government funded medical research, which I consider to be just as biased as privately funded medical research. I have read a lot of govt funded crap on CFS, for example, which were as biased and incompetent as they come.
Originally posted by rue:
Without government funding the only research would be privately funded and thus liable to bias.
Quote:Ideally, I would prefer a solution that isn't dependent on tax-payers. Since that isn't going to happen, I could settle for an empowered FDA *if* it can demonstrate a consistent level of impartiality and integrity. However, that ain't gonna happen either, so I might as well stick up for my ideal unlikely solution: research voluntarily funded by patients/consumers (maybe via non-profits), who have a genuine vested interest in real solutions. Some of that is being done already. CFS and autism patient non-profits, for example, are hiring researchers privately to investigate questions the medical establishment (including govt funded researchers) won't touch.
To focus my question more - how would you feel about an empowered FDA that really could do independent research in the interests of protecting citizens?
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
----------
There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.
--John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), (attributed)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Citizen and everyone,
Originally posted by citizen:
CTS:
I understand you're probably ignoring me, but if you are not what are your opinions on what I have said?
I see a lot of comments that I disagree with, of course. The way I see it, I have two choices. I can argue against every comment and answer every question, or I can state and defend my position and let it go at that. Either way, I am convinced that none of you will change your minds because of anything I've said. So, instead of getting mired in a war over minutiae, I have chosen the second option. It seems more efficient. If all the posts I have already written does not make my position clear, then I don't know what will. If I try my best and am still misunderstood, I am just going to have to live with it.
If you have a pointed question that hasn't been covered, I will gladly answer. But I don't see a point in back-and-forth bickering, do you?
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
----------
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
--Will Rogers
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
PN,
I have no idea where to start.
Polio vaccines did eradicate polio. How do I know this? B/c there are no longer hundreds of thousands of people in the US with paralysis or who have died from it.
About AIDS - I don't know why you think it's bacterial rather than viral. I'd have to put that in the 'wholly-unfounded' category.
When it comes to Lyme disease, I did a little looking. There are MANY species of borellia. Below is a list (somewhat scrambled but the link is there.) As a genus, it certainly has a fair share of pathogens, most more virulent than the Lyme species. And as a bio-weapon, it would only be effective in the long, long, long haul, if at all. It's not a disease that transmits from person to person, or that causes debilitating illness in many people, or in a short enough time to cripple a country. So while I don't necessarily believe whatever the government tells me, Lyme disease as a bio-weapon is wildly illogical.
http://mmbr.asm.org/cgi/reprint/50/4/381.pdf
B. hermsii New World tick-borne 100 0. hermsi Western United States and Canada
relapsing fever
B. turicatae New World tick-borne 86 0. turicata Southwestern United States and
relapsing fever northern Mexico
B. parkeri New World tick-borne 77 0. parkeri Western United States and Baja
relapsing fever California
B. mazzottii New World tick-borne ND 0. talaje Mexico and Central America
relapsing fever
B. venezuelensis New World tick-borne ND 0. rudis Central America and northern South
relapsing fever America
B. duttonii Old World tick-borne 17 0. moubata Sub-Saharan Africa
relapsing fever
B. crocidurae Old World tick-borne 32-35 0. erraticus North Africa, East Africa, Near East,
relapsing fever Middle East, and southeast Europe
B. persica Old World tick-borne ND 0. tholozani Middle East, Greece, and Central Asia
relapsing fever
B. hispanica Old World tick-borne ND 0. marocanus Iberian peninsula and western North
relapsing fever Africa
B. latyschewii Old World tick-borne ND 0. tartakowskyi Iran, Afghanistan, south-central USSR,
relapsing fever Iraq, and southwestern USSR
B. caucasia Old World tick-borne ND 0. asperus Iraq and southwestern USSR
relapsing fever
B. recurrentis Louse-borne relapsing ND Pediculus humanus Worldwide
fever
B. anserina Avian borreliosis 53-63 Argas persicus and Worldwide
other Argas spp.
B. theileri Bovine borreliosis ND Boophilus microplus South Africa, Nigeria, Australia, Brazil,
Boophilus annulatus and Mexico
Boophilus decoloratus
Rhipicephalus evertsi
B. burgdorferi Lyme disease 30-44 1. dammini Eastern United States
I. ricinus Europe, western USSR, and Scandinavia
I. pacificus Western United States
B. coriaceae Epizootic bovine 44-50 0. coriaceus California
Plum Island is a well-know facility. Unfortunately once it got it's funding tied in with the DHS a lot of information went 'dark'. So if it does nothing else, it breeds suspicion.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
CTS,
We certainly agree that the government could do FAR better. But I do think you could give more credence to overseas research, as they are not beholden to the same pro-business political ideology as in the US.
What you think of as the boon of privately sponsored research does inevitably lead to situations you may not like. If you think getting research done on common issues is difficult now with government funding, getting it done on rare conditions with private money alone would be impossible. If 2, or 10, or even 100 people have a rare condition, there just wouldn't be enough collective interest and therefore enough money to fund the research.
"If all the posts I have already written does not make my position clear, then I don't know what will. If I try my best and am still misunderstood, I am just going to have to live with it."
I think many people here do understand what you are saying, they just disagree. You dismiss US university research papers, foreign research, in some cases even basic science, news accounts, large-scale population surveys, and even other people's personal accounts of their own experiences. Having dismissed an entire world of information, I think you'll find very few people willing to credit your positions.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
At the same time there was a a 373% relative increase in autism, there was a 14% relative increase in MMR vaccination. That was the point of the article - the two weren't ratioed in a way that would indicate cause and effect.
Okay, Rue, I have a question about these figures. And this isn't a personal attack, I am truely curious. In the words of my accounting professor; "Figures never lie, but liars can figure." I've always been skeptical of data that uses percentages as a comparrison because they rarely show the source data, and when they do, picking up a calculator you can tell that the percentages are misleading.
A 373% increase versus a 14% increase doesn't seem to correlate, that I will give you, but what exactly are those percentages of, what are the counts of the source data? And what is the significance of the word 'relative'?
If those percentages are simply relating to the numbers of people that developed autism and the number of MMR vacines doled out, the percentages may be different by a vast ammount, but the numbers might correlate. Lets say(and for the sake of argument we'll assume that all cases of autism mentioned in this percentage were people who had recieved the MMR) last year, 100 people developed autism and 1 million got the shot. That means this year 437 people developed autism and 1.14 million people got the shot. That's 337 additional cases out of the additional 140,000 people getting the shot.
Now, let's check these numbers here.
Last year - 100/1,000,000 or .0001%
This year's additional - 337/140,000 or .0024%
This year's total - 437/1,140,000 or .0004%
So there was a huge spike in the percentage of cases of autism, but only a small increase in the percentage of the shot. But when you look at the reletive data (again my numbers are example only, I don't have actual data) there is a correlation. It's not a clear cut correlation, possibly it's all coincidence, but the numbers are high enough to warrent concern.
Now you might be thinking "Where the hell did he get these numbers? I didn't mean any of that." And that goes back to my statement 'figures never lie, but liars can figure.' There's no disputing the math, type it into a calculator and it's right, but the context and source data are what's important. Give me all the percentages you want, but someone, somewhere, has only factored in the information that supports their argument (not implying you or anyone else here). Give me the raw source data so I can do the math and see it for myself.1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'll be in my bunk.
http://www.myspace.com/babywiththepower
http://members17.clubphoto.com/michael809717/guest-1.phtml
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:There are really two issues here. The steady decline of polio incidence since 1955, and absence of polio outbreaks since 1955.
Originally posted by rue:
Even given your statistics, the FACT is that there has been no outbreaks of paralytic polio in the US since mass vaccination. What you have indicated to me is that you're willing to write off the numbers of people who were permanently paralyzed before the vaccine. "1977 - The National Health Interview Survey reports that there are 254,000 persons living in the United States who had been paralyzed by polio....
Do you not consider this a significant benefit? Or did this major fact escape your statistical 'analysis'?
Steady decline of incidence: This decline is seen across the board in all infectious diseases, whether vaccines were available or not, from the turn of last century to present. This trend suggests other factors besides vaccination were mainly responsible for the decline, such as better sanitation, hygiene, refrigeration, etc. Vaccines probably helped, but to claim sole credit would be ignoring the "controls" (diseases for which there were no vaccines which also disappeared).
Absence of polio outbreaks: Before 1955, polio was diagnosed based on clinical presentation alone (i.e. no lab work). There is a number of other diagnoses that present with acute flaccid paralysis, such as Coxsackie virus, adenovirus, West Nile Virus, echovirus, and aseptic meningitis. It is reasonable to postulate that many of the polio cases/outbreaks before 1955 were actually NOT polio, but any of these similar diseases. (In all probability, the 254,000 who were told they had polio probably included misdiagnosed patients.) After 1955, the definition changed, and outbreaks of acute flaccid paralysis were assigned to other names. There HAVE been outbreaks of acute flaccid paralysis since mass vaccination in the USA. When physicians find out someone has been vaccinated for polio, they are encouraged to look for another diagnosis. It is possible that the absence of polio outbreaks is simply an artifact of differential diagnosis. Again, this is not to discount any role vaccines may have played, but to put it in perspective, that their claim for sole credit is probably exaggerated.
Sample literature on outbreaks of acute flaccid paralysis
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1551054&pageind
ex=1
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5331a2.htm
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=154677&tools
=bot
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
---------
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), but 'That's funny...'
--Isaac Asimov
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME