Barry Hussein Taft. Of course.
Dr. Bob Sears, idiot, opens his mouth about this issue on Facebook:
FYI, the Shot@Life organization I work with – an organization dedicated to providing access to four vaccines for children in poor countries (rotavirus, polio, measles and pneumococcal) said that measles is actually on the verge of elimination. So fuck him. The only reason measles exists is because a) some people cannot afford access to the vaccine and b) jerks like him either refuse or pat people on the back for doing so. Measles cases have fallen drastically in India solely because of pro-vax measles vaccine efforts.
The moron is also talking about just death from measles - as if the complications might not be horrific as well. Among the possible complications are pneumonia, ear infections (which could potentially damage hearing), blindness, and what you might as well call “brain rot” - it’s a progressive and ultimately fatal degeneration of the brain and nervous system. The reason we don’t have epidemics is because 1) not everyone is an idiot and a lot of kids are still immunized and 2) we routinely quarantine the ill, minimizing transmission.
We could forever eliminate this disease, except for bozos who won’t get their kids vaccinated. It makes me very angry.
“Hardly anyone gets measles any more, so why bother getting vaccinated” is a moronic attitude, the more so when it comes from medical professionals who should make the connection that the happy circumstance of limited measles cases is directly due to our vigilance in pursuing mass immunization.
That’s standard operating procedure for antivaxers - talk only about deaths (where if you’re heedless enough, you can downplay the numbers) but ignore the hospitalizations, suffering and permanent complications of vaccine-preventable diseases.
“…in the late 1950s, serious complications due to measles remained frequent and costly. As a result of measles virus infections, an average of 150,000 patients had respiratory complications and 4000 patients had encephalitis each year; the latter was associated with a high risk of neurological sequelae and death. These complications and others resulted in an estimated 48,000 persons with measles being hospitalized every year.”
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S1.long
In other news - the Australian Vaccination Network (a particular repellent group of antivax crazies known for activities like harassing the parents of a child who died of whooping cough for daring to speak out in favor of immunization) has finally changed its name (under government order, to avoid misleading people as to its mission).
The new name is the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network. This change has not gotten the group off the hook for its various misdeeds.
“To add to the woes of the AVN and the joy of sane people, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission has ordered the AVN to remove all erroneous misinformation from its web site. As this will leave nothing much except a single page with a logo on it, the order is being strongly resisted.”
The group is also being investigated by regulators for alleged misuse of its charity designation (it’s reportedly raised $2 million in recent years for “charitable” functions, but people are having a tough time discovering what charitable activities that dough might have gone for).
Pharmawhores? Gimme a break. How many of these freaks don’t use any medications at all? How many wouldn’t use medications to help their children get through a case of measles?
Realistically, how much do pharmaceutical companies even make on vaccines? I don’t mean the fancy new ones like for HPV. I mean the standard round of MMR and polio and things like that?
Regarding “Dr” Sears statements quoted above:
And my son was in the same room with someone with measles a couple of weeks ago, as I posted upthread. And, as I said, was his stepmother, who is a lactation consultant. I wonder if he would be so cavalier about a measles outbreak in the NICU.
I attended a conference sponsored by Shot@Life last week. The organization is sponsored by the UN. They are devoted to providing four vaccines for poor children with the goal of expanding into more vaccines as well. We were told it was .23 cents for a measles vaccine and .13 cents for a polio vaccine. Those are the actual costs. You have to factor in other costs such as delivery. But you can get a child totally vaccinated for about twenty bucks. A damned fine investment if you ask me!
We were also told that we recoup the costs of the smallpox vaccine about every twenty days because we don’t have to spend money to make it. Very much the same could be true of polio and measles if we could get rid of them. We are close to eradication thankfully.
One of the great things about the vaccine for measles is that you won’t get a mild case of measles if you get the vax. In many instances, you may get still get the disease if you get the vaccine but in a milder form. This is true of the flu, for example. In the case of the measles vaccine, you just won’t get the illness at all.
Sears can rot. He helped spark an epidemic of measles in San Diego in 2008 that cost over a 100k to contain.
Realistically? Not a whole lot. They have to be made in bulk, have a lot of regulation and inspection, and are bought in high quantities at low cost. I recall reading that in the past there were a few dozen pharmaceutical companies making standard vaccines. Now there are maybe 1/2 dozen. Those have to have special legal protection (the so called 'Vaccine court) so they don’t drop it as not being worth the hassle.
It is by no means the high profit area for pharm companies. They don’t lose money on them, but the margins are nothing compared to Viagra, Lipacore, and other drugs.
Indeed. That is all the ‘stats’ the anti-vaxxers have to play with.
Even if vaccines were never invented the deaths from various vaccine preventable diseases would have dropped dramatically over the years simply from improvements in modern medicine. Of course, by the time non-prevention treatment takes effect the damage could have been done.
Even when they do try to use ‘incident’ graphs, they have to blatantly lie. Have a look at this bit of cherry picking.
Do you mean $0.23 and $0.13 or do you mean 0.23 cents & 0.13 cents? In either case, it’s still dirt cheap and an incredible investment in the lives of every child on Earth.
Ah, the infamous Verizon misconception!
Wow.
Come to think of it, my smoke detectors have been a real waste of money to my family. They have never done anything but bother me when trying to cook. I think I’m going to through them out when I get home.
Makes mental note not to post much on too little sleep.
:smack:
Someone pointed out that it really would make sense for big pharm to be behind the anti-vax movement. They’d make a lot more money that way. It’s true. Treating measles and all other vaccine-preventable diseases is a lot more expensive than preventing it.
So what if the anti-vax movement is actually funded by pharm companies? :eek:
That would be shocking if it were surprising.
Cool my jets? Unlikely. Whether she really wishes it or not is immaterial. I will not cool my jets until we collectively stop imagining that having an autistic child is some sort of curse inflicted upon parents. People don’t really mean it when they say they hope Jerry Sandusky gets raped in prison, but this statement is underwritten by a belief that it is would be real and much deserved punishment.
When you say you hope that parents end up with an autistic child but backpedal because you really don’t wish it on the kid, you’re showing that you think autism really is a sort of punishment visited on parents where the kid is just collateral damage. That belief yields parents who never see the inside of a jail for murdering their autistic children because actually caring for them is such a curse and who wouldn’t crack under the strain.
If autism is a punishment, it’s for autistics who have to live in a society where, deep down, people don’t value them as human beings. Deep down, people just pity them, viewing them as albatrosses around their poor parents’ necks.
When that stops, the jets cool.
It’s a sort of sick irony, when you really get down to it, that this is part of the problem with the antivaccine movement. The implication that autism is the most awful thing that can happen to a child, and of course that it’s worse than the chance of dying from infectious diseases. This utter devaluation of the life of autistic children which is so characteristic of those within the movement.
Preach, Maegs.
That hits the nail on the head.
This is why organizations like Autism Speaks, even though they have distanced themselves from their anti-vax roots, are so insidious and why autistic adults dislike them so much. They reinforce the belief that autism is something to be terrified of and they use language like “fight autism” or “combat autism.” It especially devalues the lives of autistic adults.
Aside from everything else, the anti-vax movement often demeans autistic children and adults. I have a blogger friend who has an autistic child. She’s gotten the most disgusting comments from anti-vax loons who find her deeply moving love for her child somehow objectionable.
Ugh.
My wife and I got one of those yesterday. We were told that we would be better off if we had a neurotypical kid who had just gotten the measles.