The only celebrity I know of who pushes this bullshit is Jenny McCarthy. Doubtless other celebrities join her on this but she seems the face of it. I could be wrong, I do not track celebrities at all for anything and definitely do not track what antivax nutjobs are doing. I do not seek info on antivax at all. Just occasionally it crosses my path while watching the news or something and that is about it. When I see it for some reason I see McCarthy front and center. Maybe I am a male pig who just tends to remember the beautiful woman and not Carrey, who I couldn’t give a fuck about, standing next to her. But as said I barely pay attention anyway.
If you want me to trash Carrey for his antivax views I will (assuming he holds that view). They are all assholes on this count.
If your baby can get vaccinated your baby should get vaccinated. The risks of non-vaccination far outweigh the consequences of vaccine preventable diseases.
If your baby cannot get vaccinated because of underlying medical reasons you should never encourage non-vaccination for others. All that does up the possibility that your baby or child will be at risk from rotten diseases like whooping cough and measles.
You are wrong to waste your time on this. People who will believe (and circulate) crap like the stuff on that website are not going to be convinced by any actual scientific, cited info you provide to them. These types generally have an emotional reason for wanting to believe such conspiracy theories, and mere evidence isn’t going to change their mind.
They probably won’t have their kids vaccinated, which will increase the odds that the kids will die from such a disease, thus ending that family line, and reducing the amount of stupidity genes in the human race. Tough on your friend, or his kids, but good for the human race in general.
The problem with this, apart from the fact that the kids have done nothing to be made to suffer for the ignorance of their parents, is that vaccinated kids are put at risk too.
The success of immunization depends on having such a high coverage rate (“herd immunity”) that the existence of a few people who are unprotected doesn’t matter - isolated cases won’t get the chance to develop into a full-blown outbreak. There are always going to be folks in whom vaccines won’t be protective (no vaccine works 100%) as well as (hopefully) a tiny percentage who don’t get their shots due to religious conviction or whatever. It’s when the latter group balloons in size (as in Britain as a result of the fake MMR scare, when measles resurged) that epidemics are given a chance - and the vaccinated but not fully protected can get sick as well as the unvaccinated.
Thanks, Lazlo, that really is excellent. I was only expecting a little three-panel gag about anti-vaxers, but it’s actually more like a short (and damning) investigative reporting piece about Dr. Andrew Wakefield, with illustrations. Great read.
A voluntarily unvaccinated 7 year old boy spread measles in San Diego. He infected 11 children, including three babies under a year of age. 70 children were quarantined for 21 days “because their parents either declined measles vaccination or they were too young to be vaccinated.”
Another part of the problem isn’t just that vaccine preventable illnesses kill. Vaccine preventable illnesses also cause all kinds of other problems including brain damage.
For all the anti-vax nuts insist that unvaccinated children are healthier the very opposite is true. Unvaccinated children are far more likely to get sick from vaccine preventable illnesses and even more likely to develop lifelong consequences from such illnesses than the vaccinated.
For example even if a vaccinated child gets chicken pox his case of chicken pox will be milder than if he were unvaccinated.
Vaccines don’t just help prevent illness. They also help prevent disability as well.
I’m thinking you’ll want to rewrite this – the risks of non-vaccination ARE the consequences of vaccine preventable diseases. Perhaps you meant to say the the consequences of vaccine-preventable diseases far outweigh the risks of vaccination.
Question: aren’t children required to be immunized before being admitted to public schools anymore? I suppose the law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but I would imagine that the general public health should supersede parents’ right to be stupid.
Yes. It is possible to apply for an exemption on religious or philosophical grounds. Or because they read some goddam horseshit from the anti-vax nutwads.
Quite true.
Regards,
Shodan
Who Has Hearing Loss in One Ear from Measles Because He was Born Too Early to Get the Vaccine
The problem is that the anti-vaxxers are right in a small sense. Any unvaccinated individual may not catch a specific disease. For example you’re unlikely to get diphtheria if you refuse the DTaP vaccine because it is extremely rare here. The problem is that when everyone starts not vaccinating then the disease come back all over the place and you get problems.
So the anti-vax loons are essentially a group of free riders asking the rest of us to take minor risks on their behalf while they suffer no immediate consequences. On some level I think that’s utterly immoral.
Alas no.
You can get vaccine for many non-medical reasons in most states including simply stating that vaccination is against your religious beliefs.
As Whack a Mole points out the consequences of this policy suck: