You said “…many repubs and right wingers stating their views among a couple liberals”. There is typically 1 right winger. One is not “many”.
The CDC’s primary target age group for H1N1 vaccination is 6 months through 24 years. The World Health Organization says this flu spreads particularly fast among young people (10 to 45).
Vaccines work by inducing an immune response. So the way that people with compromised immune systems are protected is by herd immunity, facilitated by vaccinated healthy people. While younger, healthier people may well better endure a case of influenza, they may also be able to infect more people, since they can work better and longer with the flu (and hence may expose more people to their flu).
H1N1 is causing serious complications in young, pregnant women and in a subgroup of children - two groups not normally harmed by the usual varieties of influenza.
He opened with a conservative. Then 1 out of 2 on the panel. That is 2 -2. I suppose it is not easy to get righties on the show. He did have an all conservative one last year.
I haven’t watched Bill Maher much. At the risk of hijacking this thread, however…on the subject of vaccines, my blood boils when I hear about health care workers who refuse to get the H1N1 vaccine because it violates their “rights.” Jerks! Since when do you have a “right” to infect sick, vulnerable people in your care???
Good for you and screw your friend.
Mercola is notorious idiot. His entire beliefs about vaccines can be summarized as “vaccines are bad for you because the CDC and the pharm companies want to sell you stuff. Here. Buy MY stuff instead.”
Because vaccines are bad for you. Chrorella and raw honey? The garbage you can buy from ME? Just the ticket I tell you.
I like the response you gave.
Here’s a good article on the whole Amish Don’t Vaccinate and Don’t Have Autism bullshit if you need another link in the future:
Carrot Top does not do political humor. Compare to Lewis Black or the unfunny Dennis Miller.
My sister got her 3 year old daughter a flu shot today. Should I start researching how to care for autistic children now so it wont catch me by surprise?
Maher may be the left’s equivalent of O’Rielly or whomever, but his *Be More Cynical *standup routine is fucking funny. Watch it on you tube and tell me it isn’t. You can’t. It has some great moments. Sometimes people go insane, too, as they age. It happens.
Speaking of insanity - antivaxers are not content with avoiding immunization and spreadng lies about vaccines. Some want to prevent the rest of us from having access to them.
A group is now suing to stop the release of the H1N1 vaccine, on the grounds that there’s been insufficient testing. Here are some details from an alt med website that supports these idiots.
Never mind that vaccine producers and infectious disease specialists at multiple academic medical centers have conducted tests of the vaccine with good results. A variety of patient groups including children, asthmatics and pregnant women have been studied. Some of these results have already been published, showing good efficacy of the H1N1 vaccine with no deaths or serious reactions attributed to the vaccine. But that hasn’t stopped the antivax loons.
What their scare tactics seem to be focusing on now are adjuvants - those compounds added to vaccines to boost your immune response and make the vaccines more effective at lower antigen dosages. People behind the current effort to stop the vaccine include a “health freedom”* attorney and Gary Null, an alt med advocate who in recent years has been notorious for HIV/AIDS denialism. Now there’s an infectious disease expert to whom we should be paying attention. :rolleyes:
It’s highly unlikely these people will succeed in halting vaccine distribution. Isn’t it amazing, though, that they’re so willing to put us all at risk from a flu epidemic.
*Usually, when you hear someone described as a “health freedom” advocate, it means they want dietary supplement companies and fringe health providers given unlimited freedom to hawk their wares without any government oversight. Now, it seems that the term’s definition is being expanded to include those who want to ensure “health freedom” by denying the rest of us access to proper care.
Well, one widely-cited study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that in Japan, one life (typically of an elderly person) is saved for every 420 children who are given the flu vaccine. Here is the link to the abstract(although it might not be accessible to people not reading from a university).
The flu vaccine can save lives.
And this more recent study in Acta Paediatrica shows that the results may be overstated.
By the way, I was aware of both studies, preferring to find evidence on both sides. I rather suspect you ran a google search or a PubMed search and cherry-picked the first cite that supported your side.
Moreover, at the typical rates of flu vaccination (the figures I recall having seen are in the realm of 25-40%), herd immunity is not implicated. People seem to think HI sets in with the first vaccine adminstered; it does not. Flu vaccines are not taken in high enough proportions for herd immunity to result (which typically is in the 80-90% range).
So, two cheers for that vaunted SDMB commitment to science, I guess.
You suspect wrong. It’s a widely-cited study I’ve been aware of for a long time. But thanks all the same for impugning my intellectual integrity.
Having read the article (which apparently you didn’t), the author doesn’t mention the Japan study or challenge its results.
You make a good point about herd immunity, though. Japan achieved its results through a regime of mandatory vaccination. Saved a lot of lives.
Sadly the anti-vaccination, anti Western medicine (Germ Theory) is a huge movement very similar to creationism and gaining a lot of traction. The “alternative” medicine advocates, chiropractic, the rid your body of Toxins crap, magnets all feed into this nonsence and it is killing people. Some are fighting back like Dr Steven Novella who hosts the popular Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast.
What I hate about him is he is just too smarmy and smugg.
He can make some smart ass comment that at first glance is very funny. And if just about any other comedian did it, it would stay funny and that would be the end of it.
But he seems to think (or at least comes off this way) that this funny he just made both makes him some sort of mental giant who is RIGHT and the person he is making fun of some mentally retarded fool who can do no right regarding anything.
Making a funny is way down on the list of impressive debate and discussion tools IMO.
I think it’s just too easy to become that way when you have your own show. It starts to become more about you than about the issues. I wouldn’t go so far as to compare him to O’Reilly (as **FGIE **did), but he does make me cringe sometimes with his smugness-- especially when he’s being smug about something that his has wrong.
Overall, though, I enjoy his show even if he gives voice to too many clueless celebrities.
One of the good things about being a liberal is that you don’t worry too much about what will happen when somebody who speaks for you goes off the deep end.
Conservative commentator decides to run with crazy conspiracy theory about the President being a secret Kenyan? Hordes of other right wingers decide it must be true.
Liberal commentator decides to run with crazy conspiracy theory about the President secretly planning 9/11? About sixty left wingers decide it must be true; the rest of us shrug and talk about what a shame it was that Commentator X went crazy.
That might be part of it.
I just recalled Dennis Miller has the same sort of stick, the smart ass comments that usually involves a gotcha/hypocritical angle. But he doesnt come off nearly as smug and smarmy.
I think its because he doesnt think he made some major philosophical breakthrough in doing so. And with Maher you can often almost feel the intense personal hate and contempt for the person he is making fun of. With Dennis, its more like “ahhh those crazy, lovable duffusses”.
Just my impressions mind you.