That’s almost what drives me nuttiest about the anti-vax movement.
They keep pretending that there are HUGE, GIANT, ENORMOUS risks to vaccination. Worse that there are no risks to non-vaccination. The constant mantra is that you can’t take back a vaccine. Well you can’t take back broken ribs from whooping cough, brain damage from measles or sterility from mumps either.
Every single thing you do has a risk. They make it sound as if the only thing that has any risk at all is a vaccine. The biggest risk from a vaccine really isn’t a side effect. The biggest risk is that the vaccine won’t work and you’ll get sick anyway.
komolono’s post has to do with a type of H1N1 flu vaccine used in the European Union (Pandemrix), which Finland suspended use of to investigate a possible link between narcolepsy (a sleep disorder) in children and the vaccine. The press release announcing this stated that the number of cases of narcolepsy officially reported (six) is in line with the normal incidence of narcolepsy, though there may be additional cases not yet reported. What is being looked at is whether the narcolepsy cases are coincidental (manifesting around the time the vaccine was given but unrelated) or somehow a side effect of flu vaccine not previously seen. None of this has anything to do with autism.
Other numbers: About 30 million people have received this vaccine in Europe. Laboratory-confirmed H1N1 deaths in the EU: 3,000. Percentage of antivaxers hearing about the Pandemrix story who will be flogging it as proof of vaccine evil: 100%.
That was very good - here’s Penn discussing this Bullshit episode. I’m not entirely sure, but I think he thinks the former doctor Andrew Wakefield is an asshole.
Next Tuesday there will be an official announcement on behalf of THL, but it is now known that 54 children have gotten narcolepsy after having their Pandemrix vaccine in six months - on average about three cases of the illness are diagnosed in Finland annually.
Both Rolling Stone and Salon have retracted the Kennedy article, Salon in a public move citing fraud, flaws and factual errors in the information presented. *Rolling Stone * didn’t publicly announce the retraction but they’ve deleted the article from their archives.
The article is still up on Kennedy’s website, with the flawed and incorrect information still included.
Going along with that *post hoc ergo propter hoc *reasoning, my high school gave me epilepsy. Just months after I started at my high school I had a seizure and was diagnosed!
There are 3 basic truths in this discussion:
There is no vaccine (or any medication, medical procedure, etc) that will ever be 100% safe for 100% of the population.
Vaccines are not causing autism
You will never be able to convince a conspiracy theorist they are wrong. Even if they ask for proof and you provide it, they will find a reason to dismiss it and then ask for more.
No need. There are extensive Pit threads and other fora threads about this particular “debate” and that vapid bobble-headed anti-vaxxer. A search should give you HOURS of entertainment.
The “P” for pertussis was a problem for some kids. My middle one got a bad reaction from his first DPT shot, and got only a DT booster later on. However, by the time of his next booster, they gave him the new pertussis vaccine without any problems.
My family doctor says that he considers failure to vaccinate as a form of child abuse. My daughter-in-law, a family physician has considered refusing to take families with unvaccinated children as patients.
the governmental department responsible for hasty ordering of untested Pandemrix vaccine, has now been forced to issue apology and statement, that the cases of Narcolepsy increased atleast tenfold on the children and youth vaccinated.
