Currently, there are no vaccines against gonorrhea or syphilis. What’s more, those two diseases are actually fairly hard to catch, and fairly easy to prevent. Since there’s no vaccine or cure for HIV, either, and the prevention for HIV infection is the same for other STDs, right now the best prevention for STDs is condom use.
It’s damned easy to catch chicken pox, or mumps, though. You don’t have to exchange body fluids to get infected. Since safe, effective vaccines for chicken pox and mumps ARE available, we should require everyone to get vaccinated, unless someone has a valid MEDICAL reason not to be vaccinated.
We’ve wiped out one dangerous and loathsome disease by vaccination. We can do it with other diseases, IF we’re willing to commit the resources to do so, and IF we have a vaccine available. We don’t have the vaccine available for most STDs.
Not as much incentive to pursue a vaccine, as already pointed out. They are more difficult to catch, easy to prevent, and very easy and cheap to cure. A shot for the syph, a pill for the drip.
No, the STDs that would be great to have a vaccine for are herpes (all of them) and HIV, because they cannot be cured, they are lifetime, and in the case of HIV, can be lethal.
Except there would be a small contingent of vociferous idiots, who, in the guise of “just asking questions,” would claim the cure was evil and ineffective, and prevent everyone from getting it.
You can’t win, you can’t break even and you can’t get out of the game.
Just how are you going to give everyone “the cure” at the same time? Hell, we can’t even get SAFE DRINKING WATER to everyone in the world right now. Plus, there are various religions and other beliefs that would either object on the basis that it rewards what they consider immoral behavior or because they don’t believe in antibiotics. The Catholic church, for instance has campaigned AGAINST condom education in the past (I don’t know if they’re currently doing it) in Africa.
And there are a great many people who are allergic to one or more antibiotics. I’m allergic to half a dozen. Are you going to insist on antibiotics for infants, too? Yes, infants are infected, either through their mother, or because idiots believe that having sex with a virgin can cure AIDS.
How are you going to get everyone to take a dose at the same time? Or even approximately the same time?
We didn’t eradicate smallpox through treating people who already had it. We eradicated it through a comprehensive vaccination of pretty much the entire world. The thing about vaccination vs. antibiotics is that a vaccination will protect the patient for years, or even a lifetime. Antibiotics will treat THIS infection, but won’t prevent future infections.
*"But in an interview on an internet radio site Tuesday, Wakefield again defended his research and called the BMJ series “utter nonsense.”
He said the patent he held was not for a test or an alternative to the MMR vaccine, as BMJ reported, but an “over-the-counter nutritional supplement” that boosts the immune system."*
That interview was not with Brian Deer.
How many times do you need to be shown that you’re wrong before you acknowledge it?
No, just ignorant and disingenuous. And as pointed out before, not all antivaxers are flaming nutters who completely deny any utility to vaccination and see conspiracies under every rock. Many concede at least a minimal value to vaccination, while spreading bullshit under the guise of Just Asking Questions. For instance, Jenny McCarthy, one of the most notorious celebrity antivaxers, has been promoting a “Green Our Vaccines” movement, pretending that she just wants to make vaccines safer rather than destroying public immunization programs.
You’ll find similar examples among 9/11 Truthers and any other denialist group. Some adherents are completely off the wall, others project an image of reasonableness while repeating many of the same dimwitted arguments.
Pointing out that we had herd immunity prior to the vaccine is not an indication that I have any problem with you all vaccinating your children. It’s no wonder you rush to argue when there is no disagreement, if your reading skills are that bad. :smack:
Asking questions is ignorant and disingenuous? Wow…
That’s a good question. It reminds me o0f how Cuba dealt with HIV, even before they knew what was the cause. They knew that something was spreading through blood supplies, anal sex, and I.V. drug use, sharing needles. So they stopped all those vectors, destroyed the blood supply, and quarantined the ill.
And bam, just like that no epidemic. They still don’t have an HIV problem. How to do it on a larger scale?
Like you said, politics and religion, probably money as well, they all resist actually ridding the world of disease.
Cuba is a special case, it was a rather small place where travel in and out is (or was) quite limited, and the government had quite a bit of control over people’s lives. This method wouldn’t work where people had a bit more freedom to refuse government aid, or where the population was more mobile, or any number of factors.
Certainly. But it does show that a rational and scientific approach to stopping diseases is possible. It’s not science that is lacking when it comes to reducing or ridding the world of disease and suffering.
It would be the same if it was his/her child that had a bad reaction to vaccines, too, as some kids do - not all children can be vaccinated, but they’re protected against the various illnesses by other people vaccinating their children.
Are you denying that the GMC erased him from the medical rolls, in effect pulling his license? Are you denying that the Lancet retracted the study? Are you denying that he applied for a patent for a vaccine of his own invention, before he did the ‘study’ in question? This is all well known fact by this time.
FXMastermind:
Please explain how it would be possible to test everyone in the world for HIV, within a very narrow time frame, and then quarantine every single person who tests positive. Then, I believe, you’d need to prevent all sharing of needles and all sexual activity in general, over the entire population, followed by further testing, to find anyone who might have been missed the first time around. Not to mention providing monetary support for those quarantined, since they won’t be able to support themselves, along with some sort of support for families of breadwinners who are not allowed to work.
That’s quite an ambitious building program you’ve got planned there, but at least it would put large numbers of people to work, not only for the building, but the enforcement and security.
Yeah, sounds like a plan.