I hadn’t believed that there really were people who were pro-disease - I figured that there were people who were unaware that they were promoting disease by spreading misinformation, but that no one was evil or foolish enough to actually cheerlead for disease. But I was wrong:
Stephanie Messenger has written “Melanie’s Marvellous Measles” which “takes children aged 4 – 10 years on a journey of discovering about the ineffectiveness of vaccinations, while teaching them to embrace childhood disease, heal if they get a disease, and build their immune systems naturally.”
Last Sunday the New York Times’ ethicist column had a piece about vaccination; namely, whether it was ethical for pediatricians to turn away children whose parents refused to vaccinate them.
The ethicist observed:
"People who make unwise decisions about their own health endanger themselves. But those who forgo vaccination as a matter of personal choice are examples of what’s known as the free-rider problem. They benefit from the retreat of childhood epidemics, but they do not share in keeping them at bay. Indeed, they invite those illnesses to return. That’s true no matter what you think of vaccines; not even their most vocal critics claim that inoculation is more dangerous than measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, influenza and so on once were. (bolding added)
Obviously the ethicist cannot imagine there are people as destructively, willfully ignorant as Stephanie Messenger.
I wonder whether Messenger, her sidekick Meryl Dorey or in general how many of the antivaxers who minimize or rhapsodize about the wonderfulness of vaccine-preventable diseases actually experienced these illnesses themselves.*
*I had measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox with no warm memories of any of them (missed out on the wonderfulness of whooping cough - I still envy my brother and sister who had it). :dubious:
There’s a question whether it’s ethical for pediatricians to turn away kids who parents won’t vaccinate them? Actions have consequences; you don’t want to vaccinate your kids, you may not be able to go to all pediatricians. Too bad, so sad.
I suspect that the solution to anti-vaxxers is for childhood diseases to make a riproaring comeback, and once they see the consequences with their own eyes (and lose a kid or two), they’ll start to get it. Unfortunately, it is the kids who are going to pay the price for their parents’ ignorance.
Unfortunately for this plan, even unvaccinated children get some benefit from vaccination via reduced exposure to disease thanks to their vaccinated peers. (The technical term is herd immunity.)
As for the book, wow. Just plain wow.
*Or rather fortunately as it means fewer sick or dead children.
The solution to the problem in the Ethicist is for pediatricians to see the kids (since they shouldn’t suffer because their parents are asshats) but only at restricted and inconvenient times - which make the parents suffer more than the kids.
When I was a kid, before vaccines for measles, this was fairly common. Kids were going to get it sometime and it might as well be at a convenient time. Now, she deserves all the insults thrown at her.
There’s a cyberpunk series by Paul Di Filippo, the world for which involves crank-it-to-11 levels of bioengineering. (Which is what sci-fi is all about, but whatever).
All natural disease is therefore easily eradicated, so in the book there are groups of somewhat drippy individuals who purposefully cultivate, carry and trade various diseases to prevent them from going extinct.
That’s what this thread title reminded me of, and frankly that makes way more sense than what that book espouses. :smack:
You obviously haven’t spent enough time swimming in the cesspool of filth that is the anti-vaccine movement. They continuously spout off about the beauties of “natural immunity,” which is the pinnacle of good health them. Not all anti-vaccine nutbags are like this, but there is a significant percentage who do want their children, and yours, to suffer disease as a giant raised middle finger to Big Pharma.
Stephanie Messenger and her moronic ilk present a real danger to my mother and others with immune disorders. My mother has to leave public places immediately whenever she hears the distinctive whooping cough, which is more and more often now. She doesn’t want to die. She’s crazy that way. Chickenpox, measles and mumps are lethal to her as well.*
So fuck Stephanie Messenger with the Empire State Building dipped in Compound W.
*She does get an IVIG treatment every month, but she is still highly susceptible to these diseases.
Sometimes, much as Singapore comes off as a totalitarian state, I think they have some things correct, and behave in a consistent and well thought through manner.
This is one of those times…
Compulsory immunisation as preventive measure
The IDA has also made immunisation of young children against vaccine-preventable diseases compulsory in Singapore. This is so as the young are especially prone to being infected by infectious diseases. As such, the IDA has also contributed in establishing the National Childhood Immunisation Programme, which comprises MOH senior officials and experts in communicable diseases. This is the governing body that oversees the immunisation programme in Singapore.
When a kid at my school had pinworms I looked up the symptoms and treatment in case I came down with it. I was surprised to find message boards where people advocated doing nothing about them because pinworms were “natural”. They had “a job to do”.
Worse yet, from what I’ve read, adults don’t necessarily develop that characteristic whoop, making the disease easier to spread. There’s a major whooping cough outbreak in the Chicago area right now, and last night on the news, they were saying that health officials wanted any adults with contact with infants/the immune-compromised to get a booster (tetanus, diphteria, pertussis). I got one last year, near the start of the outbreak which was going on then. The article states the new vaccine only lasts maybe 3-4 years, so please get regular booster shots.
Speaking as someone with some hearing loss in one ear due to complications of measles, Stephanie Messenger is cordially invited to kiss my hairy ass and naturally build her immune system that way.
