And Kolga, bite me, ok? 
Child Development is a fucking degree. Covers everything from conception and prenatal development to the assorted theories of the stages of development to general and child specific psychology. Look it up. I do not “claim” to hold it…I EARNED it and USED it for 20 yrs in the field.
Also, look up the studies on reactions to the whole-cell pertussis vaccine. You might learn something.
If you have something to contribute besides personal attacks, please, do so.
Um.. I provided cites for shit that is EQUALLY well known among most educated in the topic…all I get is personal attacks and claims that “oh, we don’t need no stinkin’ CITES to prove OUR claims!” :dubious: :rolleyes:
The equivalent of “well…you are just a big fat…BUTTHEAD and we don’t LIKE you!” 
(boo-fucking-hoo)
Since you bring up polio…I happen to know a BIT about that.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12617316&highlight=polio#post12617316
Hmm, why should we listen to dedicated professionals in the field about the importance and safety of vaccination*, when we have InterestedObserver’s cavalcade of journal excerpts and pseudo-FACTS? Why should anyone pay attention to the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the developer of a lifesaving rotavirus vaccine (Paul Offit M.D.) when someone with a degree in child psychology is available to warn us against vaccines (and fluoridated water, and God knows what else)?
Can’t imagine why. :dubious:
I’d bet not a single one of IO’s journal sources agrees with her claims about the worthlessness of vaccines or that the vaccinated and unvaccinated are equal dangers to herd immunity.
I realize we’re bouncing reason off a wall of determined na-na-I-can’t-hear-you, but a straightforward answer to one question by IO would be appreciated.
Do you agree that immunization has eradicated smallpox and polio in the United States? Yes or no.
*lots of references herein, enjoy the opportunity for “research”.
I assume it’s a B.A.? And does not include, in your description, any specialized training in biology, anatomy and physiology, general research methodology, epidemiology, or any other aspects of medicine that would assist you in your so-called research in this area. Thus leading to your already-identified misinterpretations of many of the cites you’ve provided, which have been pointed out. To which you have not responded.
I’ll wait until you’ve had a chance to go back in this thread and re-read, and then RESPOND TO, the responses from the numerous other posters who have challenged your interpretations of what you’ve presented. This thread has had a number of well-qualified people tell you that you are wrong in your so-called FACTS, and wrong in many of your interpretations of the studies that you’ve posted.
You want debate, you’ve been given debate. Now fucking respond to it.
You keep using that word (phrase). I do not think it means what you think it means.
And consider dialing down the use of smileys. They make you look like a foaming-at-the-mouth berserker. Which, if you’re trying to persuade someone that you’re a reasonable person, is counterproductive.
I am very familiar with all the cites provided..I “ignored” none of them. I always check them out and carefully consider what they have to say. I am honestly interested in learning as much as possible about this subject. Most just were simply not worth responding to directly. I always make an effort to respond to the overall propositions/argumets involved, but I suppose some miss that or can’t be bothered to read.
See, I approached this issue with an open mind and I still do. For some fucking reason, me even raising factual (yes, I use the word FACT repeatedly because it is applicable…these are fucking FACTS..prove me wrong or shut the fuck up :mad:) points which interrupt the “pro-vaccine” circle-jerk but don’t even seek to challenge the pro-vaccine position in itself, result in this huge blood-fest, this group attack on she who dares to say ANYTHING other than “rah-rah vaccines!” or “when your child gets polio/pertussis/measles/rabies, THEN you’ll see the light!” or “some other such subjective/irrational shit” :rolleyes:
I have conducted most of my research on PubMed, Library of Congress and other such storehouses of published literature/studies. On this and other topics. I am as irritated with the BS “anti-vax” or other wild conspiracy sites as anyone else…sometimes I DO find an interesting cite from such sources, but I always follow up on it and confirm it for myself…same as I always do for CDC or Offit info. 
I am of, according to most standards, of above average intelligence and quite capable of understanding English and even medical terminology. I have done research for scientific papers, university work, books, and corporate interests many times and am very familiar with the standards involved.
Just because I do not AGREE with you or others arguing at me does not mean I am ignorant, congenitally stupid or WRONG. HELLO! :smack:
Just because some of my “arguments” (facts) echo the “anti-vax sites” does not make them 1. based ON anything I found AT such sites OR 2. WRONG. Even a broken clock is right twice a day..
PLEASE, deign to EXPLAIN to me exactly HOW I have “misinterpreted” the “articles” (citations) I have provided, and provide cites to support your ctiticisms. None of this “you are just WRONG and STUPID and DON’T understand things the way WE do” shit. That’s a fucking cop-out and you know it.
Your take on the shifting of strains and waning immunity and boosting is of interest to me. I am willing and able to debate that. Even willing to learn something new.
I am NOT willing to take seriously or “debate” personal attacks or blanket, unsupported comments. Beyond this.
Oh, and fuck you if you don’t like my use of emoticons…
Yes, it’s a given: a disease can only spread if it is not extinct, and possesses a vector to transmit itself to others. Vaccination is the only proven way of solving the former, and any subclinical infection is going to be significantly hindered in the latter, as symptoms like coughing, sneezing or open sores provide the primary means for the most contagious diseases to be contagious. Without these symptoms, the subclinical infections you tout as such a threat are little more than a dead end.
Oh no! We’re no longer vaccinated against smallpox! Good thing it doesn’t matter much, since it’s extinct, and you could always restart the vaccinations anyway.
Prove it. Provide an example of a disease that mutated as a result of vaccination, such that we would have been better off not vaccinating against it in the first place.
DSeid made an interesting point about where he thinks recent “push-back” against vaccination began - the mandating of immunization against hepatitis B which some felt was unnecessary.
This is probably part of the “too much too soon” claim which some in the antivax movement frequently make (while unaware of the capacity of a child’s immune system, which has to deal with a far greater antigenic stimulus from non-vaccine sources, occurring on a daily basis).
What I’d connect the upsurge in antivax activity to are themes that have always been part of antivax ideology, going back to the 19th century when the first mandatory vaccinations started, and which are now Internet-driven: 1) resentment of government authority, 2) contempt for experts (mommy knows best), and 3) the conviction that vaccines are un-natural, which goes along with the rising popularity of alt med and “natural cures”.
All of these themes are expressed strongly in what IO is posting.
Arthur Allen’s book “Vaccine” is a good source for the history of antivax activity.
I ran across a post by Mangetout in another thread, that makes me think InterestedObserver should bring him in for tactical support. 
Interested Observer,
Your previous cites in debates on this subject include the loonies at whale to so it gets hard to take you seriously.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12145559&postcount=56
Reading crap on the net does not constitute research. Reinterating the same tired talking points from the anti-vaccine literature does not make you look educated and intelligent. It makes you look gullible, dangerous and dumb.
When you write,
You come across as an incredibly ill informed. Natural immunity means you get the disease. You understand that, right? Shall we go into go into recitation of what that actually means? Here is an excellent post from Doper Cat Whisperer about what would happen if we all took your advice.
Before vaccines, when we all had that natural immunity you love so much, you’d get three thousand kids dead each year from measles, thousands of newborns blind or deaf from rubella, polio paralysing children and dozens of other serious problems from vaccine preventable diseases.
Is this really what you want for your children? How is reducing the odds that your kids will die from diphtheria some sort of deprivation? It’s one thing to write that your children did not get vaccinated because of underlying medical causes. It’s quite another to actively shrug when a parent chooses not to vaccinate a baby who should be vaccinated.
It is just about impossible to respect someone who keeps reinterating that idiotic mantra. The choice to not vaccinate is the choice to punch holes in safety nets that protect all of us. It’s a dumb choice that does not deserve respect.
How exactly does this “too much too soon” argument work? I distinctly remember my immunizations as a kid (in the UK) being spread over a period of several years. Plus a bunch of later vaccinations against typhoid, cholera and so on when I traveled to tropical areas.
It doesn’t work. It’s based on the notion that we give too many vaccines and we give them too early in life. The problem with that argument becomes which vaccines do you stop? The one for whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetantus? The hep b? The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine?
The reason they give many vaccines early is because babies and young children are more vulnerable to many vaccine preventable diseases. You or I might shrug off whooping cough with a nasty cold.
Little babies, OTOH, can really get screwed up from it.
Do you understand that this is not how facts work?
Prove it!
The “too much too soon” argument (beloved of Jenny McCarthy and other antivaxers) is based on the misconception that “overloading” of a young child’s immune system with the current vaccine schedule (expanded since, for example the 1960s) causes injury.
As noted earlier (and in good articles available online), the immune system can and does handle far, far more that is thrown at it than any vaccine (or combination of vaccines) entails:
“The capacity of the immune system to respond to antigens is vast and far greater than most people realize. Experts estimate that humans can generate about 10 billion different antibodies [3] and that, due to exposures to germs and other foreign material, people make between 1 million and 100 million different antibodies during our lifetime [4]. The vaccine schedule produces a total of about 30 antibodies. It is also estimated that (a) each infant has the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at any one time and (b) if the 11 routinely recommended vaccines were administered together, the immune system would need to use only about 0.1% of its capacity to process them.”
Modern vaccines also contain considerably less antigen than was used decades ago (the smallpox vaccine alone used to present more than we see now). And getting the actual diseases challenges the immune system with a much higher load of antigen as compared to vaccination.
Even if we could, certain people would refuse it.
The Pedant, feeling ill, goes to his physician and gets dx’d as having rabies.
DSeid: “I’m sorry, CP. It’s progressive, untreatable and fatal.”
CP: “OK…do you know how I find out the real identities of Dopers?”
DSeid: “Well, that’s really tough…I take it you are interested in saying farewell to some of them in person?”
CP: “No…I need a list of who to go bite.”
Thank you for this. I wish more physicians were aware of this.
Back in late 1995 my 8-year-old daughter, religiously vaccinated, exhibited symptoms of pertussis for several weeks. Those coughing paroxysms (2-6 per day) were downright scary. I described them to the pediatrician. The pediatrician diagnosed ye olde upper respiratory infection and a possible sinus infection and put her on an antibiotic.
After the antibiotics showed no sign of mitigating the illness, we called the pediatrician back, described the symptoms again, and she refilled the prescription for the antibiotic. Over the weekend things were a bit worse, so we went to an urgent care facility. After finding out that her vaccines were up to date, that physician had nothing additional to offer. So we schlepped to another urgent care facility because something wasn’t right with this kid and we didn’t care how much time and money had to be spent to fix it. No help there, either.
Unfortunately, my daughter never had a paroxysm while at a physician’s office, so they didn’t get to see what was happening. Having been vaccinated, the symptoms were milder and the coughing fits less frequent than if she had not been vaccinated.
Based on the descriptions I was providing to the physicians, I had the feeling, in hindsight of course, that they were thinking it might be pertussis (even before it occurred to me), which prompted them to ask about vaccinations. Once they found out the vaccines were up to date they didn’t have anything else to offer.
Of course I wasn’t thinking about pertussis either and didn’t think of it until my mother, who grew up in the days before a pertussis vaccine existed, was present during a particularly violent coughing episode. After that happened my mother told me that it sounded the same as when one of her brothers had whooping cough as a child. Could it possibly be pertussis? It certainly wasn’t a normal cough.
It was still the weekend so, after this violent coughing paroxysm, I took daughter to an ER. The ER physician told us that he had been seeing an uncharacteristically large number of patients displaying pertussis-like symptoms that year, especially in peds. He did a lab test for pertussis but said that the results may not be positive since my daughter was taking antibiotics. Indeed, the test later came back negative. He switched her antibiotic to erythromycin, saying that was a better antibiotic if she had pertussis.
The next day we had to follow up with a phone call to a pediatric resident at the hospital. It was that resident who called us back to say that she researched the issue and found that the failure rate among pertussis vaccines can be as high as 20%. I don’t know if that was pertaining to a particular lot of vaccines or a particular year of manufacture/administration or a more general failure rate. She also verified that they were seeing more pertussis-like illness that year.
We finally got an answer, a plan, and reduced anxiety, but it wasn’t easy getting there. That was the first time I ever heard that vaccines could sometimes not be effective. All these years later I wonder if physicians are more aware that vaccines need to be updated and that, even when current, they can fail at times.
Sorry to be long-winded, but hopefully others will be aware of the hurdles that exist if you happen to get an illness for which you’ve been vaccinated.
There are too many personal attacks being made in this thread right now. This kind of thing needs to be toned down:
This is where the vax/anti-vax debate came into my consciousness. My son’s pediatrician (this was 15 years ago or more) asked if we wanted the hep-B vaccine but couldn’t provide any information other than a brochure from the drug company about how awful hep-B is. She couldn’t tell me anything about it except that it was “important” and that vaccines work. Of course vaccines have done wonderful things but that shouldn’t mean that we have to give our kids every single vaccine that some drug manufacturer brings to market with no questions asked. The fact that she thought I was some sort of crazy for asking questions and not immediately paying her to inject something into my child meant we needed to find another pediatrician.
Of course he ended up getting the vaccine when it was required for school. It wasn’t that it was mandated for school that bothered me, it was the hard sell approach and the unwillingness to provide information.
If there is good to be had from the anti-vax movement, I think that most pediatricians have become much more educated about vaccines - which ones are optional, which ones they highly recommend, what the risk profiles are. They aren’t just blind shots (I still went to school when they lined you up after lunch and the whole class got stuck by the school nurse). My PNP is really good about saying “these are the vaccines that are do, this are functionally mandatory, these are the ones you might want to consider - here are the risk conditions for the disease this prevents, this one (the cervical cancer one) we will put off for a few more years.”