Stop murdering babies, you anti-vax morons!

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Anne_Neville

I wish I had gotten the hepatitis B vaccine as an infant. Not because I got the disease or anything, but because getting the vaccine was not a pleasant experience, and if I’d gotten it as an infant I wouldn’t remember it.

For me, the Hep B vaccine was what convinced me as an older child/young teen that shots weren’t really that bad, if I recall correctly.

@Nava

I’m all for vaccines, but only because something exists doesn’t mean you have to use it.

I’d say there’s a huge difference between childhood vaccinations and vaccinations you’d get to travel abroad. Neglecting the former hurts people around the unimmunized person; neglecting the latter just means you, personally, might get sick.

[LavenderBlue]

@Jackmannii

Being passionate about counteracting dangerous crazy is not crazy. And we have had antivaxers posting tripe on the Dope (most recently a libertarian Ron Paul supporter spouting the antivax party line in Great Debates). At least one antivaxer is still an active poster, though quiet on this particular subject for awhile. I appreciate lavenderblue’s commitment on this issue and her providing updates on what’s happening in this manufactroversy.

@lavenderblue

Then there’s the whole green our vaccines movement.

Looks okay on the surface, right? Yet it again makes no sense. By that they mean take the stuff that looks icky out. Well all that icky stuff – the formaldehyde and the sucrose is really in such minute quantities you can barely measure it at all.

Antivaxers who go on about “toxins” in vaccines often point to official-sounding lists of “toxins” they say are in vaccines (my personal favorite is sodium chloride, OMIGOD (i.e. table salt, or the same thing used commonly in intravenous solutions). Curiously, I’ve never seen documentation of exactly where these lists come from - and in one such case recently it turned out that the SCARY CHEMICALS were actually from the recipe for growth medium used to grow the organisms eventually used in production of a vaccine - not the vaccine itself. lavenderblue’s point about minute quantities of a substance not being equivalent to a toxin is correct. Also true is that antivaxers mischaracterize the nature of these substances, or ignore the fact that they’re naturally present in the human body (for instance, formaldehyde, which is routinely produced as part of normal metabolic processes and disposed of by the body in the same way that any microtraces of formaldehyde left in vaccines would be).

Thank you.

This is my very favorite accusation about alleged toxins in vaccines:

http://www.novaccine.com/vaccine-ingredients/results.asp?sc=26

Sucrose:C12H22O11

As a pure carbohydrate, has a high food energy content (4 kilocalories per gram or 17 kilojoules per gram), and thus can make a diet hypercaloric even in small amounts, contributing to obesity. An experiment with rats that were fed a diet one-third of which was sucrose may serve as a model for …more
As a pure carbohydrate, has a high food energy content (4 kilocalories per gram or 17 kilojoules per gram), and thus can make a diet hypercaloric even in small amounts, contributing to obesity. An experiment with rats that were fed a diet one-third of which was sucrose may serve as a model for the development of the metabolic syndrome. The sucrose first elevated blood levels of triglycerides, which induced visceral fat and ultimately resulted in insulin resistance.
Wikipedia.com - Sucrose - Wikipedia

Autism, shmautism. The real problem with vaccines? They make you fat!

[Jackmannii]

@Nava

Ah, but sometimes the recommendations from different doctors are different, so what then?

Vaccination is one of the areas in medicine where guidelines (i.e. from the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics) are relatively clear-cut. But there will always be exceptions based on individual patient status and (less defensible) individual doctors’ personal beliefs*. Personally I think that the more medicine is a science rather than an art when it comes to nuts-and-bolts practice is in the patients’ best interest, but we’re dealing with human beings and establishing uniformity of prevention/therapeutic efforts is difficult. Docs can be prone to the same overreliance on “personal experience” and confirmation biases as their patients.

Government requirements for vaccination should be based on sound science too, but given bureaucratic inertia it wouldn’t surprise me if some rules are out of date.
*as in the case of MDs like Jay Gordon, Jenny McCarthy’s son’s pediatrician, who claimed to promote the idea of a “reduced vaccine schedule”, but recently revealed that he recommends giving virtually no vaccines to children under the age of ten. By the way, Jenny is to appear on Oprah’s show today and will likely be delivering another steaming load of ignorance on her favorite (antivax) obsession.

[Anne_Neville]

@Shot_From_Guns

@Anne_Neville

I wish I had gotten the hepatitis B vaccine as an infant. Not because I got the disease or anything, but because getting the vaccine was not a pleasant experience, and if I’d gotten it as an infant I wouldn’t remember it.

For me, the Hep B vaccine was what convinced me as an older child/young teen that shots weren’t really that bad, if I recall correctly.

Not me. For some reason, when I come in for a shot, they break out the needle the size of my leg. Or at least it feels like it (I can’t look at it or I freak out).

[Gestalt]

@WhyNot

. The thing I found most interesting in this particular book was her look through old medical records and the hypothesis that a lot of the “elimination” of vaccine preventable illness wasn’t a direct result of vaccination efforts, but the natural life cycle of the bacteria/viruses or other human efforts, generally around sanitation.

Okay, I have to ask about this. So far, the only real vaccine-preventable illnesses that I know of that have been severely reduced by the administration of vaccines are pertussis, polio, smallpox, and diphtheria. There may be more, but these diseases were around for a long time, and then basically disappeared in the Western world after the advent of immunizations. Is she saying this is just a coincidence?? Like, smallpox would have disappeared anyways at about the same time?

Also, what diseases besides pertussis have re-emerged?

The only disease that I can sort of see this argument with is Tb. And I think the fact that the BCG is routinely administered outside of the US has a lot to do with that.

Also, what does she mean by “life cycles” of bacteria and viruses? Sporulation? lytic/lysogenic phases of bacteriophages?

[Gestalt]

@LavenderBlue

Vaccine schedules were devised by informed doctors as the best way to get most kids protected as early as possible. There’s no good reason to deviate from them unless your ped tells you otherwise. Sanitation did not get rid of hib or reduce measles rates or rid the world of smallpox. Vaccination did. If those diseases are coming back in certain parts of the western world well the anti-vaxxers have only themselves to blame.

My ped’s from India, btw. If you think I feel strongly on this issue well you should talk to her. She’s seen the effects of non-vaccination very close up.

Preach it sister! Or maybe we should just break out the iron lung again. Geez. Sometimes I think we’re spoiled.

Seriously, I am one hundred percent certain that the number one agent in reducing infectious disease (and certain things that might be considered chronic disease but are stimulated by infectious agents, like cervical cancer) is vaccines. People who are anti-vax can all go live on an island and give each other pertussis all day long.

[Gestalt]

@Gestalt

The only disease that I can sort of see this argument with is Tb. And I think the fact that the BCG is routinely administered outside of the US has a lot to do with that.

Upon reflection, also leprosy and plague. And probably a few others. But still, many diseases were rampant until vaccinations were introduced and then the numbers of infected dropped drastically, and I’m skeptical of anyone who says that this is not due to vaccinations but due to bacterial/viral life cycles.

[Anne_Neville]

@Gestalt

People who are anti-vax can all go live on an island and give each other pertussis all day long.

Preferably an island with no internet access. Then the rest of us wouldn’t have to listen to the crap they spew.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Gestalt

<snip>Sometimes I think we’re spoiled. <snip>

I absolutely think we’re spoiled. My mom is in her sixties, and she almost lost a brother to one of the diseases we vaccinate for now (I can’t remember which one - whooping cough, maybe); you can bet she got all her kids vaccinated when she had us. There have been a few people who’ve speculated that the vaccination campaigns have been TOO successful; people seem to need real life reminders of why we do what we do, because we forget so quickly.

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@Cat_Whisperer

@Gestalt

<snip>Sometimes I think we’re spoiled. <snip>

I absolutely think we’re spoiled. My mom is in her sixties, and she almost lost a brother to one of the diseases we vaccinate for now (I can’t remember which one - whooping cough, maybe); you can bet she got all her kids vaccinated when she had us. There have been a few people who’ve speculated that the vaccination campaigns have been TOO successful; people seem to need real life reminders of why we do what we do, because we forget so quickly.

Indeed. In one of the earlier threads here one of the anti-vax kooks actually stated that there was nothing wrong with getting polio.

[Morgyn]

@Mr.Miskatonic

Indeed. In one of the earlier threads here one of the anti-vax kooks actually stated that there was nothing wrong with getting polio.

Them first. I’ll plug the iron lung in for them.

Me, once I get a job and have insurance again, I’m going to look into having all my shots updated.

[Inigo_Montoya]

@Shot_From_Guns

@septimus

It’s common to measure political views along two axes: beliefs in economic freedom and social freedom. I think a third axis should be introduced, perhaps more important than the other two: propensity for rational thought.

It’s there. Everyone just pretty much sits at zero on the z-axis, though, so it’s usually not included in the interest of being concise.

SFG I’m beginning to love ya.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Mr.Miskatonic

Indeed. In one of the earlier threads here one of the anti-vax kooks actually stated that there was nothing wrong with getting polio.

If the books I read as a girl are any indication, polio is awesome because after you get polio you get a horse.

@Inigo_Montoya

SFG I’m beginning to love ya.

*Beginning *to?