Dude, I think you are totally and unfairly dismissing the possibility that some of these people’s problems are due to UFO abductions.
I thought it was caused by extended exposure to amniotic fluid.
Don’t hit me!!!
I really feel for the parents of autistic children. I can not fathom the frustration they must endure. I understand the desperation to help your child. Please look for logic, not miracle cures and flim-flam.
But for the love of all things holy, will people PLEASE stop calling me and suggesting my child is autistic, or of having a wheat allergy or whatever the “Special Report” of the week is? She’s speech delayed. They evaluated her. She shows no signs of having any of those issues. They attribute it to stubbornness. Not allergies, not autism, not mental retardation, not any of the crap.
ETA: Oh, and keep your non-vaccinated, over-antibioticed kid away from mine. The day the plague returns is on your shoulders. They have to use freakin’ gorillacillin now because of the abuse/misuse of antibiotics. Makes me positively insane.
DUDE I think you are totally missing the point that UFO abductions are the solution, not the problem.
Not to mention the scumbags from the legal profession who’ve been selflessly preparing lawsuits for their 30% cut. Maybe the fallback position will be to a find a causal link between autism and second-hand smoke.
I would prefer, if any of them are dumb enough to register, for them to try it in GD. I infinitely prefer the meltdowns to come because their arguments are knocked out of the park than simply because they have been creatively flamed using terms they probably don’t recognize. That comes later. 
I was banned from an anti-vax board a few months ago. On a whim, I went back there yesterday to have a look if there was any reaction to the study cited in the OP.
It makes you despair. These people cling to the Stupid like a child to its blanket.
Regards,
Shodan
My gym has a bunch of health-related pamphlets for the taking, and one of the ones they oiffer is a pamphlet that warns against vaccination in part because of the autism nonsense.
I complained about it but they wouldn’t take them away (it’s some sort of space-sharing arrangement) so every chance I get I take them all and throw them in the garbage. I don’t see a sign limiting so many per customer, so I figure I’m free to do it.
I can’t get that link to load, but the study that brought the alleged MMR vaccine-autism link to the forefront was conducted by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues and originally published in The Lancet. It led to a major scare over the MMR vaccine in Britain, resulting in lowered vaccination rates and upsurges in measles epidemics. Then it was found that Wakefield had taken large sums of money (in the hundreds of thousands of pounds) from a lawyers’ group hoping to sue the British government. Wakefield’s co-authors backed away from the study and he is under investigation for ethics violations. More about that here.
I’m glad this Pit thread was started, so I can render hearty "fuck you"s to a host of idiotic celebs and semi-celebs who’ve signed on to antivax nuttery, including Don Imus (egged on by trophy wife Deirdre), Bill Maher and Donald Trump.
Recognition also needs to go to Ron Paul, whose stance against mandatory vaccination has resulted in his being deified by antivax loons. And we mustn’t forget all the discussion boards that promote antivaccinationist quackery and shut out voices of reason, namely mothering.com (check out the moderator’s forum sticky at this link) and curezone.com.
I would like to think that the latest study debunking the vaccination/mercury/autism link will give the antivaxers second thoughts and lead them to cease their assault on public health, but I don’t expect the craziness to stop anytime soon. It’s like telling General Jack D. Ripper not to worry about his precious bodily fluids. :rolleyes:
In reading over these messages I realize I always thought parents had to submit proof of vaccination to daycare and elementary schools in order for children to attend. Isn’t this the case, and if not didn’t it used to be?
Parents may sign a form stating that they have refused vacination on moral grounds. The schools can’t refuse them no matter the stated policy.
The second part is the part that pisses me off, if it’s true. It’s bad enough that lunatic parents want to put their own children at risk for death and disability. But it’s unacceptable that they should be permitted to put my child at risk. Kids without updated vaccinations shouldn’t be allowed to enroll in public schools. Let the fuckers homeschool their little petri dishes.
But if your kids are vaccinated aren’t they safe?
Vaccines aren’t 100%. Sometimes they simply don’t work for some kids or provide them with a lesser form of the illness. Furthermore there are certain kids that cannot be vaccinated because of pre-existing medical conditions. Why should those kids be put at risk merely because some very stupid parents read garbage and chose to voluntarily punch holes in our common safety net?
I hate the anti-vaxxers. They are immune to nothing but reason. I doubt anything will change their minds.
Environmental “advocate” Robert kennedy says that mercury causes autism! If ya can’t trust a kennedy, who can you trust?
The success of a vaccination program relates to what’s called herd immunity.
In a school, lots of children are present in close quarters. If there’s a high rate of immunization, it’s difficult for the affected diseases to spread between non-immunized kids, and less chance for transmission to the minority of immunized children who aren’t fully protected. Once herd immunity drops enough, the disease becomes more prevalent and the student body as a whole, immunized or not, is at greater risk. This is why parents rightfully are upset about their kids being placed at risk by "conscientous objectors’ to vaccines.
The British National Health Service has provided this summary of the life cycle of a vaccine program:
- When no immunisations are being given against a disease, the number of people catching it is high. People’s attention is focused on the disease and its effects.
- When an immunisation programme against it begins, the number of people catching the disease goes down. Some of those people may experience side effects from the vaccine, though these are usually mild.
3, As more and more people are immunised, the threat of the disease becomes much less, and the disease effectively disappears. - Attention turns naturally from worry about the disease to concern about possible side effects of the vaccine.
- People start to question if the immunisation is necessary and whether the vaccine is safe.
- Some people stop being immunised.
- Now that fewer people are being immunised, the disease starts to spread again. People are reminded of how bad the disease is and turn to immunisation to avoid it.
- As more and more of the population get immunised, hopefully the disease disappears altogether and the immunisation programme can be discontinued.
This illustrates a major reason for why antivax propaganda succeeds with some otherwise rational people. We’ve forgotten how bad communicable diseases can be. Parents don’t sweat every summer over whether their kids will get polio.
If you read comments from antivaxers in online forums, there’s astonishing ignorance about the diseases vaccines protect us against. A common delusion is that infection with these diseases is no worse than a bad cold. They obsess about uncommon vaccine side effects - but are ignorant of or unwilling to address death or permanent disability from preventable diseases.
I’m afraid that after a comment like this you are now obliged to become a member.
And for the same sense of security.
I realize this isn’t GD, but I have a question about this. Although I was properly vaccinated as a child, because my parents no longer have the vax records and the hospital where I got them is no longer standing, I was required to have my MMR and whatever the Diptheria/Tetanus shot is these days before I could enroll in a United States University. Even though I was 34 at the time of enrollment. So my question is, just out of random curiosity, was the MMR vaccination potentially riskier for me than it would have been when I was a child? (as Chicken Pox gets more dangerous as one ages, I assume that bad reactions to a case of Measles, Mumps, or Rubella are similarly likely)
I had to have a MMR in college and a diptheria/tetanus booster in grad school even though we had records IIRC. A link from the Mayo Clinic suggests that the most minor side effects (scroll all the way down) are more likely in adults.
I love this.
I did some poking around - I couldn’t find anything specific.
It seems the immune response to MMR is less predictable in very young children And complications of measles infection (not vaccination) seem to be more severe in younger patients. Cite. And this cite says being over the recommended age of vaccination is not a contra-indication. But I don’t see anything that suggests that severe reaction to MMR vaccination is higher for older recipients.
IANAD, nor do I play one on TV. OTOH, I do have about 10% hearing loss in one ear because of measles, so I feel rather more strongly about the subject than perhaps I should.
Regards,
Shodan
The only thing I can contribute to the MMR question is that it is recommended that all women of child bearing age who have low titers to the R portion get revaccinated because Rubella during pregnancy causes devastating birth defects. These women ususally get identified at the OB-GYN’s office.