NLBS #35: The Anti-Vaccination Movement and the Measles Outbreak

originally posted by: Darkblade71
This was a great one!

People who don't vaccinate their kids scare the crap out of me.

I can understand a flu shot, and avoiding one because they can make a person sick,
but if you don't get one, and do get sick, stay home, pretty simple,
however childhood vaccinations are a MUST in order to keep children healthy (an entire population of them) and even into their adult lives. This measles outbreak is a perfect example, and imagine if Polio made comeback due to non-vaccination,kind of a scary thought.

If you don't vac your kid, you put everyone else's kids at risk too.

Disco ball for you!
Especially for putting out there WHY and who created the hoax/fraud that seems to have spread and gets people paranoid about the vaccines.

Good Job!!

It's this crap that I find hilarious. "Ooh, imagine if polio came back because people didn't get vaccinated." Polio DID come back BECAUSE people got vaccinate - admitted by the CDC themselves.

And there is much evidence to support the idea that getting the frigging measles as a child helps BUILD the immune system. Measles will come and go, vaccination or not - people are just upset that there continue to be outbreaks.

I can see 500 years from now after several new diseases have manifested, children getting thousands of vaccinations against every possible disease. Let's take it further: thousands and thousands of years from now, after hundreds of thousands of more diseases are discovered, children would have to get vaccinated against EVERYthing imaginable and it would literally be impossible. It would certainly showcase that it's unnatural, and not really a viable way to remain healthy, as it isn't now.

originally posted by: noeltrotsky
a reply to: theNLBS

Good article! Here's a part that caught my attention,
"Brendan Nyhan, an excellent political scientist at Dartmouth University, has done pathbreaking research into convincing anti-vaxxers to back off their flawed ideas.

His team’s disturbing findings: Trying to educate anti-vaccine parents only forces them to retreat further into their shell. Attempting to correct false beliefs about vaccines “may be especially likely to be counterproductive,” Nyhan dryly notes."

Having read MANY threads at ATS my anecdotal evidence confirms his finding completely!

Yes, but the exact same thing happens to pro-vaxers - the very exact same thing. They too retreat further into their beliefs. In fact, they appear more obstinate than the anti-vaxers in my opinion - and with good reason: they can't afford to be wrong since they've already vaccinated themselves and their children for years, feel that THIS protects them, and don't want to give up that sense of safety, OR even consider the idea that they've been harming their own children.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: FyreByrd
What about individual 'freedom'?

What about it?

What about my freedom to be able to send my children to school and group events with the assurance that no other kids might be carrying preventable diseases?

Freedoms are good, but so is acceptance of responsibility. If you don't want to vaccinate your children, you should be prepared to accept reasonable consequences of your children being exempt from group situations.

People freaked out over Ebola, and part of that was rather intense frustration over a lack of an effective vaccine. Measles is exponentially more contagious, kills, and has a long list of potential debilitating outcomes for survivors.

The problem here is that this fully applies to vaccinated individuals, as there are many many many instances where they shed the virus they were vaccinated against and can indeed infect others. So you and your kids should stay home too. And if your kids have been vaccinated, why are you worried about going anywhere anyway?

a reply to: mindseye1609

Thank you for posting this. I will read it!

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: deadeyedick
There is also the view that those already vaccinated are getting sick simply because the vaccine does not work.

That's not correct.

I had presumed that it was widespread common knowledge that most (if not all) vaccinations are not 100% effective… shame on me for not accounting for that, and work with Joe to get it into the script.

The MMR vaccine was never promised to be 100% effective, however, as has been stated numerous times in this thread and in news reports about the measles outbreak, the vaccine becomes an effective hedge against new outbreaks, when the entire population is vaccinated. Vaccinations are not individual protection, per se, they are population protection.

Logic says that if a high % of people becoming sick are vaccinated then the vaccine does not work well enough to be mandatory.

Current percentages in this outbreak are in the norm. It's just that lots of unvaccinated children are getting measles, and circumventing the population protection mentioned above.

By this logic, if every single person got vaccinated, there would still always be outbreaks - as there have been every three or four years with the measles anyway. And in fact, no one has even proven that there are fewer kids getting vaccinated now than there were say 15 years ago. There have always been un-vaccinated children. It's only now that the "debate" is heating up that people are beginning to blame them - just like there have always been gay people and there have always been bigots, but would Russia have made such a big noise at the Olympics if the rest of the world weren't talking about gay marriage?

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
a reply to: Metallicus

This episode is specific to the course of childhood vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccine, not the flu vaccine. The vaccines given to children under six years of age have less than 1 microgram of mercury.

Plus, 25 micrograms of mercury (as indicated on the box) is less than what you breath on a daily basis from the pollutants in the air.

It's different if you eat or breathe mercury - there are filters it goes through. When it injected directly into you, there are no filters. So you can't really bring up that "there's the same amount of mercury in a can of tuna" crap.

I would really like to see what people would do if every single person were vaccinated against the measles, and yet there were STILL outbreaks. Maybe then they'd actually put the responsibility where it belongs: the vaccine makers. "Your product doesn't work," they might say. Some people would counter, "No vaccine is ever 100% effective." Yet while that might be true, Dr. Gregory Poland, a pro-vaxer who supports mandatory vaccination, criticized the measles vaccine YEARS ago, warning everyone that it was not very good, and needed to be improved. So, well, I say, don't be afraid of non-vaccinated people, be afraid that the vaccine you're being given isn't good enough and should be improved if you want to feel safe. Don't blame people who don't want the vaccine.

a reply to: AboveBoard

I'm not sure how solid the science is to say whether or not it's more then just a theory yet and I'd love someone else here on ATS who knows more about glyphosate and nutrition to go over it but it's the most comeplete idea Ive read with the least holes and jumps to conclusions.

This Gives me hope that we are at least on the track to figuring it out. I got young ones and relatives with disabilities... Its a very hard thing to have to go through, I'm absolutely terrified about what to do.

Where are all the anti Vaxers in this thread? Did I miss something? This is a conspiracy website. When did we start supporting such a mainstream and questionable agenda as pro vaccination? I thought other members were being paranoid when they said the ATS had been taken over by agents of misinformation... Maybe they were right?

For what it's worth I guess I'm more pro choice than anything...

originally posted by: thebtheb
I would really like to see what people would do if every single person were vaccinated against the measles, and yet there were STILL outbreaks. Maybe then they'd actually put the responsibility where it belongs: the vaccine makers. "Your product doesn't work," they might say.

But it does work. We know this. No one is seriously questioning that. Every time there's a major outbreak, researchers use the opportunity to calculate the measles vaccine effectiveness. Two-dose effectiveness is typically over 90%, and one dose comes close.

I made a weak attempt at calculating the measles vaccine effectiveness last year over here. It was around 83%. While my "research design" left a lot to be desired, it still suggests the measles vaccine has a significant protective effect.

I've actually read much better evidence linking the rise in autism to modern factors such as older parents, progressive epigenetics, as well to a better understanding and earlier diagnosis of ASD. The anti-vaccination crowd should actually try examining all angles to this issue and using data from a multitude of sources before jumping on the anti-vax crazy train. The evidence is overwhelmingly for the benefits of vaccines vs the drawbacks. Just look at areas of the world where vaccination is not widespread, and you see places where epidemics of preventable diseases wipe out or weaken the population. The benefit is for society as a whole. We wiped out smallpox as a result of vaccination and other modern medical wonders, and polio is a very rare thing to see in the U.S. these days.

Believe me, I am not a lover of big pharma and a lot of the crap they push, and I object to the profit driven models of the modern American medical establishment. But I am not going to throw out the baby with the bath water. I agree the real crime is that big Pharma is holding people hostage with crazy high prices well out of the reach of many. They do this with many other treatments, tests and innovations. It is crazy. It's hard to appreciate or trust the motives of the current medical system when it is well known that they are the world's biggest drug pushers. But vaccination has a pretty solid past and current track record, so I am going to go with science on this.

By the way, measles has killed millions in the past, and kills millions world wide.

Link

a reply to: theNLBS

Great show!!!!

a reply to: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

By the way, measles has killed millions in the past, and kills millions world wide.

More than 300 people die from measles around the world every day, mostly children.

To put that another way: If you’re unvaccinated, you’re about 35,000 times more likely to die from measles than you are to win at PowerBall.F orbes

I did the math and it came out to 109,500 people a year dying. So every 9 years and 2 months there are a million deaths from measles.

To me it is just insane to not vaccinate against one of the most highly contagious diseases known to mankind. If the world populace was vaccinated against it would take very little time for it to be wiped out. The only known animal that carries measles is the human animal even though 21 strains have been identified.

So how many people have died in this "Disney Land" outbreak so far?

I've read allot of scary things this year, but one of the scariest was earlier today when I was texting with my sister (she's a nurse) about vaccinations. First she said that any child that has not been vaccinated for measles will be turned away by her doctor, then she went onto insult aware parents that do not get their children vaccinated. First, why in the mother of # would doctors not have some sort of contamination procedure for children that show up with measles? For instance, meeting them in the parking lot with a mask then escorting them to a room or bubble? Secondly, did doctors not take oaths? What about if a child is allergic to a measles vaccination? What happens then? Doctors gave up their freedom of choice once they became a doctor, they've a responsibility to tend to the sick, and a doctor turning away a sick child is murder no matter how you cut it!

Do people not understand that conglomerates that produce vaccines have a PUBLIC record that their poisons do not work? Why is this tolerable? Why is it tolerable that a former Nazi chemical company is in charge of producing vaccinations? Why do the employees in medical fields always happen to be the most uneducated of all professions and stick to their 'beliefs and opinions' like it's a religion? What is going on in this country? Why is it every time my wife goes for a pregnancy check-up they care not what she eats, only if she's been vaccinated?

Well, ahhhh.... I'll tell you why: Nazis thought they were good guys, too.

Mine, or rather our, argument is anecdotal... experiential. We gave our son the MMR vaccine and he got all three at the same time. They told us the most we might expect from the MMR vaccine was a minor rash and mild fever for a couple of days.

We took him to the ER twice within one week because he was covered from head to toe with a horrible rash and was running a CONSISTENT 101-103 deg temp for 2+ days. We thought we might lose him. His pediatrician told us many days after, "Well yeah, he's going to get the mumps, measles, and Rubella. That's the point. But he should have gotten only a small portion of each. What he'd gotten from the vaccine was not normal." I wonder how many "abnormal" children must be subjected to possible death in this modernized nation to "protect" those "normal" children against a realistically non-lethal pathogen?... How did humanity get this far without vaccines, of this nature, at all??

... So when it came time to get his second dose you can be sure what we responded.

Given our experience, the NLBS IS the NLBS. Is the NLBS on "the" payroll?

Sorry, as a parent, we take experience far more seriously than scientific theory.

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: theNLBS

There is no anti vaccination movement.
There is a movement to preserve the human right to control what is injected into your body.

I disagree that adults who had a vaccine should have a choice of what goes into their babies bodies.

It appears that babies have no choice either way.

originally posted by: hudsonhawk69
Where are all the anti Vaxers in this thread? Did I miss something? This is a conspiracy website. When did we start supporting such a mainstream and questionable agenda as pro vaccination? I thought other members were being paranoid when they said the ATS had been taken over by agents of misinformation... Maybe they were right?

For what it's worth I guess I'm more pro choice than anything...

Huh? The "mainstream" opposing your opinion is spreading missinformation because you are the god of knowitall?

a reply to: Grimpachi

I did the math and it came out to 109,500 people a year dying.(of measles)

Or 0.0016 % of the world's population.

1.3 million die of car crashes every year which is 0.019%.

1.8 million die of diarrhea every year which is 0.027%


The vast majority of measles deaths don't even occur in America where there is now debate about people not getting vaccinated against it.

a reply to: SkippyBalls

Or 0.0016 % of the world's population.

If everyone was vaccinated then no one would need to die from it. Are you pro-death? Sorry, but I just don't see your point.

1.3 million die of car crashes every year which is 0.019%.

Do you advocate for the removal of seatbelts?

1.8 million die of diarrhea every year which is 0.027%

Yup, mostly because of unsafe drinking water. I bet you would choose clean drinking water over dirty.

The vast majority of measles deaths don't even occur in America where there is now debate about people not getting vaccinated against it.

The reason the majority do not occur in America is because of vaccinations and herd immunity. Every person that chooses against vaccination lowers that heard immunity and puts everyone at more risk. I guess you want America to have its fair share of the disease.

Everything you mentioned is preventable with proper precautions. Let me know when you cut your seatbelts out and start drinking water from the creek at least then you will be consistent.