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Not sure if this makes any difference to you personally, but the flu kills the elderly the most - measles kills children the most. Measles also can cause people to lose their sight. If I had to pick one vaccine to keep between the two, I'd pick the measles vaccine.
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Feb 21, 2015 03:42
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Freakus posted:We recently had a baby and live in LA where there's been a bunch of Measles related issues. Ebola is way easier to contain, but it's virulent as gently caress. Measles is just about impossible to contain, but it's merely "occasionally deadly" or "sometimes extremely debilitating". Note that that's also only relevant for health well-nourished individuals. In poorer countries, the death rate for contracting Measles is around 30%. In immunocompromised individuals (IE someone with AIDS or recovering from serious surgery), the death rate is also 30%. I think that your wife is right to treat the Measles seriously. If we didn't have a vaccine, that 0.2% death rate would be a massive number of people, and that's not counting the additional 0.2% who would become deaf or retarded. For people who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons (including infants), this disease should be treated seriously. quote:Someone in this thread even attempted to segregate flu vaccines from something like the Measles vaccine. But from what I can tell, the number of estimated deaths from the Flu (11k being the average estimate per year for the last 30 years) is much higher than what a population adjusted death count from Measles pre-vaccine would have been (about 750). And I would expect it to be even lower than that nowadays. The problem with estimating Flu mortality rates is that the average moves around quite a bit. Age, nutrition, and access to medical care all play a huge rule, too. According to the latest CDC figures, the last 30 years have had death tolls ranging from 3300 to 49k. In the 2009 Flu pandemic, the US death rate was about 0.03%. The Measles death rate in the US is about 0.2%, meaning that 0.2% of people who catch Measles will die from it. You're also comparing a highly stable virus to a virus that mutates extremely quickly. Once you've caught Measles, you tend not to catch it again. This makes the numbers even less comparable quote:So, why is it ok to skip the vaccine for something that kills more people than it seems like the Measles would? Why aren't people who forego the Flu vaccine being labelled as anti-vaxxers? The Measles would actually kill way more people than typical influenza, if everyone's Measles immunity wore off tomorrow (IE if measles mutated in the same way as influenze does). But even if that weren't the case, the Flu vaccine is only about 50%-70% effective and has to be taken every year. That's quite different from the Measles vaccine, which is only taken twice in a lifetime and is closer to 95% effective. You should still get the flu shot, but you can't necessarily blame someone for not taking the time to receive a vaccine that has a good chance of not working (although I personally still berate them; get your flu shot, fucker) Most people who forego a Flu shot also don't try to justify it with a bunch of bullshit excuses like "it might cause autism". QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Feb 21, 2015 03:53
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Tarezax posted:Part of why the flu death rate is higher is because the flu mutates so quickly that it's hard to vaccinate against. The vaccine that goes out each year is targeted at a best guess of which flu strain/s will be most prevalent. So while the measles vaccine is say 99% effective, the flu vaccine may be only 85% effective (numbers pulled out of my rear end) The other side is that the point of the flu vaccine is just one of statistics, really. An overall reduction in people getting sick with the flu means that they're less likely to spread to those that are vulnerable (the elderly, the young, and those already sick with other crap). The flu can't be exterminated with current technology but we can make it less awful and less likely to kill people. It's a totally different beast than the measles, the various poxes, and pertussis. Giving somebody a 10% chance of dying from the flu is better than the 20% chance they'd otherwise have (numbers just made up). More people immune to various flu strains makes it less likely that people with compromised immune systems will get it and die. Yeah most people can just sleep for a few days and be fine but there are people that the flu makes die.
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Feb 21, 2015 04:02
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Other people have addressed flu vaccine for the most part. The only thing I have to add is that people working in healthcare, especially geriatric care, who do not get their yearly flu shots are being dangerously irresponsible and I believe getting a flu shot should be a mandated part of their employment.Freakus posted:We definitely are going to vaccinate, but one thing I find interesting is that a lot of people on both sides seem somewhat misinformed. But I guess that's normal. E.g. my wife talks as if Measles is the next Ebola but the year the vaccine was developed, from what I can tell, 450 people died from it in the United States. In comparison, we grew up when there was no chicken pox vaccine, and it seems like about 150 people died from that per year. Not a huge difference there. These are mildly bad number comparisons for these. In 1964 when the measles vaccine was introduced, the population of the US was 192M, in 1995 the population of the US was 263M. Equal population would have meant measles deaths per year would have been in the order of 616/year, and the chicken pox virus prior to vaccine introduction was a bit lower, between 100-150 rather than a flat 150. That means measles was between 4 and 6 times more deadly than chicken pox. To add to that, chicken pox is a very good candidate for inoculation parties, chicken pox is not dangerous if first caught before puberty. That gives the ability to intentionally infect children with it so that they are not vulnerable later in their life. Prior to the introduction of the vaccine, this was the most common way to incur immunity for your children and would protect them from death if they were later exposed, though at the cost of an increased chance of developing shingles later in life. Now there is a vaccine which gives the same immunity but far far less risk of shingles. Measles is a very bad candidate for inoculation parties, as it is most deadly to children under 5 and not likely to be deadly if first caught between 13-65. So when you see those numbers, the 4 to 6 times more deadly also means that with measles it's all young children dying vs. chicken pox which was mostly adults.
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Feb 21, 2015 11:03
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pangstrom posted:WNxOddJob (didn't know he got his act together or even read the original thread, I just saw a funny/sad cartoon some goon put together of his daughter's typical morning) quote:Other people have addressed flu vaccine for the most part. The only thing I have to add is that people working in healthcare, especially geriatric care, who do not get their yearly flu shots are being dangerously irresponsible and I believe getting a flu shot should be a mandated part of their employment.
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Feb 21, 2015 11:49
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Ravenfood posted:Which can be found in the "Lets Illustrate EN" thread, iirc. Every year, a handful of staff members get fired from the hospitals around town for refusing their flu vaccine (that the hospital provides them for free, during work hours no less), and make a big stink to the local news with their lawyer about how they're going to sue. You'd think they would have gotten the point by now, every hospital in town has required it since H1N1 hit. The first year it was mandated for non-healthcare staff a the hospital I was working at, we had over 100 staff members terminated, including three people in my department. Their insistence that management either didn't have the right or the balls to do it, right up to standing at the timeclock to punch in the day of the deadline (See, we're still here, I told you they wouldn't do it!), was glorious. So was the one guy crying that he'd go to employee health and get it right then while he was getting escorted out the door. CommanderApaul fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Feb 21, 2015 |
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Feb 21, 2015 15:36
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QuarkJets posted:
Good post. I just want to say that I don't get the flu shot because I don't get the flu. I never have, and neither have my mom or sister. My mom just turned 65 and she has never had the flu. That is amazing to me, and I'm gratified that she passed on whatever freak immunity she has to me. At the same time, my dad had Polio when he was a kid, so I'm passionate about vaccines. He had to have multiple surgeries on his leg because Polio really hosed him up. People who are against vaccines for whatever reason make no sense to me. Seriously, we as a society have labeled a vaccine as the "slut shot" because it prevents an STD. How can I possibly articulate how crazy that is?
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Feb 21, 2015 15:43
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Pohl posted:Good post. I just want to say that I don't get the flu shot because I don't get the flu. I never have, and neither have my mom or sister. If you don't have contact with sick people or the very young/old, then I'm not going to berate you too hard for not getting the flu shot, but you really should get it anyways. You may not get sick with the flu, but you can still exposed, and then expose other people who will get sick. Also, Gardasil feeds into a whole other ball of craziness that has less to do with vaccines and more to do with punishing women for having sex. 
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Feb 21, 2015 17:37
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CommanderApaul posted:If you don't have contact with sick people or the very young/old, then I'm not going to berate you too hard for not getting the flu shot, but you really should get it anyways. You may not get sick with the flu, but you can still exposed, and then expose other people who will get sick. I was actually thinking about the fact that I may not get sick while I could possibly be a carrier of the flu. I'll probably start getting a flu shot next year. Thanks!
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Feb 21, 2015 17:58
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Pohl posted:I was actually thinking about the fact that I may not get sick while I could possibly be a carrier of the flu. I'll probably start getting a flu shot next year. Thanks! DnD done good! Break out the (American) champagne!
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Feb 21, 2015 19:19
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Pohl posted:I was actually thinking about the fact that I may not get sick while I could possibly be a carrier of the flu. I'll probably start getting a flu shot next year. Thanks! You are a good person, and more importantly a good poster
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Feb 21, 2015 19:23
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Pohl posted:Good post. I just want to say that I don't get the flu shot because I don't get the flu. I never have, and neither have my mom or sister. Complaining about that vaccine is also particularly stupid. The reason it comes under fire is because some people believe that promiscuity of any level should be severely punished so HPV is just God's way of punishing women who bone more than one dude over the course of their lives. While, you know, totally ignoring the fact that things like rape happen and humans have a long history of being really, really lovely at being monogamous. Or that not every religion is against sleeping around a bit. There are also, of course, more ways than just loving to get HPV and the more strains of it you pick up the more likely they are to give a woman cervical cancer which is, you know, A Big Deal. In particular the strains that cause that are most commonly transmitted sexually but there are other ways to get it and seriously, it's a goddamned virus it doesn't give a poo poo how many dicks you've contained. If you get it it's going to do its thing no matter how you got it. It would be best if we could just, you know, exterminate that poo poo.
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Feb 21, 2015 20:48
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I actually shocked my doctor a few years ago when I went in for my physical. Whooping cough was a big thing, and I hadn't had a booster in a long time. I told him I wanted the update, which was also a tetanus update, etc. He was shocked that I asked for it. I kept reading about pertussis in the news and how hosed up things were, and it seemed like a simple thing for me to update my vaccination. I think my Dr. actually almost poo poo himself when I said I wanted the vaccine, he was so happy. Of course, the billing on the insurance statement was like $1000 because why not?
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Feb 22, 2015 04:18
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Pohl posted:I actually shocked my doctor a few years ago when I went in for my physical. What? I went to CVS to get mine because it was cheaper for me than using my insurance at the time.
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Feb 22, 2015 18:31
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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The HPV vaccine is about $500. That poo poo should be free. Luckily, it's usually covered by insurance.
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Feb 22, 2015 19:48
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I'm honestly surprised that insurance companies don't have massive rate increases on unvaccinated people/children(waived for medical reasons of course). Would be a great way to encourage the upper-middle class morons to get the vaccinations, since those people are spending too much on organic free-range farmer-friendly whatever to be able to afford not to vaccinate.
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Feb 22, 2015 21:31
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Mrit posted:I'm honestly surprised that insurance companies don't have massive rate increases on unvaccinated people/children(waived for medical reasons of course). It would currently be illegal to do so.
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Feb 22, 2015 21:35
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Nintendo Kid posted:It would currently be illegal to do so. thanks, obama
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Feb 22, 2015 21:36
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Mrit posted:I'm honestly surprised that insurance companies don't have massive rate increases on unvaccinated people/children(waived for medical reasons of course). Would be a great way to encourage the upper-middle class morons to get the vaccinations, since those people are spending too much on organic free-range farmer-friendly whatever to be able to afford not to vaccinate. Nintendo Kid posted:It would currently be illegal to do so. You could always try to end-run around those regulations by having affect the parents' life insurance premiums, which is the ultimate upper-middle-class thing to be neurotic about from what I've seen.
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Feb 22, 2015 21:41
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Could the family of an unvaccinatable child who dies sue parents of unvaccinated children in their school for wrongful death?
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Feb 22, 2015 21:47
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VideoTapir posted:Could the family of an unvaccinatable child who dies sue parents of unvaccinated children in their school for wrongful death? Search for posts from Actus on this issue but the short answer is no. The law appears to differentiate between preventing something that will kill someone through inaction and preventing something that might harm others.
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Feb 22, 2015 22:13
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Solkanar512 posted:Search for posts from Actus on this issue but the short answer is no. The law appears to differentiate between preventing something that will kill someone through inaction and preventing something that might harm others. The balance may be shifting on that, though. It'd take a case to really see.
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Feb 22, 2015 23:27
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So if the antivax parent took their public-schooled kid to a measles party they might be liable?
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Feb 22, 2015 23:35
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Discendo Vox posted:The balance may be shifting on that, though. It'd take a case to really see. Yeah, given the public outcry it wouldn't surprise me or drive more efforts to changing the laws.
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Feb 22, 2015 23:35
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Vienna Circlejerk posted:The HPV vaccine is about $500. That poo poo should be free. Luckily, it's usually covered by insurance. I can confirm though that for women of a certain age range a couple HPV vaccines are fully covered by the government in BC.
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Feb 23, 2015 02:24
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Aeka 2.0 posted:What? I went to CVS to get mine because it was cheaper for me than using my insurance at the time. I think it was something to do with the Dr. screwing the insurance company. They billed it multiple times as vaccine, surgery, whatever. I probably should have made a stink but man... I really liked my Dr. I could walk into their clinic at any time and see someone without being charged a cent. I was having some serious issues in my life at the time and they were literally a block away. He was great about taking care of me and putting me back together after some tough times, but when my yearly physical rolled around that guy could gouge the gently caress out of the insurance company. Edit: after fighting the insurance company for years over petty poo poo, I didn't really care. gently caress em. They paid it and we were all happy. That probably makes me a horrible person but I've put up with too much of their bullshit over the years to care. Pohl fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 08:44
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CommanderApaul posted:If you don't have contact with sick people or the very young/old, then I'm not going to berate you too hard for not getting the flu shot, but you really should get it anyways. You may not get sick with the flu, but you can still exposed, and then expose other people who will get sick. There's also some potential corruption issues, or at least appearance of corruption issues going on between Merck (the makers of Gardasil) and the Republican Governors Association. If you look at the accusations against Rick Perry, and ignore the whole sex and vaccine issues, it's a bog standard cash for influence scheme. Merck contributed a lot to Rick Perry's campaigns, and hired his friends as lobbyists. Merck spent quite a bit of money to help Perry get elected, then Perry ordered free Gardasil vaccinations for teenage girls. Which was a pretty huge win for Merck, getting the governor of one of the largest states to mandate an expensive vaccination. Tht pissed off a lot of social conservatives, it also diverted funds from other medical funding in a state that's pretty tight fisted when covering medical procedures. Gardisal isn't cheap at $500 a shot. If Rick Perry had shown some concern about women's health either before or after the Gardasil mandate, then he might have gotten a pass for that bit of corruption. Instead, Michelle Bachmann had to Bachmann it up, and go full anti-vaxx and social conservative to double down on stupidity. So instead of just arguing that Perry might be crooked, now he's Teflon coated if anybody bothers to bring up his Gardrasil controversy. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 08:56
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thrakkorzog posted:There's also some potential corruption issues, or at least appearance of corruption issues going on between Merck (the makers of Gardasil) and the Republican Governors Association. If you look at the accusations against Rick Perry, and ignore the whole sex and vaccine issues, it's a bog standard cash for influence scheme. Merck contributed a lot to Rick Perry's campaigns, and hired his friends as lobbyists. Does it really matter if he did the right thing for the wrong reasons? I mean, the guy's a piece of poo poo, but by giving out free Gardasil vaccines, he either has or will in the future save lives. It's certainly not a great thing that he's a corrupt rear end in a top hat, but corruption has given us many worse things than widely-provided, life-saving medicine. I'd count this one as a win no matter why it happened.
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Feb 23, 2015 15:49
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PT6A posted:Does it really matter if he did the right thing for the wrong reasons? I mean, the guy's a piece of poo poo, but by giving out free Gardasil vaccines, he either has or will in the future save lives. It's certainly not a great thing that he's a corrupt rear end in a top hat, but corruption has given us many worse things than widely-provided, life-saving medicine. I'd count this one as a win no matter why it happened. At $500/shot, that money might have been spent on something more useful than HPV vaccines.
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Feb 23, 2015 16:01
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bitcoin bastard posted:At $500/shot, that money might have been spent on something more useful than HPV vaccines. On the other hand, how expensive is treating cancer? If there's a net savings of a certain percentage of cancer cases, then it could end up being a wash or a net profit.
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Feb 23, 2015 16:36
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PT6A posted:Does it really matter if he did the right thing for the wrong reasons? I mean, the guy's a piece of poo poo, but by giving out free Gardasil vaccines, he either has or will in the future save lives. It's certainly not a great thing that he's a corrupt rear end in a top hat, but corruption has given us many worse things than widely-provided, life-saving medicine. I'd count this one as a win no matter why it happened. Yeah, I don't really have a problem with people getting special favors for preventing cancer.
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Feb 23, 2015 16:42
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PT6A posted:Does it really matter if he did the right thing for the wrong reasons? I mean, the guy's a piece of poo poo, but by giving out free Gardasil vaccines, he either has or will in the future save lives. It's certainly not a great thing that he's a corrupt rear end in a top hat, but corruption has given us many worse things than widely-provided, life-saving medicine. I'd count this one as a win no matter why it happened. Yes, it absolutely matters. The end does not justify the means; medical benefits that may accrue as a side effect of unethical or illegal conduct do not justify those breaches of ethics, and in fact those medical benefits are tainted by those same breaches of ethics.
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Feb 23, 2015 17:48
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Main Paineframe posted:Yes, it absolutely matters. The end does not justify the means; medical benefits that may accrue as a side effect of unethical or illegal conduct do not justify those breaches of ethics, and in fact those medical benefits are tainted by those same breaches of ethics. This is correct. I wasn't aware of the side payment structure going on in Texas, but that explains a number of things.
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Feb 23, 2015 18:02
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Wouldn't insurance cover gardasil, for those who have insurance? It might not be that much cash, and Texas probably doesn't do much for the uninsured (cremation and a potter's field?)
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Feb 23, 2015 22:28
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Jack Gladney posted:Wouldn't insurance cover gardasil, for those who have insurance? It might not be that much cash, and Texas probably doesn't do much for the uninsured (cremation and a potter's field?) American insurance? Who the gently caress knows? Now that Obamacare is going "quit refusing to pay for things you fucks" you could probably get them to pay for it but stuff like that might end up being classified as "elective" or something. In the past it's highly likely they insurance companies would just go "lolnope" and not pay for it but even now it isn't like mandatory for your survival to get the shot so it might count as elective. To an insurance company "preventative medicine" is "visit your family doctor no more than once a year" coupled with "lol you got cancer guess you get to die now!" :drops you: Saying that it prevents future costs by reducing cancer risk is assuming that the insurance company would actually pay for your cancer treatment in the first place and they have such a history of not doing that Obamacare had to be put in place and insurance companies had to be drug kicking and screaming into "actually pay for loving treatment you fucks" territory.
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Feb 23, 2015 22:43
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Canadian health care is a mess, but every time someone brings up how poo poo works in the USA it always makes me feel so loving terrible and guilty.  I wonder how much of that contempt towards your insurance/health care industry is pushing people into anti-vax territory.
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Feb 24, 2015 05:00
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Incidentally, about a month after Perry decided he'd really like to be president, he publicly declared that his mandatory Gardasil law was "a mistake" and that he was glad that the legislature had overturned it.
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Feb 24, 2015 05:00
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Furnaceface posted:Canadian health care is a mess, but every time someone brings up how poo poo works in the USA it always makes me feel so loving terrible and guilty. From how I've seen people react to dentistry based on their insurance, I wouldn't doubt that it's true for some people. For comparative example, there are/were some dental plans where a procedure would be classified as "reconstructive" in one tier, but "cosmetic" in a lower tier. This led to people assuming that certain reconstructive procedures are cosmetic just because their lovely insurance says so, and attempting to advise other people not to get them done. Similarly, if you have a lovely insurance policy, a lovely doctor's office, or heaven loving forbid both, it can be really easy for your insurance to say that the vaccination you just got isn't medically necessary or justified, your doctor to roll over on it, and leave you stuck with the full cost of the shot. Then you get your EOB that explains that the vaccination wasn't necessary, and decide like an idiot that the big corporation whose business model is "pay out as little of our money as possible" knows better than every doctor in a twenty mile radius as to the necessity of getting the shot for the latest strain of FuckingKillsYouItis.
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Feb 24, 2015 08:37
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There's currently a measles outbreak in Berlin. Over 500 reported cases, one kid has died, and it's sparked a huge media/political shitstorm, including floating the question of mandatory vaccinations. Most debate I've seen has been a bit saner than what I've seen from the US, but there's still a great deal of people talking ambiguously about "vaccination damage" and "chemicals", along with the odd "modern medicine has come far enough that we can strengthen our immune systems better without vaccines" BS. Fortunately there's a great deal of fact-slinging and citing of research going on.
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Feb 24, 2015 11:40
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To get an idea of how atrocious American health issues are a few years ago I just randomly went down and had a seizure. I had never had one before and had never been diagnosed with anything seizure-related. My insurance company denied coverage of it due to being a "pre-existing condition" and I racked up like $10,000 of medical bills that just never got paid. The hospital later just forgave it because I'm poor as gently caress but really, insurance companies will use literally any excuse to not pay.
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Feb 24, 2015 14:43
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