The Anti-vaccination movement!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Anti-vaccination movement!

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

glowing-fish posted:

So, in both situations, there was a study showing that an approved medical treatment was dangerous. One was a good study, one wasn't. But I can't really blame people for not knowing the difference, because, pharmaceutical companies do release bad, biased research about products that they then market aggressively.

If pharmaceutical companies didn't release biased research and market to both the public and to practitioners using misleading data, there wouldn't be a fertile field for people to be talking about "big pharma"

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26954482

On that note, its possible that Tamiflu is essentially as effective as acetaminophen, so hopefully there are a shitton more controlled studies on the efficacy of medications in general. Drug manufacturing and testing is totally hosed up, as are medical studies in general. When people can straight-facedly publish papers saying "well, our data wasn't anywhere close to statistically significant, but we're gonna publish anyhow because it was clinically significant and treat it like we hit that 95% CI..." I wonder about the field. Yes, clinical significance is important and worth mentioning to other clinicians because of how hard it can be to actually do studies in hospital populations, especially ICU. But goddamn, don't try and make people think it was statistically significant too.

So yeah, I can see why it initially caught on too, and I don't blame low-information people for being suckered into it. I just think we need to have better education on what a good study is and isn't.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 20:58

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 21:26

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Vaccination was also a major component in how smallpox got eradicated. It's part of why polio is also being systematically annihilated. And, you know, that whole "measles and mumps epidemics no longer happen" thing. That's a pretty major win for vaccination, I'd say.

I don't know about you guys but if a doctor gave me an option between "your child will be at increased risk of developing autism" and "your child will have a high likelihood of dying of a horrifying disease" I'd take the autism.

Yeah, but thanks to herd immunity, these asshats actually have a fairly good chance of never getting that horrifying disease. Lets pretend vaccines can (rarely) cause autism. Now, the best way for someone to go about this is to have everyone else take the vaccine, but not get it themselves. They don't get the autism risk and, thanks to herd immunity, they don't get measles/polio/whatever because everyone else took the autism risk for them. Sounds great, but that obviously doesn't work when everyone figures out this solution, which is precisely why we shouldn't let people opt out except for medical reasons.

"If I stand up, I can see the concert better. Therefore, if we stand up, we all can see the concert better" <- essentially the position of people who skip vaccines. Except "seeing the concert" is, in this case, is actually about not having an incredibly high chance of dying of easily preventable childhood diseases.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2014 04:53

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

MrNemo posted:

That's a pretty pointless analogy, better one might be if the Chinese Intelligence services started setting up free clinics in American cities and wanted to also keep hold of your financial records, SSN, etc. Would you use those clinics if they were substantially cheaper than private US equivalents?

Still not correct, because the hypothetical Chinese Intelligence service needs to be stealing drugs from legitimate services and then failing to administer them properly.

There is nothing redeeming about this action. It is loving appalling and could set back WHO, MSF, and general vaccination efforts for decades.

edit: Soundly beaten by MuadDib

# ¿ May 7, 2014 02:49

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Caros posted:

Actually I still have the religious freedom argument, that whether you think these people are stupid or not (I do) that it does heavily impose on their freedom.

As an aside, are you in favour of forced flu vaccinations for adults in these religions? Or for everyone in general really. My decision not to get a flu vaccination could kill someone's child or grandparent after all.

Flu vaccines, being yearly, having a low success rate, and not coming close to herd immunity are somewhat different from the ones we're talking about. I am in favor of mandatory flu vaccines for healthcare workers, for instance, for just the reason you're mentioning.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2014 19:58

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

loving hell, if I had an idea of how smallpox could be potentially researched and knew what good it'd do, I'd be loving doing it now, you dumbass. But I don't, so I'm not. On the other hand, there are a shitton of people smarter and better at this topic than I am, especially if we count people in the future. Which is why we should keep it.

Hey, by the way, tell me what the implications of looking at mouse heart cells are with regard to how neural tubes close in humans during early fetal development? Because there's a connection that some labs are working on. AFAIK, we don't fully understand the regulatory mechanism behind cell-cell adhesion, and yet this is a fundamental process. Want to tell me that there's absolutely nothing we could ever learn from smallpox again? Something that isn't even directly related to virology? Because we keep finding things that are totally tangential (at best) to the topic being studied.

Ogmius815 posted:

I guess "it might be useful at some point in the future for something" is a pretty weak argument. I wanted a specific argument and eventually I got one. Sorry I made people go through the process of debating in the debate forum.

People have been screaming this at you for pages and you're just too dumb to get it.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 05:47

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

SinetheGuy posted:

Christ, I just found out that a family friend of my girlfriend is an anti-vaxxer. Unfortunately, she's also a loving nurse! I remember having a conversation that was edging toward this topic during a wedding months back, and deciding that I was better off not going any further. We were discussing the efficacy of the flu vaccine, which she said was worthless and she didn't get it. And, of course, she was using her job as a nurse as a rhetorical cudgel to support her dumb position. She's working with immune compromised people! She should be loving fired!

I can't remember what the penalty for not getting a flu vaccine was in my hospital, but it was fairly hefty. And, well, she's not totally wrong about the flu vaccine, last year's had a pretty drat high rate of failure. (Also note that not taking the flu vaccine isn't the same as being opposed to vaccinating kids). All that said, there's zero excuse for a healthcare worker working with at-risk populations to not be vaccinated.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 16:03

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

You could call the GP and see how important he/she thinks the antibiotics are, while expressing your concerns. They might also be able to help you with resources/know a social worker/someone who is a little more up to date on the legal options you have.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2014 20:07

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

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)

Which can be found in the "Lets Illustrate EN" thread, iirc.

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.

It is pretty much mandated everywhere around here, though it appears to be employer-driven.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 11:49

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Furnaceface posted:

I dont know what its like where you live, but here in Ontario all I had to do was head to the local health unit office for my vaccination history. Took 20 minutes for them to pull up and print off my whole history, no charge.

No centralized records in the US, for one. For another, I was born in India. Whether I actually got the BCG vaccine is still up in the air, but I show up negative on tuberculin skin tests, so...

# ¿ Mar 15, 2015 21:37

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Dalael posted:

Throwing more money at a problem rarely fixes the problem. The root causes of the issue needs to be addressed first.

When the root cause of the issue is "doesn't have enough funding" then throwing money at it works just loving fine.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2015 03:08

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Recoome posted:

also you type this out and it sounds really like professional or something and it's got the right buzzwords but what does this even mean? I am sure it's not because I've been doing research and I can't think straight or something else, but goddamn.

He's saying that he thinks what we call "autism" is actually a group of conditions that have similar symptoms but are caused by different things. Kind of like the below statement re: flu, but broader.

Pohl posted:

Most people get a stomach virus in the winter and OMG, they have the flu!

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 18:17

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Weldon Pemberton posted:

I think he was saying ""it's difficult to diagnose in children" and doctors sometimes take liberties, so it may be overdiagnosed in children who simply show traits of autism but have something else."

Yeah, that, plus, as mentioned, the "quasi-autistic" causes related to trauma are going to frequently be classed as autism even though they're properly not.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 06:45

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

That Works posted:

Grandma had cancer but we told her if she got chemo instead of taking cannabis oil she was out on the street.

poo poo like this happens though. Hospitals have medical ethicists and social workers on staff for a reason, including helping patients deal with abusive or well-meaning but very ignorant families.

Solkanar512 posted:

Your odd concern over the morality of lying to a member of the family who's acting in bad faith over the health of the grandmother.

They're pretty clearly talking about the potential practical implications of the actions rather than just the morality. In grandmother's place, I'd probably get the shot without telling the family and not see the kid, because that balances out the social and medical risks in my mind. I don't have a kid or grandkids, though, so I'm sure my POV would change a bit based on that.

e:

A lovely Reporter posted:

Screw their feelings. They're putting children at risk who cannot make the choice for themselves. Hell, in my opinion you'd be justified in forcing them to get their children vaccinated too.

Agreed, but until we decide that that's okay, you'll have situations like the above. We decided that giving blood to a JW kid was okay regardless of the parents' wishes, I can't understand why we don't with some basic vaccines.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2016 19:20

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Dead Reckoning posted:

No it's not. It's an argument in favor of a government with limited, enumerated powers that operates based on rule of law. It's an argument that just government requires adhering to equality under the law, and respecting the rights of others, rather than trying to carve out exceptions based on our personal prejudices.

Where do you stand on being able to give blood to the kids of Jehovah's Witnesses against the parents' wishes?

edit: For that matter, you keep equivocating between theoretical ethical/moral framework arguments and then arguments about practicality. You claim CPS is a non-answer for "who gets to decide" but "CPS" is actually "an institution that we societally have decided is empowered to make that decision through a combination of legal cases decided by judges and laws written by legislators elected through various means". Its not a non-answer, its an answer fully in line with "limited, enumerated powers that operates based on rule of law." Its exactly what you're claiming you want, but because you keep changing whether you're talking about a "universal moral framework by which all decisions must be judged" or "limited, enumerated powers based on rule of law" nobody can hit the target you want. Are you trying to discuss hypothetical theoretical ethical situations or not, because "limited enumerated powers based on rule of law" is just as subject to your asinine "what if someone unethical gets control of the lawmaking process" bullshit handwringing shittery you were engaging in earlier. Stop loving around. This right here

quote:

It's not though. We don't imprison people for arbitrary reasons, or because they are bad. We imprison them for objectively breaking one or more predefined rules we've spelled out as a society. If someone hasn't broken the law, you can't put them in jail, no matter how much of an rear end in a top hat they are.

is an example of your loving equivocation. A law isn't just because we spelled it out beforehand, by the same standards you were using to condemn CPS and making vaccines mandatory. A law doesn't become less arbitrary because its a law. But here you are arguing for that exact point when a few minutes ago you were arguing for a universal moral guideline that can apply to any situation.

Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Aug 10, 2016

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 12:59

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 21:26

Ravenfood: Nov 4, 2011

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

When I am faced with a tough moral question, I use the following thought experiment (I think this is from Rawles):

Imagine that time stops, and everyone who has a moral stake in the issue is summoned to a meeting, where nobody knows who each other is, nor do they even know their own identities.

From this perspective, it should be easier to find the right answer.

For vaccines, nobody knows if they're the one that's an immunocompromised child that will be vulnerable. I think it's easy to conclude that it's okay to force some people to be vaccinated, because the downsides of forced vaccination are mild, and it protects innocent people.

For skateboarding, it's harder to make that case. The impacted parties are really only people involved if there's an accident and the skater needs medical care. Is it really worth banning skateboards just to reduce some injuries to people who know that there doing something risky?

It's not a perfect tool, but I think it helps.

This sounds like Rawls' Veil of Ignorance, yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

# ¿ Aug 12, 2016 13:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Anti-vaccination movement!