The Anti-vaccination movement!

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

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Gimp Fack posted:

Just from googling chiropractic antibiotics:

hahaha well I bet you this will be nutty mom's compromise. Note that you need regular chiropractic adjustments in order to prevent the cause to come back. Right.

Wait, wait, what the gently caress? I mean, the first two sentences are correct, no doubt about that.

Upon closer reading, the second sentence is sort of technically correct, in that antibiotics shouldn't be taken to prevent infections, but rather are used as a cure instead of a preventative measure.

It doesn't say anything that's technically wrong, but doesn't mention what happens when you take antibiotics as a curative measure instead of as a way to try to prevent illness (answer: it's a lot more effective than chiropractic check-ups).

# ¿ Nov 9, 2014 04:12

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 09:21

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

PT6A posted:

We already have a great drug for clearing up a blocked nose, but a bunch of fuckers use it to make meth so it's harder than gently caress to actually find it. I had to go to three or four different drug stores before I found just pseudoephedrine without any added bullshit.

Mind you, I'm sure I'm not the only one that's noticed the best "non-medicinal" method of clearing up a blocked nose is orgasm. It's only temporary, but it works better than anything.

While that's certainly fun, I find salt water works really well for stuffed up noses and such. It might just be placebo, or the physical action of snorting saline, but either way it does wonders for clearing out my nose.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 18:19

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Discendo Vox posted:

Actually, as someone who doesn't know much about vaccine development, do manufacturers have to do anything different when formulating a combined vaccine? Is there a potential for an interaction effect rendering it inert, for example?

I would assume so, or there could be a larger chance of an adverse reaction, as there are occasional adverse reactions to vaccines. That being said, the FDA is so rigorous about this stuff that if it's on the US market and FDA approved, it's safe when prescribed by a doctor.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 19:56

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

ActusRhesus posted:

I love some of the comments on his facebook page.

"There are no doctors that "Specialize" in vaccines."

Uh...pretty sure there are a host of specialties that are required to have a fairly in depth understanding of inoculation.

This is probably true. I'm in the medical device field, and while we consult with doctors, doctors do not develop our products. There is the odd exception of the MD/PhD, but other than that, medical device companies employ scientists and engineers to create products, not doctors.

This might be somewhat different in a pharma company that would produce vaccines, but I'd wager that they just employ a higher ratio of scientists/chemists and still don't employ too many doctors.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 18:09

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Gimp Fack posted:

"Chris Christie Supports Parents Who Choose Not to Vaccinate Their Kids"
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/02/02/chris_christie_on_vaccinations_calls_for_balance_and_parental_choice.html

Dammit I'll laugh if this becomes a common GOP platform thing. Laugh, and then cry, since a large amount of people continually vote these assholes into office.

At least it looks like Christie has historically only been against the flu vaccine, and then primarily because it's a yearly thing or something. No idea if he's going to turn it into something bigger now that the media has a hold of it.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 07:40

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Pryor on Fire posted:

Interesting, thanks. Is that 1-3% just for measles or is that true for whatever else like tetanus too?

I know my Hep A/B vaccine didn't take, so I had to get another after college.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 17:55

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

VideoTapir posted:

I'd rather we just brand "child murderer" on their foreheads and forcibly vaccinate their kids.

Too obvious. Now, if we just gave them these armbands that they have to wear at all times and then segregate them away from the rest of the population...

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 05:16

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

QuarkJets posted:

Accidental child shootings happen all the loving time and you're an idiot if you leave a loaded gun around children.

I think the point is that while it's dangerous, it will likely kill 1-2 people. A dangerous infectious disease could kill tens or hundreds of people.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2015 19:01

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

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.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2015 16:36

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Faustian Bargain posted:

My anti-vaxxing friend is back posting new stuff about antibiotics resistance. I don't know if there's anything to it, but I'm guessing not since half the article is shilling natural/homeopathic cure alls

Wait, isn't antibiotic resistant bacteria an even better argument for vaccination? People who don't get sick don't need antibiotics, so those bacteria don't arise.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2015 18:19

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Trabisnikof posted:

Most of the antibiotic resistant bacteria don't have vaccines.

I think that's a chicken and egg sort of thing. If those bacteria had vaccines, fewer people would be on antibiotics to treat it, and it would be less likely to spread from a patient with a failed (i.e. didn't take full doses of meds) treatment to a healthy individual.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2015 18:24

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Trabisnikof posted:

Right, but the fact that MRSA is bad doesn't really mean I should go get more vaccines today.

True, but I'm not sure that that has anything to do with what I was saying.

I was pointing out the absurdity of being afraid of antibiotic resistant bacteria and vaccines at the same time, since it's likely that the latter help reduce the prevalence of the former.

Of course, if someone is a natural health nut, why do they care about antibiotic resistance at all? If they won't take that medication, antibiotic resistance means precisely nothing to them.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2015 18:36

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Jakcson posted:

Are pox parties those things where kids with chickenpox spit in your mouth, like in that South Park episode?

No spitting involved. It's pretty contagious, so you more or less just need to be in the same room. I got it when I was something like 4-6 or so and it wasn't too bad.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 15:19

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

SedanChair posted:

If you have a PhD and piss on an electric fence, guess what that makes you? Stupid.

It's almost like people have different degrees of competence in different fields or something.

But that's impossible, right?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2015 18:09

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Solkanar512 posted:

Like the fact that a child is exposed to a huge number of bacteria and viruses by simply being born or through nursing.

Or shoving everything into their mouth, especially once they become mobile.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 20:21

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dalael posted:

To be fair, they have been imperfect and hosed up good families way more than once.

E: In my country anyways.

I know of dozens of cases of people dying on the operating table. Clearly that means that we should get rid of surgeons.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 04:28

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dalael posted:

We are not talking about a few dozen cases here. We're talking about many thousands of case of CPS (in Canada anyways) mishandling these cases and not giving a poo poo about real case.
My point is, giving MORE power to CPS is not the way to go. Which was PT6A suggested.

There is a big loving difference between saying: I don't agree that they need more power (Which is what I have said) and lets get rid of the whole loving thing (which is what you are implying I said).

You are aware that there are just as many, if not more, cases of people dying in the OR, right? Surgery is very risky. That's more or less irrelevant though.

CPS needs to be able to protect children from being in dangerous situations. If they can't protect a child from parental abuse, as you implied earlier, then something needs to be changed so they can. An increase in power along with an increase in oversight might do the trick, but ultimately that would require more funding.

Amusingly, there is a parallel with medicine here, where we work constantly to decrease the death rate during surgery (typically via minimally invasive techniques). This is analogous to situations where CPS acts incorrectly and inadvertently lowers the quality of life of the child they're supposed to help. It is possible to work on both of those issues with CPS concurrently.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 04:46

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dalael posted:

I completely agree with that. I do NOT advocate for CPS to be disbanded or anything like that. But I don't think that just giving them more power is a good way to go about it.

The problem in this case is that per your own statement earlier, you mentioned that they don't have enough power to help children who actually need help. Not having enough power is actually a major impediment that makes them unable to do their job.

Yes, they gently caress up on occasion. Every system fucks up on occasion. The criminal justice system fucks up, doctors gently caress up, surgeons gently caress up, regulatory bodies across all industries gently caress up, etc.

Simply pointing to data that says that they don't have a perfect track record does not mean that they don't need more power. What it means is that they need more oversight so that the edge cases where they gently caress up are caught and good families aren't harmed. It is possible to do both at the same time, but it does require money.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 04:57

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dalael posted:

But I didn't?
Seriously, I am re-reading all my posts and i can't find one sentence in which I said they do not have enough power to help children. Anyways, 'nuff about this derail. Lets get back to the issue at hand: People who think homeopathy will heal broken bones and vaccines are created by Dr. Evil.

Dalael posted:

I strongly disagree with your CPS comment. CPS often times gently caress up families and cause more trouble than its worth. Your typical-get-his-rear end-kicked-by-dad child will never be helped by them because its too hard, but they will break up perfectly good families on a stupid baseless complaint however.

Anyways, sorry for the derail.

Regardless though, yeah, homeopathy is bullshit. The Mitchell and Webb bit on how a homeopathic ER would look is hilarious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 05:10

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Solkanar512 posted:

That doesn't make much sense, given that mom lives in a household full of unvaccinated children. Of anyone else in the family she's likely the biggest risk of anyone out there.

That was a possible excuse to allow grandma to visit the kid after getting a booster without tipping off the crazy sister.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2016 18:45

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dead Reckoning posted:

How broadly are you willing to apply that though? If I can show that the benefits of anything on a societal level are greater than the negatives, or vice versa, would you support mandating or prohibiting it? Because being being required to take whatever path the government deems as "most optimal" isn't so much offensive to the idea of personal autonomy as completely eliminating it. Or is it just for those issues where you think you're right and don't have any skin in the game?

Go piss up a loving rope. Vaccination has overwhelmingly positive outcomes for all of society and is unique in that it's also only effective if as many people as possible are vaccinated. Your bullshit about banning skateboards doesn't apply here. Vaccination should be mandatory, full stop.

The broad spectre of how much oil we should pour on mountainsides in defense of personal liberty has no bearing on whether or not vaccines should be mandatory.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 09:22

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dead Reckoning posted:

That's not an answer to the question. We're discussing what the law ought to be, not what it is. If you're going to argue, as Cranappleberry did, that something should be mandatory with the only evidence offered being that the benefits outweigh the negatives, then you ought to be prepared to agree that anything whose benefits outweigh its negatives ought to be mandatory. Otherwise you aren't really espousing any kind of consistent moral argument. FYI, even putting aside the question of who gets to make these judgements, pretty much the entire Bill of Rights fails the common good test.

But enough about the reinstatement of prohibition.

I'm pretty sure I know where that 55 gallon drum of lubricant from Malheur went.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 09:31

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 09:21

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

Dead Reckoning posted:

An argument that you don't like and don't have a good answer for isn't the same as a bad faith argument. And my argument is an entirely rational question to put to someone who favors making something mandatory on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis. If a simple cost-benefit analysis is sufficient for mandating vaccinations, why is this principle inapplicable to things that aren't vaccinations without resorting to special pleading? If a simple cost-benefit analysis is insufficient for making something mandatory, when y'all shouldn't be advancing it like some sort of checkmate. It's not up to me to flesh out the nuance of your argument for you if you want me to agree with you.

If someone said, "Killing Hitler was good, because it is good when bad people are killed," I would definitely interrogate their argument, because it can be used to justify all sorts of horrendous poo poo, even though I think killing Hitler was a good thing.

That's rather the point though. If you say "X should be mandatory because it has the overall least risk to the health of the child" and I say "that can also be used to justify Y", you have to provide some argument other than "nu-uh" or "they're different." If there is some magic numerical threshold of harm that X and Y are on different sides of, you should be able to articulate that... and also be prepared to support banning/mandating everything on the X side of it. It's your standard, after all. You're the one defining the terms. If your argument has more nuance than what you said, maybe you should flesh it out more, instead of acting like everyone is stupid for not agreeing with your reductive premise.

Did you literally just ask "if thing, then why not thing that's more objectionable but still in spirit of thing?" And then say that you're not arguing in bad faith?

Keep lubricating those hills man.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 10:18

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