The Anti-vaccination movement!

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

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

QuarkJets posted:

I'd like to point out that a doctor published this paper and received over 120 citations.

Please, please tell me that's a joke site. Or the author was trolling them or something .

The 120 citations were just people pointing out how stupid that is for someone to write, right? Right ?

# ¿ Nov 9, 2014 20:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 16:34

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

dpbjinc posted:

Am I reading it right that they think combining vaccines somehow makes them unsafe?

That's pretty much what Wakefield was trying to ~~make up proof for~~show, so he could sell his separate vaccine instead of everyone getting the MMR.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 20:05

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Oh, I'm absolutely not doubting safety or rigor. I'm actually really curious about the mechanism! It'd be good for this thread to also include really rigorous information on vaccine development, for those rare rhetorical situations where additional technical information actually helps.

http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/tools/MMR_vaccine_rates_information_sheet.pdf

That posted:

GBS has been reported following receipt of MMR and its component vaccines; however, the United States Institute of Medicine
reviewed the available research and concluded that there was not enough evidence to accept or reject a causal relationship (Stratton
et al., 1994). Subsequently published studies have not found evidence of a causal association between vaccination and GBS (Hughes
et al., 1996; Silveira et al., 1997).[included because I thought that was established, not false]

...

When combination vaccines (MR or MMR) are used, mild reactions are similar to those described with the single antigens. The
use of MR can result in mild lymphadenopathy, urticaria, rash, malaise, sore throat, fever, headache, arthralgia and arthritis.

The type and rate of serious adverse events do not differ significantly for the MMR or MR combinations compared with the
individual antigen

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 23:36

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

That's not what I...nevermind.

There's no difference so there's no mechanism. As for rigorous information, I'm not that bored.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 01:37

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

ActusRhesus posted:

And even if she didn't and her claims are limited to behavioral issues unrelated to brain development (is that possible? I don't know, I'm not a neurologist)

Someone can have all sorts of mental issues without brain damage; it doesn't require brain cells to be damaged for the brain to form connections that are maladaptive while developing.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2015 20:37

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

This was posted in the politoons thread. I chuckled.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 01:51

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

thrakkorzog posted:

So if you want to someone to blame for disease outbreaks, blame the hippies.

It's generally suburbanites with disposable income, and crosses political divides, so 'hippies' aren't really the problem.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 23:32

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Solkanar512 posted:

Then why do I keep seeing calls to "more natural ways", rants about the evil money hungry ways of "Big Pharma"/FDA/Monsanto and so on? I get that they don't compromise 100% of anti-vaxxers, but to shove them under the rug and say "well both sides are bad" seems really naive. Conservatives aren't the ones calling for folks to rely on "Mother Nature" or to "listen to the wisdom of thousands of generations of mothers", while pulling out their healing crystals and so on.

Every time I hear this I can't help but think it's someone who doesn't want to believe that the left has their own issues with science. Believe it, they do.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/04/27/more-polling-data-on-the-politics-of-vaccine-resistance/

http://www.fiercevaccines.com/story/survey-anti-vaccine-views-have-little-correlation-politics/2014-01-29

https://today.yougov.com/news/2012/12/05/public-support-vaccination-remains-strong/

quote:

There was a modest minority of respondents who held a negative orientation toward vaccines.
These respondents, however, could not be characterized as belonging to any recognizable subgroup identified by demographic characteristics, religiosity, science comprehension, or political or cultural outlooks.
Indeed, groups bitterly divided over other science issues, including climate change and human evolution,
all saw vaccine risks as low and vaccine benefits as high. Even within those groups, in other words, individuals hostile to childhood vaccinations are outliers.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2386034

Lid posted:

quote:
the only threats against venue operators were made by an anti-vaccine campaigner who threatened to burn down one property and bomb another if it cancelled her seminars.
Cross-posting, but yes pro-vaccination people are now bomb throwing terrorists.

Something doesn't match there.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 08:36

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Wakefield originally wanted to scare people off the MMR so they'd get M, M and R vaccines separately (he had a measles treatment).

Now he's just playing the wingnut welfare game.

It's a messy pile of terrible (he almost killed one of the 12 kids he used in the study, I think) and "Brian Deer Wakefield" should get enough Google hits for anyone's curiosity.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 13:05

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Chamale posted:

I think it's health issues with a degree of uncertainty, such as chronic fatigue which has an uncertain cause or cancer which has an uncertain prognosis. As was said earlier, a broken bone is a clear problem with a known cause and solution. It's also be a factor that a layperson can easily understand the cure for a broken bone, but might not understand why the doctor won't prescribe antibiotics to fight the flu.

Also anything where the problem is stigmatized, or treatment is unpleasant - mental health issues, chemo.

Laphroaig posted:

Agreed. Fear mixed with "Nature Knows Best" is basically the issue.

Gut feelings are also an issue - moms know their kids better than anyone so what they want has to be the best for their kids.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 14:19

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

thrakkorzog posted:

Wait, what? Where is Wakefield practicing in Austin? I have too much free time, I will happily hold up a sign outside his office saying something to the effect of, "This guy gets rich from dead kids."

He's on anti-vax wingnut welfare. Speaks at things and such.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 00:07

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Solkanar512 posted:

No, I didn't. Given where you live, I'm rather surprised you haven't run into the same poo poo.

EDIT: I've said it before and I'll say it again - it doesn't matter if this issue exists within multiple political ideologies across the nation as a whole. If anti-vaxxers carefully lived spread across the whole country they wouldn't be a problem! But they don't, they live clustered together. Is it so crazy to look at these specific communities and suggest that they might have specific political leanings?

I do believe people have looked at that - and they answered with a response of "No, no they don't".

Laphroaig posted:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2386034

I posted this link the last time the "dirty hippies thing came up, but here's some more quotes.

quote:

Similarly, the issue of vaccine safety could be a matter of contention among identifiable subgroups within the general public. Commentators routinely advance this claim, too, variously attributing
anti-vaccination sentiment to one or another recognizable cultural style, from �the conservative don�ttread-on-me crowd that distrusts all government recommendations� (�Herd at Risk� 2012) to �egalitarians, [who] oppose . . . big corporations and their products� (Ropeik 2011). Because the entanglement of
-8-
risks and like facts in group conflict can disrupt processes that citizens rely on to recognize forms of decision-relevant science essential to their welfare (Kahan 2013), such claims merit being taken seriously.
The way to take them seriously, however, is to not to simply assume they are true but to empirically investigate whether they are. Existing commentary is literary and impressionistic, even polemical in
nature. It is not grounded in actual measurement of sources of variance in public risk perceptions.

quote:

There was a modest minority of respondents who held a negative orientation toward vaccines.
These respondents, however, could not be characterized as belonging to any recognizable subgroup identified by demographic characteristics, religiosity, science comprehension, or political or cultural outlooks.
Indeed, groups bitterly divided over other science issues, including climate change and human evolution,
all saw vaccine risks as low and vaccine benefits as high. Even within those groups, in other words, individuals hostile to childhood vaccinations are outliers.

quote:

Existing universal vaccination policies appear to enjoy widespread support, but proposals to restrict existing grounds for exemption divide the public along partisan lines. Despite support for universal vaccination policies and widespread disapproval of parents who refuse to permit vaccination of their children based on concerns about vaccine risks, proposals to restrict or eliminate moral or
religious grounds for opting out of vaccination requirements provoke dissensus along largely partisan
lines consistent with citizens� general orientation toward government regulation.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 22:21

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Eej posted:

I know of two Canadian cities that have removed fluoride in their water: Vancouver and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Don't forget Victoria! We're special loving snowflakes too!

There's lots of places in Canada that don't have fluoridated water, and it sucks - only ~45% of us have fluoridated water.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 16:57

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

corn in the bible posted:

homeopathy is completely safe because by the time they actually sell the reduction of whatever poison, it's diluted so much there's no poison in it. they're basically bottles of expensive water.

Not always - sometimes they have enough aspirin/alcohol to have an actual effect and make you feel better.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2015 04:55

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

FilthyImp posted:

Jesus lord christ almighty loving mary. Did anyone listen to the whole interview? The loving anti-vaxxer moron is an "energy medicine" practitioner that substitutes new-age bullshit for actual healthcare.

AVmom: In Canada there's no way to use the public health office to search for adverse reactions and there's a lack of transparency!

Host: Adverse vax effects are tracked and available through the public health agency of Canada. I thought you did research. You didn't know that?

AVMom: uh... no. But it's not one of those things that, like, people report on!

All you really need to do is go listen to the short audio clip with the article to get most of the really ~~good~~funny parts.

Though you do miss a couple of gems, like the terrible terrible replies and attempts to make 'having a discussion' the important part.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2015 20:07

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Golbez posted:

"she did saw a virus of measles inside the intestine"

whaaaaaaaaaaat.

"Everyone who does this is an idiot, so make poo poo up and they'll buy it" would be my interpretation.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 21:56

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

No possible way this could end badly (semi-serious, since I highly doubt it will actually pass)

quote:

Thus, if scientists were able to specifically delete virulence factors from a bacterial pathogen in order to turn it into a harmless vaccine strain, this law would prevent its use in New York. Instead, scientists would have to put the virus through random mutation and hope to come up with the right combination of mutations to accomplish precisely the same thing.

The bill would also outlaw the use of most of the promising Ebola vaccine candidates, which involve splicing one of Ebola's genes into a harmless virus. And, as Forbes' coverage notes, one of the current vaccines available against rotavirus was developed through an unnatural reassortment of genes from several viral strains�an efficient way to protect against all the strains with a single vaccine.

Not really the movement, but I'm sure some of them will be cheering this on.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2015 18:02

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Xander77 posted:

I'm doing some research / translation work on a vaccination project in the Ukraine right now, so I'm hoping to use this thread as an auxiliary resource (is that ok, or like the equivalent of "do my homework for me"?)

Could you recommend books / edutainment media about vaccinations aimed at children? Or "immunization activities" for kindergarten / preschool teachers to conduct?

http://www.immunizeforgood.com/resource-center/just-for-kids

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 02:31

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Xander77 posted:

Thanks. That's the biggest compendium I could find in one place.

Do my google skills fail me, or did "Vaccines and me" disappear off the net completely? The other lost links I found with a cursory search.

Oddly enough (?), there seem to have been more children books published on the subject in the 20th century than the 21st. How up to date is something like
http://www.amazon.com/measles-mumps-Lets-read-find-out-science/dp/0690040172
?

Nothing has changed about vaccines recently, so I imagine it's fine. Also written for kids so even if something had changed it wouldn't be relevant to that level of writing - the mechanism of action for vaccines is always going to be about the same even if production methods change or something.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2015 15:32

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Jack Gladney posted:

Who wants to post Melanie's Marvelous Measles again?

Search works!

e:VVVV You forgot a link

eNeMeE fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Mar 24, 2015

# ¿ Mar 24, 2015 21:43

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Not sure if this has been posted before, but have some vaccination data

There's relevant stuff in the eradication of diseases category too

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 23:18

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

quote:

But conscientious objectors only need to fill in a form stating they have a �personal, philosophical, religious or medical belief involving a conviction that vaccination should not take place� to continue accessing welfare payments.

How do you have a medical belief? Personal I can understand, philosophical not so much (though I would love to see this as an option with the person being required to articulate their objection along with a lot of the results of that objection, specifically addressing the tragedy of the commons), religious I guess (though I would also like to see the scripture or whatever quoted and signed off on by a few priests) but medical?

How does that make sense? I like the idea of cutting them off from benefits, except for the kids suffering as a result.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 17:50

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Daredevil on Netflix had the line "I've got a measles outbreak to deal with because idiot parents don't want to vaccinate" from a nurse to a journalist, which I found entertaining.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 01:46

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

No more exemptions for Christian Scientists in Australia to allow them to continue receiving childcare benefits. Nor are they going to allow any other religious exemptions.

I anticipate hilarious backlash.

e:goddamn phone posting leads to loving up links.

eNeMeE fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Apr 19, 2015

# ¿ Apr 19, 2015 16:15

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Tochiazuma posted:

Finally some sanity in Ontario

http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2015/04/18/judge-orders-10-year-old-girl-be-vaccinated-for-measles-against-moms-wishes.html

"Judge orders 10-year-old girl be vaccinated for measles against mom�s wishes"
"Brantford Superior Court Justice R. John Harper didn�t agree with any of the mother's arguments against the vaccine, including that there are �unmistakable links� between vaccines and severe reactions."

"By ruling that vaccination is in the best interests of the child, Harper was siding with the girl�s father, who is separated from the mother and shares joint custody, as well as with the overwhelming scientific evidence that has proven the effectiveness and extremely low risk of the measles vaccine."

I skimmed this, saw Ontario, Harper on the side of science, and my brain broke for a minute.

CPS needs a much bigger budget so they can actually hire enough people to be able to do everything they need to do. I'd also like more inspectors for everything, and a unicorn that craps delicious popcorn.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2015 04:58

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Tochiazuma posted:

I don't have a dollar figure on how much cough syrup is sold annually but I bet *that* is in the billions of dollars worldwide.

Revenue from alternative medicine is well into the billions these days - it isn't a rational argument.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2015 01:11

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Haven't seen this posted but it seems anti-vaxx is worse than I thought - contributed to a vaccine against Lyme disease not being produced anymore.

I managed to stop reading the comments before gouging out my eyeballs, so learn from my experience and just don't.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 18:56

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Here's a direct link to the Pediatrics proposal. It's less than 4 pages and worth a read to see some really astonishing "argumentation."

Walled, sadly.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2016 04:46

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Evil Fluffy posted:

Wakefield deserves to be in prison, or a mental institute at the very least. That he's actually dumb enough to believe what he says is questionable and he's leading the charge in causing untold amounts of preventable death and suffering.

The man made stuff up in order to profit off a patent he owned (owns? probably still owns it) through unethical testing done to children. He's a horrible fraud not mentally ill.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2016 07:36

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Fireside Nut posted:

Expecting our first child fairly soon. We are full believers in vaccines and plan on giving baby all of them on schedule. However, my mom lives with my sister and her baby who are strongly anti-vaxx. Herein lies the dilemma: We are asking all of our visitors to be up-to-date on their TDaP before seeing the baby. My sister is, for all intents and purposes, making my mom not get a booster because she fears it will put her unvaccinated kid at risk (I know, I know).

So in the end, my mom will likely not get a booster. I really want her to be able to visit in the first few months, but I also don't want to put our baby at risk because of ridiculous anti-vaxx fears. Would it even make anything safer if my mom wore one of the protective respiratory masks when visiting? Are we being too over the top as parents asking for visitors to be up-to-date on their TDaP? Neither of us tend to be alarmists, but after seeing videos of babies with whooping cough I just want to minimize that risk as much as possible, if we can.

Thanks, thread.

Have your mom get the vaccine without telling your sister. It's not like it leaves a mark or anything.

And what will your sister do, kick her out?

I'm a wee bit of a misanthrope, though, so ymmv

Fireside Nut posted:

Thank you for the response. I mean, are we being unrealistic or alarmist by asking folks to be current on their TDaP before visiting the baby in the first few months? Or is the chance so low that my mom could likely visit without having that be a concern? Having not been a parent before I simply don't have a good feel for this and have never given it much thought until now.

After hearing about the "dangers of formaldehyde and mercury in vaccines" I would never want to turn around and give a similarly absurd/alarmist response without being cognizant I am doing such a thing.

Thanks again.

It's probably not much of a danger but thhe likelihood of it being dangerous is dependent on a whole host of things and living with an anti-vaxxer puts her in an elevated risk category. It's an infinitely greater danger than formaldehyde and mercury, though.

eNeMeE fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Aug 7, 2016

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 21:02

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

That's not misanthropic, that's cleverly maneuvering around the problem.

Yeah, but I consider 'will never speak to me again' a positive outcome, so...

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 21:09

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

Second it's really bad to just have her go behind her daughter's back like that, her fears might be based on a bunch of fear mongering baloney but that does not mean you can just ignore them and act like they don't exist.

Why not?

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 23:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 16:34

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

MeLKoR posted:

I missed one religious angle to this before. The faithful say that to god nothing is impossible, which means that if he didn't cure the Black Plague or smallpox it's because he didn't want to. It stands to reason that every true believer should oppose vaccination on the grounds that it prevents god from sending plagues to punish us when we deserve.

The problem of evil

# ¿ Aug 18, 2016 15:46

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