Oh Wonderful! Flu Vaccine May Not Work

#151
#151
So, New York has seen an "outbreak" of Measles not seen in years and it just so happens that vaccination rates are down there. You don't see any correlation?

Just get the damned vaccines.
 
#152
#152
jamesd1628 said:
Really? Are you saying there are no medical doctors that are anti-vaccine? No other scientists, biologists or other highly educated people on that side of the aisle? Sure, there are obviously more on the pro-vaccine side, but many of the most vocal adversaries of vaccines are medical doctors and scientists. But I suppose that you think being the majority and/or having a "consensus" automatically makes you right. Much like the majority used to believe - to use your example - that the earth was flat.
Click to expand...

I am saying that there is complete mainstream scientific consensus about the efficacy of vaccines. Of course there are crackpots and charlatans and weirdos who'd argue otherwise; there always are. And very, very occasionally one of them turns out to be right. But right now there is as close to scientific unanimity about vaccines as there ever has been about anything.

And over time, the process of mainstream science has proven to be by far the best method that humans have of finding things out and running our lives. Science lights your house at night and heats it through the winter. Science lets you travel hundreds of miles a day on the ground and fly through the air in a metal tube. Science lets you talk to people on the other side of the planet by bouncing your voice to outer space and back. Science is the reason you're not living in a mud hut, eating roots and bugs. And yet as soon as science bumps up against people's political/religious/ideological opinions, people like you are willing to throw all that out because mainstream science has been merely 99 percent infallible instead of all the way.

Modern medicine has succeeded in extending American life expectancy by almost 20 years (!) in the last 50 years. That's one "side." The other "side" is some guys who read some conspiracy stuff on the internet. It would be funny if people like you weren't endangering the rest of us.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#153
#153
jamesd1628 said:
I have yet to see you address the fact that all of the diseases for which we have a vaccine had declined to nearly non-existent levels before vaccines were ever used.
Click to expand...

I did, three times: The US polio outbreak in 1952-3, rotavirus, and local HiB infections in Loudon county. Your statement is absolutely, 100% incorrect.
 
#155
#155
The scariest part is that the unfounded suspicion and ignorance of the conspiracy crowd endangers the lives of children, the elderly, and those who are already dealing with disabilities the most.
 
#156
#156
jamesd1628 said:
When trying to determine whether a vaccine is responsible for the declining incidence of a disease over time, how is it intellectually dishonest to take into account the decline in that disease before the vaccine was introduced? It would seem impossible to answer the question without addressing that fact.
Click to expand...

Your "decline in disease" graph goes back to 1900. Scientists didn't even figure out that germs exist until the second half of the 19th century; in other words, your graph goes back so far that most ordinary people didn't understand how diseases are communicated, and that basic stuff like hand washing can prevent much of it. Just because soap and water has saved more lives than vaccination does not mean that vaccination is useless.

It also shows rates of mortality rather than infection, which is a clever bit of misdirection because it glides right over how dramatically medicine improved at curing disease during the 20th century rather than simply preventing it. Example: when my father was a kid, just about everybody was a kid got the measles, and a frighteningly large number of them died from it. By the time I was a kid, everybody still got the measles but far fewer people died. Then a vaccine became widespread and now almost nobody even gets it anymore.

These diseases didn't magically disappear on their own. First medicine got better at curing patients who came down with them, and then vaccines kept patients from getting infected in the first place. Maybe you'd rather live in a world where an unchecked measles virus still infects damn near everybody, and every few years a particularly virulent strain comes along and kills a bunch of kids. Most of us wouldn't.
 
#157
#157
kiddiedoc said:
I did, three times: The US polio outbreak in 1952-3, rotavirus, and local HiB infections in Loudon county. Your statement is absolutely, 100% incorrect.
Click to expand...

How does an outbreak in 1952-3 say anything about the general decline of polio in the preceding 30+ years? I didn't say there were no outbreaks prior to the vaccine, or that polio had been eradicated. I said it had declined dramatically for decades before the virus was introduced. The same is the case with all of the major diseases that vaccines receive credit for eliminating.
 
#158
#158
jamesd1628 said:
How does an outbreak in 1952-3 say anything about the general decline of polio in the preceding 30+ years? I didn't say there were no outbreaks prior to the vaccine, or that polio had been eradicated. I said it had declined dramatically for decades before the virus was introduced. The same is the case with all of the major diseases that vaccines receive credit for eliminating.
Click to expand...

Alex, I'll take Smallpox for $1000.

...and you're still either not following or ignoring the point multiple people keep making about general advances and access to care also helping control the spread of illness.
 
#159
#159
GAVol said:
Alex, I'll take Smallpox for $1000.

...and you're still either not following or ignoring the point multiple people keep making about general advances and access to care also helping control the spread of illness.
Click to expand...

Nah man. Small pox was completely eradicated from the earth due to had washing and advancements of chicken soup recipes.
 
#160
#160
jamesd1628 said:
How does an outbreak in 1952-3 say anything about the general decline of polio in the preceding 30+ years? I didn't say there were no outbreaks prior to the vaccine, or that polio had been eradicated. I said it had declined dramatically for decades before the virus was introduced. The same is the case with all of the major diseases that vaccines receive credit for eliminating.
Click to expand...

You said: "all of the diseases for which we have a vaccine had declined to nearly non-existent levels before vaccines were ever used." 35,000, on average, American polio victims a year (many of whom ended up paralyzed) say polio was certainly EXISTENT.

I personally cared for entire floors of kids with rota.

There was am H1N1 pandemic.

My partner saw nearly 100 cases of HiB disease in the decade before vaccination.

Everyone used to get measles.

Everyone used to get chicken pox.

You can hold on to your conspiracy opinion, but it is simply inane.
 
#161
#161
Vercingetorix said:
A 35-year-old friend of ours up in DC has had whooping cough for almost three months. What happens to the anti-vaccine idiots and their children is just Darwinism; vaya con Dios. What's unforgivable is that they're compromising herd immunity for the rest of us.
Click to expand...

I'm allergic to the whooping cough vaccine, so those that choose not to vaccinate are indirectly threatening my well-being, as well as others that have adverse reactions to vaccines.
 
#162
#162
kiddiedoc said:
The scariest part is that the unfounded suspicion and ignorance of the conspiracy crowd endangers the lives of children, the elderly, and those who are already dealing with disabilities the most.
Click to expand...

The ONE study that anti-vaxxers cite was published in the 80's and was discredited. It's ridiculous.
 
#163
#163
VOLatile said:
I'm allergic to the whooping cough vaccine, so those that choose not to vaccinate are indirectly threatening my well-being, as well as others that have adverse reactions to vaccines.
Click to expand...

My understanding from my pertussis-infected friend (she was vaccinated as a child) is that immunity apparently decays over time. This isn't supposed to be a problem because of herd immunity; as long as all the kids keep getting their shots then whooping cough simply won't exist at a meaningful level in the population and the rest of us are safe. But now that a significant percentage of parents refuse to get their kids vaccinated, whooping cough is starting to make a comeback, putting adults whose immunity has decayed at risk. I might be almost as susceptible to it as you are.

At some point they'll probably start prescribing a whole new round of booster shots for adults. Can't wait.
 
#164
#164
Vercingetorix said:
My understanding from my pertussis-infected friend (she was vaccinated as a child) is that immunity apparently decays over time. This isn't supposed to be a problem because of herd immunity; as long as all the kids keep getting their shots then whooping cough simply won't exist at a meaningful level in the population and the rest of us are safe. But now that a significant percentage of parents refuse to get their kids vaccinated, whooping cough is starting to make a comeback, putting adults whose immunity has decayed at risk. I might be almost as susceptible to it as you are.

At some point they'll probably start prescribing a whole new round of booster shots for adults. Can't wait.
Click to expand...

I had my pertussis booster 3 years ago when my first son was born. A normal healthy adult might get it and it could just be a slight - annoying cough that last a week or two. To children, and especially infants too young to be vacinated, it's deadly. No way was I risking bringing that around my kids.

My wife and I made our parents get if too since they were going to be babysitting often early on.
 
#165
#165
burntorangeVOLffle said:
I had my pertussis booster 3 years ago when my first son was born. A normal healthy adult might get it and it could just be a slight - annoying cough that last a week or two. To children, and especially infants too young to be vacinated, it's deadly. No way was I risking bringing that around my kids.

My wife and I made our parents get if too since they were going to be babysitting often early on.
Click to expand...

Our friend is a normal, otherwise healthy 35 year old woman and she's had the full-on whoop-whoop cough since about the Oklahoma game. She's never been in serious danger or anything, but it's been way more than slightly annoying. Smart of your family to get boosters.
 
#166
#166
Vercingetorix said:
My understanding from my pertussis-infected friend (she was vaccinated as a child) is that immunity apparently decays over time. This isn't supposed to be a problem because of herd immunity; as long as all the kids keep getting their shots then whooping cough simply won't exist at a meaningful level in the population and the rest of us are safe. But now that a significant percentage of parents refuse to get their kids vaccinated, whooping cough is starting to make a comeback, putting adults whose immunity has decayed at risk. I might be almost as susceptible to it as you are.

At some point they'll probably start prescribing a whole new round of booster shots for adults. Can't wait.
Click to expand...

There was a major outbreak in the neighboring school district when I was a junior in high school. My parents made me skip the homecoming football game that I was supposed to play in because of it.

Vercingetorix said:
Our friend is a normal, otherwise healthy 35 year old woman and she's had the full-on whoop-whoop cough since about the Oklahoma game. She's never been in serious danger or anything, but it's been way more than slightly annoying. Smart of your family to get boosters.
Click to expand...

About once a year I come down with a cough that sounds similar, but is just chronic bronchitis. It used to scare the crap out of my parents.
 
#167
#167
VOLatile said:
The ONE study that anti-vaxxers cite was published in the 80's and was discredited. It's ridiculous.
Click to expand...

In addition, all of our pediatric vaccines are preservative-free. It was really just to alleviate unfounded concern, but there is no more thimerosal, except in multi-use adult/big kid flu vials.
 
#170
#170
kiddiedoc said:
In addition, all of our pediatric vaccines are preservative-free. It was really just to alleviate unfounded concern, but there is no more thimerosal, except in multi-use adult/big kid flu vials.
Click to expand...
...and autism rates have actually increased since the removal. Yet 10 years later, you still hear this argument from some.
 
#173
#173
Coug said:
Apparently a second MMR shot may also be necessary in one's life. Sucks because that's the vaccine that hurts the most.

NHL Mumps Outbreak: What's Up With The Vaccine? - Forbes
Click to expand...

To clarify, kids get a booster now at the pre-K/Kindergarten visit, so those born after about 1990 should have all had two.

The question going forward is whether or not adults/adolescents should get a booster (making a total of three shots), akin to what has been done with Pertussis.
 
#174
#174
Ran across this gif showing preventable disease outbreaks since the anti-vacs movement started. Thought this is a good place for it.

outbreaksvaccineLoop.gif
 
#175
#175
woke up yesterday with what appears to be the flu - fever hit 102.4 yesterday afternoon but fortunately has come down since.

this is bad but nothing like the swine flu I had a while back - that was a near death experience
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top