[News] Congress Holds Anti-Vaccination Hearings

[SpecialKO]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/12/03/congress-holds-an-anti-vaccination-hearing/

And so it continues....

This kind of thing makes me fear for friends with small children.

 

[Gared]

Jesus Fucking Christ. Again?! We have to go through this bullshit again!? All of this throw-science-out-the-window bullshit, again!? No fucking wonder our country is a giant pile of shit right now. Fuck politicians of every affiliation. Quit stirring shit up that doesn't even make any fucking sense and just do your god-damn jobs, and get some important shit done for once. Fuck!

 

[Dubyamn]

Read this as "Congress hold an anti-Vatican hearing"

I was hopeful I won't lie.

Course then I read the article and my heart sank. For fucks sake why the hell does this keep coming up?

 

[Gared]

Stupidity?

 

[Krisken]

What, no one on the forums wants to marginalize this or defend it? I am disappointed.

 

[Frank]

It's nigh indefensible.

 

[Eriol]

I had this little bitty small hope that it was "why the fuck don't we have any vaccinations for any new major diseases in the last number of decades? Where has our money been going?" But that was for about a microsecond. Then my brain engaged and figured it was this. Too bad.

That said, I saw an article last week about some promising research on the Flu, on having a vaccine that will work perpetually, against all strains. That was nice to see, as that kills a fuckton of people every year. Mostly the old and infirm, but it's still a huge killer. Strangely, last year (or whenever) with all the bird flu scare, it kept down the regular flu, and thus old people mortality went way down.

 

[GasBandit]

I oppose vaccinations. DIE, you FILTH.

 

[Dei]

I have long given up even arguing with/about idiots and their anti-vax preaching. Too much time spent on parenting boards I guess.

 

[GasBandit]

 

[Frank]

When fucking polio makes a comeback, I hope Jenny McCarthy is crucified.

 

[Dei]

So help me god, if my vaccinated kids get sick from some unvaccinated kid, I may flip some shit. A month ago there was apparently a kid at school with Whooping Cough. It angers me so much because while theoretically you need to have vaccinations to go to public school, all I have to do is SIGN A WAIVER ON MY OWN, and that requirement is gone. It is the biggest BS ever.

The only exception I make is for kids who physically cannot vaccinate. But that's all the more reason you shouldn't be able to opt out of them at random. If you don't want to vax your kids, homeschool or something.

 

[Azurephoenix]

When fucking polio makes a comeback, I hope Jenny McCarthy is crucified.

Man, polio is one of those ones that terrifies the shit out of me. Have people not seen what it can actually do to the human body? Hooray for crippling deformities!

Friggin anti-vaxxers... I mean, there's a big difference between you not getting a flu shot and not getting your polio vaccination. Why are people so stupid?

 

[Eriol]

So help me god, if my vaccinated kids get sick from some unvaccinated kid, I may flip some shit.

I dont mean this too flippantly, but how exactly would that happen? If your kids are vaccinated, they're good. If they're not... aren't they the problem you're flipping out about?

 

[strawman]

I dont mean this too flippantly, but how exactly would that happen? If your kids are vaccinated, they're good. If they're not... aren't they the problem you're flipping out about?

Vaccines are imperfect. Some significant percentage of those vaccinated (I'm thinking 2-5%) can still contract the disease. Only be vaccinating everyone do we have a chance of keeping it at bay, because enough people are still susceptible, even vaccinated, that an outbreak could be serious.

This may be lower since we've developed better vaccines, and vaccinate people with a course of more than one vaccination (children will typically be vaccinated against most diseases 2 or more times before they go to school over three years or so).

Still, vaccinations don't guarantee immunity. Even when it does work, when exposed to it you are infected and it takes some time for the immune system to kick in. During this time you can infect others and you may still suffer the early effects of it before the immune system catches up. It prevents death and most long term consequences, but it can still cause damage.

Vaccines only work when the whole population is vaccinated.

 

[Azurephoenix]

Vaccines only work when the whole population is vaccinated.

Actually that's not entirely accurate. Vaccines generally work as intended once the herd immunity threshold has been met. If they only worked if the whole population was vaccinated then they would never work would they?

 

[MindDetective]

ABout 85% of the population for many diseases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

 

[Espy]

BUT IF MY KIDS JUST EAT VEGGIES AND WEAR ORGANIC CLOTHES THEY WON'T HAVE TO GET VACCINES FULL OF DEAD BABIES AND METAL.

 

[blotsfan]

Eh, maybe the government will come out of this declaring "there is no tie between vaccinations and autism. If you think there is, you're a moron. Have a good day."

 

[strawman]

The drug companies are salivating at the prospect of being able to develop and patent "autism free" vaccines, and have the government ban the old kind so everyone's vaccination costs go up by 1200%.

There may be more at play than a few nut cases who speak more loudly than scientists.

 

[blotsfan]

The drug companies are salivating at the prospect of being able to develop and patent "autism free" vaccines, and have the government ban the old kind so everyone's vaccination costs go up by 1200%.

Hmmmm...that sounds familiar.

 

[Krisken]

Eh, maybe the government will come out of this declaring "there is no tie between vaccinations and autism. If you think there is, you're a moron. Have a good day."

But then it can't be a political football to sway public opinion. Taking a unified stance is unlikely, no matter how obvious the result should be.

 

[drifter]

The drug companies are salivating at the prospect of being able to develop and patent "autism free" vaccines, and have the government ban the old kind so everyone's vaccination costs go up by 1200%.

There may be more at play than a few nut cases who speak more loudly than scientists.

I thought companies had mostly abandoned thimerosal? Or are they blaming something else in vaccines now?

 

[strawman]

I thought companies had mostly abandoned thimerosal? Or are they blaming something else in vaccines now?

The drug companies change the vaccines in a multitude of ways every decade to keep prices high. Business as usual, but now they can claim they are doing it for the public good if they want to.

I dunno, I'm not actually much into cynical conspiracy theories, but if there's profit to be made, capitalism often ensures someone makes that profit.

 

[Gared]

I thought companies had mostly abandoned thimerosal? Or are they blaming something else in vaccines now?

No. Sadly, no. They're still blaming thimerosal. It's like these congressmen (and potentially congresswomen, I didn't read the whole thing because I was too pissed off) just slept through the last however many years it's been since the last time people were up in arms about thimerosal, and woke up this week demanding to know why nothing is being done about this horrible, horrible plague on our society.

 

[Krisken]

Vaccines are taking our jobs.

 

[bhamv3]

Vaccines are weakening traditional marriage.

 

[Tress]

If we vaccinate our children, the terrorists win.

 

[TommiR]

What, no one on the forums wants to marginalize this or defend it? I am disappointed.

A bit too hard to find an angle that can be made to work.

 

[North_Ranger]

It's shit like this that makes me wonder if every US politician has to go through a mandatory lobotomy before taking office. Goddammit, those anti-vac people are making some of the dipshittiest politicians over here look reasonable.

 

[SpecialKO]

The fact that they can spew such complete shit and get away with it is sad, sad commentary on the state of science in American public discourse.

 

[Covar]

A bit too hard to find an angle that can be made to work.

They're trying to look into the concerns of their constituents? That's all I got. Of course that also implies that they actually care what their voters think and consider themselves as public servants instead of rulers. So instead I'm just going to assume that Congress is just doing their usual harrumphing to look like they're useful.

 

[strawman]

A bit too hard to find an angle that can be made to work.

The medical value of vaccination is hard to argue against. We're talking millions of deaths prevented per year because we've controlled or eliminated nearly a dozen deadly and debilitating diseases.

Still, the trade off is that it can result in several deaths per year due to the vaccine itself, and the vaccines, as safe as they are, have acceptable side effects and problems that affect a small portion of the population.

The only thing, though, that people can really say against vaccines in general right now, since there's little scientific evidence to support them otherwise, is that they don't believe the government should be able to medicate them against their will. If the government had that power, they might as well get back into sterilizing people with bad genes, and get rid of all the genetic diseases as well.

 

[North_Ranger]

The medical value of vaccination is hard to argue against. We're talking millions of deaths prevented per year because we've controlled or eliminated nearly a dozen deadly and debilitating diseases.

Still, the trade off is that it can result in several deaths per year due to the vaccine itself, and the vaccines, as safe as they are, have acceptable side effects and problems that affect a small portion of the population.

The only thing, though, that people can really say against vaccines in general right now, since there's little scientific evidence to support them otherwise, is that they don't believe the government should be able to medicate them against their will. If the government had that power, they might as well get back into sterilizing people with bad genes, and get rid of all the genetic diseases as well.

Is it an American thing to assume that if you* allow government to do something, they will immediately run with it and do absurdly evil things with it - like some kind of a vampire quarterback?

*you as in the passive tense, not you as in stienman the man with 17.6 children.

 

[strawman]

Is it an American thing to assume that if you allow government to do something, they will immediately run with it and do absurdly evil things with it - like some kind of a vampire quarterback?

Well, we don't hold exclusive rights, but we are the major importer of the slippery slope argument, and as such we get a significant discount from suppliers, which means we use it all the more.

Like gas.