FreeThinkerNZ Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/03/10/3628921/health-ranger/ The issue of anti-vaxxers came up in chat today and someone asked why do they do it? Why do anti-vaxxers stubbornly refuse to concede what science tells us about vaccines and the diseases they are intended to prevent? This article may provide some answers. There is money to be made off people's ignorance. Just like with religion.
Thurisaz Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 I'm sure that's one part of the answer. I'd think though that "typical reasons" for conspiracy theories and such in general are important too. If there was just one reason for this shit it would be amazingly easy to combat it no? *sigh* damn this real life with its complexity...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted March 11, 2015 Author Posted March 11, 2015 I'm sure that's one part of the answer. I'd think though that "typical reasons" for conspiracy theories and such in general are important too. If there was just one reason for this shit it would be amazingly easy to combat it no? *sigh* damn this real life with its complexity... Very true. The anti-vaxxer movement has multiple causes, such as people's tendency to believe what they hear for emotional reasons. Although there is no one reason for the anti-vaxxer movement, there is one simple cure... understanding and respect for the scientific method.
Guest CutiePie Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 Heh...it's like religion & evolution, our Fundies say that they will believe in evolution as soon as they see it, however, evolution is out there, they proof of it is right in front of their faces, but they just simply refuse to actually take a look at it. This upsets me because this is such a big issue in the US & all over the world. Parents think they are protecting their children, okay...so...what about the other kids? What if your kid didn't get his/her shot, -insert whatever you want to insert in here- and then came in contact with this other kid, the disease spreads to the other kid, the disease spreads to the other kid's friends, the kid goes home and spreads inside of the house. Only a small percentage actually have the vaccine so let's forget about the small percentage that did the smart thing. To those that didn't get the shot, the disease spreads and spreads, and spreads, so what do we have now? An outbreak, a contagion, when a disease spreads & spreads badly it can cause a fear to work up in society & then cause panic, but know we rather deal with a bunch of scared humans that could have simply gotten the shot but refuse. Especially when the illness can lead to death, why worry about Autism compared to death? This whole thing upsets me because not only are these anti-vaxxer are putting themselves in danger, they are putting others in danger if they didn't get the shot. It's like the domino effect in a way ( if one kid doesn't get the shot, passes the disease on to someone else that doesn't have it & so forth). I'm hoping that people wake up and realize that vaccines and autism does not tie together. CDC - The study looked at the amount of antigens from vaccines received on one day of vaccination and the amount of antigens from vaccines received in total during the first two years of life and found no connection to the development of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. Antigens are substances in vaccines that cause the body’s immune system to produce antibodies to fight disease. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/antigens.htmlThere's a thing called doing research and not just simply believing in something without proper evidence.
Leo Posted March 11, 2015 Posted March 11, 2015 Thurisaz is correct. Where people see health and government as related, if they distrust the government for any of several reasons, that's reason enough to suspect a cover-up. We've had conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, and even 9/11. These are the same anti-vaxxer crowd. And, while they are incorrect about vaccines, their mistrust is not entirely wrong, neither is it necessarily spawned by religion. After all, it was "medical science" who claimed that Agent Orange was not a problem for Vietnam vets, said vets were just making it up. I as just a teenager could observe otherwise by just watching these guys. I lived in an apartment building full of them for awhile. This same "medical science" in the 90s claimed that chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia were just psychosomatic, a term that means "we don't know what it is, so let's just blame the victim." I've got family members who suffer from both, and every time I see them I'm grateful for two good legs and a stout constitution, allowing me to do whatever I want, virtually, within normal human limitations. Said medical community would gain a lot more respect if, instead of this history of blaming the victim, they said "we don't know," like everyone else does in the applied sciences when we screw up. Hell, everyone screws up, and everyone runs into a problem they've not yet solved. So while the anti-vaxxers, the Alex Jones crowd at least, has it entirely wrong about vaccines, they didn't just come up with this out of thin air. It's based on this track record of either cover-ups or blatant bad engineering, as I described earlier. You see, in most engineering fields, people report problems, and engineers either know what the trouble is, or don't know yet. IN the don't know yet category, you can either find the source, or it's deferred due to technical limitations. That deferment can be very frustrating to a user, and they often, understandably, think that we aren't paying it enough attention. But nowhere outside the medical community, when a find is unavailable, do we somehow claim that the reporter of the incident is the source. Certainly not just by imagination. And yet, these conspiracy theorists have a pretty good payload of evidence, more than just the previous examples I gave, where the medical community does just this. It's just that disconnect from normal human interaction that has made changing their minds impossible re: their anti-vaxxer stance. And I'm one who has convinced several in the 9/11 truther movement that it is completely flaws. Why? Because all they were given was some incomplete understanding of the secondary effects of combustion and how some of the metals work. But structural and other engineers don't have the same kind of track record. Now the other group of anti-vaxxers, the one my Wife recently told me about, I don't know. Apparently some in the "clean living" community, usually more affluent than the aforementioned conspiracy theorists, are anti-vaxx. I know next to nothing about their way of life, so there could be something to those. Boujoise types who can afford to live in isolated environments, except when they take their kids to Disneyland. 1
FreeThinkerNZ Posted March 12, 2015 Author Posted March 12, 2015 Thurisaz is correct. Where people see health and government as related, if they distrust the government for any of several reasons, that's reason enough to suspect a cover-up. We've had conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, and even 9/11. These are the same anti-vaxxer crowd. And, while they are incorrect about vaccines, their mistrust is not entirely wrong, neither is it necessarily spawned by religion. After all, it was "medical science" who claimed that Agent Orange was not a problem for Vietnam vets, said vets were just making it up. I as just a teenager could observe otherwise by just watching these guys. I lived in an apartment building full of them for awhile. This same "medical science" in the 90s claimed that chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia were just psychosomatic, a term that means "we don't know what it is, so let's just blame the victim." I've got family members who suffer from both, and every time I see them I'm grateful for two good legs and a stout constitution, allowing me to do whatever I want, virtually, within normal human limitations. Said medical community would gain a lot more respect if, instead of this history of blaming the victim, they said "we don't know," like everyone else does in the applied sciences when we screw up. Hell, everyone screws up, and everyone runs into a problem they've not yet solved. So while the anti-vaxxers, the Alex Jones crowd at least, has it entirely wrong about vaccines, they didn't just come up with this out of thin air. It's based on this track record of either cover-ups or blatant bad engineering, as I described earlier. You see, in most engineering fields, people report problems, and engineers either know what the trouble is, or don't know yet. IN the don't know yet category, you can either find the source, or it's deferred due to technical limitations. That deferment can be very frustrating to a user, and they often, understandably, think that we aren't paying it enough attention. But nowhere outside the medical community, when a find is unavailable, do we somehow claim that the reporter of the incident is the source. Certainly not just by imagination. And yet, these conspiracy theorists have a pretty good payload of evidence, more than just the previous examples I gave, where the medical community does just this. It's just that disconnect from normal human interaction that has made changing their minds impossible re: their anti-vaxxer stance. And I'm one who has convinced several in the 9/11 truther movement that it is completely flaws. Why? Because all they were given was some incomplete understanding of the secondary effects of combustion and how some of the metals work. But structural and other engineers don't have the same kind of track record. Now the other group of anti-vaxxers, the one my Wife recently told me about, I don't know. Apparently some in the "clean living" community, usually more affluent than the aforementioned conspiracy theorists, are anti-vaxx. I know next to nothing about their way of life, so there could be something to those. Boujoise types who can afford to live in isolated environments, except when they take their kids to Disneyland. In response to the claims that anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists make about the medical community: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/defending_science-based_medicine_44_doctor-bashing_arguments_and_rebuttals Most doctors are probably still dubious about fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, but this should eventually change, as researchers, medical school academics, and health policy leaders recently worked together to review chronic fatigue syndrome and have even promised a new name and diagnostic criteria for it, that look promising: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=19012
duderonomy Posted March 12, 2015 Posted March 12, 2015 Why are the people who get their kids vaccinated so worried about them catching something from the kids that aren't vaccinated? Aren't the vaccines any good? If you can still catch the flu, why bother? And of course we know that at no time in the history of any government on earth was there ever any conspiracy, and big pharma is always looking out for our well being above anything else. Just sayin' (mostly for fun).
FreeThinkerNZ Posted March 12, 2015 Author Posted March 12, 2015 Why are the people who get their kids vaccinated so worried about them catching something from the kids that aren't vaccinated? Aren't the vaccines any good? If you can still catch the flu, why bother? And of course we know that at no time in the history of any government on earth was there ever any conspiracy, and big pharma is always looking out for our well being above anything else. Just sayin' (mostly for fun). Let's take measles as an example. Babies born to vaccinated mothers have some immunity up until about 6 months of age, give or take. In most western countries they dont get vaxxed until 12-18 months, because the vaccine will work better once they are that age. Also, the second vax is given around age 4. Between the first and second vax they are about 95% protected, the second vax brings that up to 99%. Between losing their inborn immunity and getting the first vax, they are at risk. A very small number of children and adults cannot be vaxxed because of rare medical conditions. These two groups are protected by herd immunity, which relies on about 95% of the population being vaxxed. As the 99% figure above shows, even a vaxxed person can catch the measles. However the illness is less severe. (The flu vaccine provides about 80% protection, and reduces the severity of the illness if you catch it) Yes, big pharma makes a profit, reflecting their investment in the development of safe and effective vaccines. This is how the capitalist free market works. If we didnt have this system, what incentive would anyone have to invest in developing safe and effective vaccines? Anti-vaxxers make a profit too, from selling "natural" "vaccines", which are ineffective. Would you rather the companies that have demonstrated their product is safe and effective makes the profit, or the companies that haven't demonstrated safety and effectiveness but persuade customers to buy the product based on unsupported beliefs, scaremongering and conspiracy theories? Selling a fake vaccine to a parent who relies on it to save their child's life, when it can't, is IMO immoral and should be illegal.
duderonomy Posted March 12, 2015 Posted March 12, 2015 Why are the people who get their kids vaccinated so worried about them catching something from the kids that aren't vaccinated? Aren't the vaccines any good? If you can still catch the flu, why bother? And of course we know that at no time in the history of any government on earth was there ever any conspiracy, and big pharma is always looking out for our well being above anything else. Just sayin' (mostly for fun). Let's take measles as an example. Babies born to vaccinated mothers have some immunity up until about 6 months of age, give or take. In most western countries they dont get vaxxed until 12-18 months, because the vaccine will work better once they are that age. Also, the second vax is given around age 4. Between the first and second vax they are about 95% protected, the second vax brings that up to 99%. Between losing their inborn immunity and getting the first vax, they are at risk. A very small number of children and adults cannot be vaxxed because of rare medical conditions. These two groups are protected by herd immunity, which relies on about 95% of the population being vaxxed. As the 99% figure above shows, even a vaxxed person can catch the measles. However the illness is less severe. (The flu vaccine provides about 80% protection, and reduces the severity of the illness if you catch it) Yes, big pharma makes a profit, reflecting their investment in the development of safe and effective vaccines. This is how the capitalist free market works. If we didnt have this system, what incentive would anyone have to invest in developing safe and effective vaccines? Anti-vaxxers make a profit too, from selling "natural" "vaccines", which are ineffective. Would you rather the companies that have demonstrated their product is safe and effective makes the profit, or the companies that haven't demonstrated safety and effectiveness but persuade customers to buy the product based on unsupported beliefs, scaremongering and conspiracy theories? Selling a fake vaccine to a parent who relies on it to save their child's life, when it can't, is IMO immoral and should be illegal. Is it true, FTNZ, that 68% of statistics are made up 87% of the time?
FreeThinkerNZ Posted March 12, 2015 Author Posted March 12, 2015 Why are the people who get their kids vaccinated so worried about them catching something from the kids that aren't vaccinated? Aren't the vaccines any good? If you can still catch the flu, why bother? And of course we know that at no time in the history of any government on earth was there ever any conspiracy, and big pharma is always looking out for our well being above anything else. Just sayin' (mostly for fun). Let's take measles as an example. Babies born to vaccinated mothers have some immunity up until about 6 months of age, give or take. In most western countries they dont get vaxxed until 12-18 months, because the vaccine will work better once they are that age. Also, the second vax is given around age 4. Between the first and second vax they are about 95% protected, the second vax brings that up to 99%. Between losing their inborn immunity and getting the first vax, they are at risk. A very small number of children and adults cannot be vaxxed because of rare medical conditions. These two groups are protected by herd immunity, which relies on about 95% of the population being vaxxed. As the 99% figure above shows, even a vaxxed person can catch the measles. However the illness is less severe. (The flu vaccine provides about 80% protection, and reduces the severity of the illness if you catch it) Yes, big pharma makes a profit, reflecting their investment in the development of safe and effective vaccines. This is how the capitalist free market works. If we didnt have this system, what incentive would anyone have to invest in developing safe and effective vaccines? Anti-vaxxers make a profit too, from selling "natural" "vaccines", which are ineffective. Would you rather the companies that have demonstrated their product is safe and effective makes the profit, or the companies that haven't demonstrated safety and effectiveness but persuade customers to buy the product based on unsupported beliefs, scaremongering and conspiracy theories? Selling a fake vaccine to a parent who relies on it to save their child's life, when it can't, is IMO immoral and should be illegal. Is it true, FTNZ, that 68% of statistics are made up 87% of the time? My sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles (This article is well sourced, and is likely to be hotly contested between both sides of the debate, meaning that the scientific side will have ensured their sources are robust.) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/default.htm http://www.immune.org.nz/ And for the approx 80% protection from the flu vaccine, the nurse who gives me the shot each year, who is probably getting figure from the above source. This level of protection varies each year according to which seasonal strains of influenza are included in the vaccine. The level of protection is still significantly greater than being unvaccinated. Two days ago I debated with anti-vaxxers on FB and when I asked them for sources to back up their assertions, they stopped posting. The statistics I rely on are ultimately from peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Scientists are unlikely to "make up" those statistics because if they did, they would be castigated by their peers, and their future funding applications would be in doubt. The author of the article claiming the MMR vaccine was linked to autism essentially made up his stats, and was duly castigated by his peers. Unfortunately, despite numerous studies and articles disproving his claim, the idea persists in the minds of anti-vaxxers and those who make money off them.
duderonomy Posted March 12, 2015 Posted March 12, 2015 Why are the people who get their kids vaccinated so worried about them catching something from the kids that aren't vaccinated? Aren't the vaccines any good? If you can still catch the flu, why bother? And of course we know that at no time in the history of any government on earth was there ever any conspiracy, and big pharma is always looking out for our well being above anything else. Just sayin' (mostly for fun). Let's take measles as an example. Babies born to vaccinated mothers have some immunity up until about 6 months of age, give or take. In most western countries they dont get vaxxed until 12-18 months, because the vaccine will work better once they are that age. Also, the second vax is given around age 4. Between the first and second vax they are about 95% protected, the second vax brings that up to 99%. Between losing their inborn immunity and getting the first vax, they are at risk. A very small number of children and adults cannot be vaxxed because of rare medical conditions. These two groups are protected by herd immunity, which relies on about 95% of the population being vaxxed. As the 99% figure above shows, even a vaxxed person can catch the measles. However the illness is less severe. (The flu vaccine provides about 80% protection, and reduces the severity of the illness if you catch it) Yes, big pharma makes a profit, reflecting their investment in the development of safe and effective vaccines. This is how the capitalist free market works. If we didnt have this system, what incentive would anyone have to invest in developing safe and effective vaccines? Anti-vaxxers make a profit too, from selling "natural" "vaccines", which are ineffective. Would you rather the companies that have demonstrated their product is safe and effective makes the profit, or the companies that haven't demonstrated safety and effectiveness but persuade customers to buy the product based on unsupported beliefs, scaremongering and conspiracy theories? Selling a fake vaccine to a parent who relies on it to save their child's life, when it can't, is IMO immoral and should be illegal. Is it true, FTNZ, that 68% of statistics are made up 87% of the time? My sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles (This article is well sourced, and is likely to be hotly contested between both sides of the debate, meaning that the scientific side will have ensured their sources are robust.) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/default.htm http://www.immune.org.nz/ And for the approx 80% protection from the flu vaccine, the nurse who gives me the shot each year, who is probably getting figure from the above source. This level of protection varies each year according to which seasonal strains of influenza are included in the vaccine. The level of protection is still significantly greater than being unvaccinated. Two days ago I debated with anti-vaxxers on FB and when I asked them for sources to back up their assertions, they stopped posting. The statistics I rely on are ultimately from peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Scientists are unlikely to "make up" those statistics because if they did, they would be castigated by their peers, and their future funding applications would be in doubt. The author of the article claiming the MMR vaccine was linked to autism essentially made up his stats, and was duly castigated by his peers. Unfortunately, despite numerous studies and articles disproving his claim, the idea persists in the minds of anti-vaxxers and those who make money off them. I said in post #7 that I was saying this mostly mostly for fun, followed by an emoji twitch. If you were a fundy, and me and ex-C, I would say something like "nice dodge" to your answers and your belief that the nurse that injects you with chemicals is "probably" getting her statistics from 'the above source', as you said. There is only one article in existence, for example, that links vaccinations to autism? I don't think so. I get your point about making money, but you know that money is to made from both sides. Al Gore makes millions from carbon credit schemes and decries Global Warming Deniers™ for example, and buys a mansion on the beach which will shortly be underwater, in his humble opinion. Riiiiight.
FreeThinkerNZ Posted March 12, 2015 Author Posted March 12, 2015 Why are the people who get their kids vaccinated so worried about them catching something from the kids that aren't vaccinated? Aren't the vaccines any good? If you can still catch the flu, why bother? And of course we know that at no time in the history of any government on earth was there ever any conspiracy, and big pharma is always looking out for our well being above anything else. Just sayin' (mostly for fun). Let's take measles as an example. Babies born to vaccinated mothers have some immunity up until about 6 months of age, give or take. In most western countries they dont get vaxxed until 12-18 months, because the vaccine will work better once they are that age. Also, the second vax is given around age 4. Between the first and second vax they are about 95% protected, the second vax brings that up to 99%. Between losing their inborn immunity and getting the first vax, they are at risk. A very small number of children and adults cannot be vaxxed because of rare medical conditions. These two groups are protected by herd immunity, which relies on about 95% of the population being vaxxed. As the 99% figure above shows, even a vaxxed person can catch the measles. However the illness is less severe. (The flu vaccine provides about 80% protection, and reduces the severity of the illness if you catch it) Yes, big pharma makes a profit, reflecting their investment in the development of safe and effective vaccines. This is how the capitalist free market works. If we didnt have this system, what incentive would anyone have to invest in developing safe and effective vaccines? Anti-vaxxers make a profit too, from selling "natural" "vaccines", which are ineffective. Would you rather the companies that have demonstrated their product is safe and effective makes the profit, or the companies that haven't demonstrated safety and effectiveness but persuade customers to buy the product based on unsupported beliefs, scaremongering and conspiracy theories? Selling a fake vaccine to a parent who relies on it to save their child's life, when it can't, is IMO immoral and should be illegal. Is it true, FTNZ, that 68% of statistics are made up 87% of the time? My sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles (This article is well sourced, and is likely to be hotly contested between both sides of the debate, meaning that the scientific side will have ensured their sources are robust.) http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/default.htm http://www.immune.org.nz/ And for the approx 80% protection from the flu vaccine, the nurse who gives me the shot each year, who is probably getting figure from the above source. This level of protection varies each year according to which seasonal strains of influenza are included in the vaccine. The level of protection is still significantly greater than being unvaccinated. Two days ago I debated with anti-vaxxers on FB and when I asked them for sources to back up their assertions, they stopped posting. The statistics I rely on are ultimately from peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals. Scientists are unlikely to "make up" those statistics because if they did, they would be castigated by their peers, and their future funding applications would be in doubt. The author of the article claiming the MMR vaccine was linked to autism essentially made up his stats, and was duly castigated by his peers. Unfortunately, despite numerous studies and articles disproving his claim, the idea persists in the minds of anti-vaxxers and those who make money off them. I said in post #7 that I was saying this mostly mostly for fun, followed by an emoji twitch. If you were a fundy, and me and ex-C, I would say something like "nice dodge" to your answers and your belief that the nurse that injects you with chemicals is "probably" getting her statistics from 'the above source', as you said. There is only one article in existence, for example, that links vaccinations to autism? I don't think so. I get your point about making money, but you know that money is to made from both sides. Al Gore makes millions from carbon credit schemes and decries Global Warming Deniers™ for example, and buys a mansion on the beach which will shortly be underwater, in his humble opinion. Riiiiight. Yes I know you were saying it mostly for fun, but it was a useful opportunity to provide some info about the debate. The nurse injects me with chemicals? Chemicals are all around us, in everything. They are nothing to be feared in and of themselves. "The dose makes the poison." Vaccines have been proven safe enough for millions of people around the world to rely on them. True, there are rare adverse effects, which are extremely rare compared to the adverse effects caused by the diseases. I have read the vaccine information provided by the NZ Ministry of Health to nurses, so I know what it says, as much as my nurse does. Every year she says it only provides 80% protection, which I believe is a statement all providers are expected to make to all patients, to inform patients that they might still get sick. I can fish out the relevant provider factsheet if you like. Of course there are several articles about MMR and autism, it is the most well known anti-vaxxer trope. I was referring to the first one, that was published in a major medical journal (and then retracted, of course). There are, however, no studies proving MMR causes autism. It's a completely implausible idea, for starters. Numerous articles have been written that explain this. Your assertion that money is made on both sides dodges the question I asked you about capitalism and the free market, and my point about the ethics of selling fake products, where life threatening illness is concerned. I can't tell if you are being serious or not, but if you want to argue vaccines are so unsafe that they should be avoided, have at it.
Leo Posted March 12, 2015 Posted March 12, 2015 So while they're dubious about it, they should be honest and say "We don't know," not some version of blame the victim psychosomatic bullshit. Sorry, I've sat with Agent Orange sufferers who cried about that very thing. Put it this way: Someone comes with a computer problem they think is spyware related. Maybe it isk, maybe it isn't. I'll have to look and see. Maybe it's a failing hard drive, who knows. However, never ever could I claim that they are just imagining it, even if I fail to reproduce the symptoms they describe. So if fibromyalgia "isn't a thing," as it were, that doesn't mean sufferers are just psychosomatic, a cheap shot patch of an answer worse than a first-year hacker could produce. What it would mean, to somehone wwho actually had an engineer's mind, someone who actually solves problems for a living, is that the trouble indeed exists, the sufferer is in fact suffering, we're just wrong about the cause. That would be real science at work. Not make believe mind over matter stuff. Meanwhile, should you report an Internet outage, if they can't find the source right away, I doubt they're going to tell you you're making it up. Might could find impedence interference in a single cable coming into your house, or something similarly obtuse, but you won't have them making up a story about how it's a mind over matter thing.
seven77 Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 Ah, the anti-vaxx move-munt! Now the other group of anti-vaxxers, the one my Wife recently told me about, I don't know. Apparently some in the "clean living" community, usually more affluent than the aforementioned conspiracy theorists, are anti-vaxx. I know next to nothing about their way of life, so there could be something to those. Boujoise types who can afford to live in isolated environments, except when they take their kids to Disneyland. This is the crowd that I became familiar with through my old church. Mostly affluent or upwardly mobile strivers who rely upon gut feelings, intuition, prayer, and a good hearty dose of anecdote to justify their piss-poor understanding of basic scientific and medical principles. They are willfully ignorant and very righteous when one touches upon one of their pet causes, such as vaccination. To them, one has no real good reason to trust the modern medical industry. You can trust yourself. Surely you can trust the person that you are paying to deliver your baby at home in your non-sterile bathtub isn't going to do you or yours harm by advising you against vaccinating your newborn. These types will glad shell out hundreds, if not thousands, on DIY home remedies, special herbal compounds, and so on, even if they turn out to be little more than funky-smelling paperweights in cleverly designed bottles. Of course, these people and their children are usually obscenely healthy, good looking and well-off. They get away with eschewing modern medicine (including most vaccines) because they look so gosh-darn GOOD. Healthy. Wholesome. Generally, I've found them to be very out of touch with the reality of how most people outside of their little circle of hive-minded naturalistic nut peers actually live. They don't understand that for every precious unvaccinated youngster with a pretentious name whose parents only feed him Himalayan breast milk with organic gold dust mixed in, there are likely 2-3 less fortunate kids who may not be vaccinated because their parents are too poor, too ignorant or just don't care. It's those kids who suffer from the insolence of the self-righteous healthnut blowhards who refuse to vaccinate and preach their mixed messages to general audiences from the safety of pulpits and public airwaves. It's one thing if the rich and stupid don't want to vaccinate their offspring, but they shouldn't be out there spreading hateful misinformation such as the completely debunked "vaccines cause autism" line. Jmho.
seven77 Posted March 19, 2015 Posted March 19, 2015 I also want to post a link to an interesting article that I read this morning: http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-view-from-outside_18.html Here are a few quotes from the article that address some of the topics mentioned in this thread: ...institutional science only has the authority and prestige it possesses today because enough of those outside the scientific community accept its claim to speak the truth about nature. Not that many years ago, all things considered, scientists didn’t have the authority or the prestige, and no law of nature or of society guarantees that they’ll keep either one indefinitely. Every doctor who would rather medicate than cure, every researcher who treats conflicts of interest as just another detail of business as usual, every scientist who insists in angry tones that nobody without a Ph.D. in this or that discipline is entitled to ask why this week’s pronouncement should be taken any more seriously than the one it just disproved—and let’s not even talk about the increasing, and increasingly public, problem of overt scientific fraud in the pharmaceutical field among others—is hastening the day when modern science is taken no more seriously by the general public than, say, academic philosophy is today. That day may not be all that far away. That’s the message that should be read, and is far too rarely read, in the accelerating emergence of countercultures that reject the authority of science in one field. As a recent and thoughtful essay in Slate pointed out, that crisis of authority is what gives credibility to such movements as climate denialists and “anti-vaxxers” (the growing number of parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated). A good many any people these days, when the official voices of the scientific community say this or that, respond by asking “Why should we believe you?”—and too many of them don’t get a straightforward answer that addresses their concerns... ...Notice that unlike climate denialism, the anti-vaxxer movement isn’t powered by billions of dollars of grant money, but it’s getting increasing traction. The reason is as simple as it is painful: parents are asking physicians and scientists, “How do I know this substance you want to put into my child is safe?”—and the answers they’re getting are not providing them with the reassurance they need. It’s probably necessary here to point out that I’m no fan of the anti-vaxxer movement. Since epidemic diseases are likely to play a massive role in the future ahead of us, I’ve looked into anti-vaxxer arguments with some care, and they don’t convince me at all. It’s clear from the evidence that vaccines do far more often than not provide protection against dangerous diseases; while some children are harmed by the side effects of vaccination, that’s true of every medical procedure, and the toll from side effects is orders of magnitude smaller than the annual burden of deaths from these same diseases in the pre-vaccination era... ...That is to say, I don’t agree with the anti-vaxxers, the climate denialists, the creationists, or their equivalents, but I think I understand why they’ve rejected the authority of science, and it’s not because they’re ignorant cretins, much as though the proponents and propagandists of science would like to claim that. It’s because they’ve seen far too much of the view from outside. Parents who encounter a medical industry that would rather medicate than heal are more likely to listen to anti-vaxxers; Americans who watch climate change activists demand that the rest of the world cut its carbon footprint, while the activists themselves get to keep cozy middle-class lifestyles, are more likely to believe that global warming is a politically motivated hoax; Christians who see atheists using evolution as a stalking horse for their ideology are more likely to turn to creation science—and all three, and others, are not going to listen to scientists who insist that they’re wrong, until and unless the scientists stop and take a good hard look at how they and their proclamations look when viewed from outside... His primary assertion, as far as I can tell, is that until/unless the scientific community gains some introspection...we [the science-minded non-believing minority] are thoroughly fucked. We will never be able to convince those who rely upon emotion, intuition, trust, and anecdote to come over to the 'dark side' of skeptical inquiry, debate, research, and so on. It's deeper than a clash of wills; it's a clash of mindsets and worldviews. One side trusts in an invisible God-being and the ability of individuals to surrender and submit to the Christian borg-like hivemind, no matter what. The other trusts in visible men and the ability of the masses to understand and accept that we live in a complex, uncomfortable world. **The author talks about the many failings of the atheist scientific community to address said issues towards the end of his essay. Didn't want to derail this thread with those though. His views are not kind and his vision of the future is a bit dark for some tastes. Perhaps fighting for science isn't quite the worthwhile endeavor that we envision it is, after all.
FarflungWanderer Posted March 20, 2015 Posted March 20, 2015 I'll put in my $0.02, seeing as my family definitely falls into the anti-vaccination camp. I had a discussion about this a few days after I got home for spring break. Despite the venom in his voice, my Dad did say I was clear to get vaccinations if I so wished. If he reverses this decision, it won't matter to me, I'll still have the shots. FTNZ, you might brace yourself for the stupid. 1. The "Personal Experience" Fallacy: I can't remember if this was the first one he said, it certainly was one of the first. Evidently, as a kid, both my brother and I got suck early in our injection process and it was enough for my parents to pull us. Because of a single "bad" reaction, my parents began to look it up and quickly found enough "research" that said that immunizations were BS for them to believe it. 2. The "Conspiracy" Fallacy: This one was a five-alarm stupid. Evidently, people make money off of these injections [something like $16 billion industry he said? No idea what his sources were], and there was some kind of government conspiracy. Somehow this tied to illegal immigrants coming across the border making all these illnesses that had dropped in rate of occurrence start to show up again. Evidently, he said, the solution was to close the border, not to keep immunizing people. I couldn't make this shit up. 3. The "Intelligence versus Debate" Fallacy: This one he's pulled in defense of his creationism over Evolution [i'll tell you guys about that one later]--evidently, because he, someone who never went to college, can debate and "win" [to be honest, I couldn't say if he won them fairly or simply argued them down] against someone with a degree and doctorate or whatever means that whatever they're debating over must therefore be false. Because reasons. Like I said, I couldn't make this shit up. 4. The "Inefficiency/Things Mankind Wasn't Meant to Know" Fallacy: I guess that putting things into your body is unnatural and shouldn't be done. Except for, you know, pacemakers. And metal pins. And everything. Except for immunizations, of course. That shit's just wrong, amirite? Yeah, this one is pretty stupid. As for inefficiency... Because you don't believe in evolution, I guess the whole idea of viruses changing every couple of years and requiring an updated shot goes over your head. Good times.
Thurisaz Posted March 20, 2015 Posted March 20, 2015 To be fair, there may well be some conspiracies among "big pharma"... only that this doesn't mean jack shit for the entirety of vaccination's history. But to an antivaxxer of course this will be ample "proof" that... you know.
Leo Posted March 20, 2015 Posted March 20, 2015 I love Seven77;s post. IMHO, the real Cretans are the ones with so little personal honor and integrity that they would rather claim that sufferers are making it up, maybe using some sort of sexed-up term like 'psychosomatic'. Owning what went wrong goes a lot further than does deferring the blame on to the victim. It seems all of us here are universal in our contention that the anti-vaxxers are wrong. However, many of these in the medical community are apparently totally ignorant of what many of us in different engineering communities know on a daily basis: What your users think of you *does* matter. Blaming my users for technical problems they run into would land me out of a job. And, IMHO, it should land me out of a job. It should land these types on the breadlines, too. It's this disconnect that the anti-vaxxers and other tinfool hat folks are leeching onto. So if fibromyalgia or some other problem is, as said, "not a thing," a real engineer that solves problems for a living would respond very differently than these have. Instead of claiming it's just not a thing, they're making it up, or some other claptrap, they;d say "We don't know yet." They'd have a set of characteristics that maybe they can't reproduce in the lab, or maybe they can, but they don't yet know the source. Perfectly respectable, if frustrating, answer. Only a despicable animal of a rape apologist would instead turn it back on the sufferer and claim it's not a thing. And when they do find out, do they apologize? No, because animals don't apologize for misconduct. My personal opinion is that a lot of tinfool hat folks can get swayed pretty easily, they're just dissatisfied with the system in question. When I said I'd "converted" some 9/11 truthers away from thinking there was an explosive inside the building, I didn't set out to prove the daddy State knows best. Ironically, I did some of what FTNZ has done here except obviously not a medical perspective. All the medical community has to do, IMHO, is fix the reputation, do the honorable thing and start admitting if they don't know, quit blaming the victim. And then, the tinfool hat marketers will lose their edge with a lot of people, tenuous as that edge probably is for many. 1
Thurisaz Posted March 21, 2015 Posted March 21, 2015 Leo I have to respectfully disagree. The medical community does know that antivaxxers are babbling bullshit, and nothing but bullshit. Now I don't claim to know The Way to get rid of them, to be fair. Direct confrontation will most probably not work though. I strongly suppose this shit has reached the level of tribalislm for them. They don't care about any evidence for any claim, they only check where the claim comes from. And as their crap puts lives in danger... something needs to be done. Whatever it is.
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