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You must have never heard an actual epidemiologist speak about the anti-vaccine fad because what you're describing is the opposite of my experience. The anti-va
by akiselev 10y ago
You must have never heard an actual epidemiologist speak about the anti-vaccine fad because what you're describing is the opposite of my experience. The anti-vaxxers get way more emotional, often falling to the "think of the children" default while ignoring decades of progress that have all but eliminated once fatal and life debilitating diseases from the developed world.
Vaccines, like any other medicine, have side effects and no doctor dispassionate on the issue will tell you otherwise. They will tell you that the side effects from smallpox, polio, measles, tuberculosis, tetanus, yellow fever, mumps, hepatitis B, meningitis, and many other diseases are so much worse and damaging. Even if you were to take all of the side effects anti-vaxxers claim vaccines cause and combine them for all vaccines, any one of these diseases have caused far more and worse suffering just in the 20th century.
Furthermore, there is good reason to be emotional. Anyone who doesn't vaccinate is a public health risk because they can become carriers that allow the pathogen to mutate and break herd immunity, risking the lives of everyone. With measles this has already happened in the last two decades and the CDC has conclusively traced all but one of them to an unvaccinated child. In each case, people previously vaccinated were infected by contact with someone who was not.
Please, vaccinate your child. The worst possible side effects from all of the vaccines put together pale in comparison to the damage these very preventable diseases can do and have already done to our society.
- artursapek 10y ago> Please, vaccinate your child. The worst possible side effects from all of the vaccines put together pale in comparison to the damage these very preventable diseases can do and have already done to our society. Between my wife and I, I have been the one more open minded to doing it or not. We may end up vaccinating him. But for now we're exercising a lot of caution because it's not something that can be undone, and there are reasons to be skeptical about the quality of vaccines and the honesty of the industry that pushes them. Edit: are people getting pleasure out of downvoting me? Am I not contributing to the discussion, whether or not you disagree with me?
- davidw 10y agoYou might as well be "contributing to the discussion" of whether the world is round or not. You'r not a scientist nor a doctor, so you don't have any firsthand knowledge.
- artursapek 10y agoNo I am not - but our pediatrician is.
- archgoon 10y agoThen have him contribute rather than play a game of telephone.
- dpark 10y agoClearly not. It's utterly unacceptable that a pediatrician would recommend against routine vaccinations. Yes, some children end up having reactions (not autism). No, the risks of those reactions are not worse than the risks of the diseases the vaccinations prevent.
- fwn 10y agobasically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority combined with a wobbly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum edit: sooo, why the downvotes? You see that this is exactly what he did, right? That topic seems so boiled up, reasonable, therefore non-faulty discussion doesn't even appear to be a goal.
- chimprich 10y agoThere's nothing wrong with an argument from authority - the problem with such an argument is when the expert is being cited from outside their sphere of expertise, for example. In this case the experts in the field are in agreement with a very strong scientific consensus based on a very solid body of data.
- unclebucknasty 10y agoWhat you're saying is true...the benefits of vaccination generally outweigh the risks. But, this shouldn't lead to the complete discrediting of concern over the risk, as is often the case. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that you're doing so here. Likewise, it shouldn't lead to a blind allegiance to a mandatory vaccine schedule, irrespective of what new vaccine pops up on it. That is, the risk-benefit equation should be evaluated per vaccine, not per the schedule as a whole.
- Nursie 10y agoThe benefits massively outweigh the risks for common childhood vaccines. Yes, risks should be honestly assessed, both for individual vaccines and the whole schedule. Yes, there exist vaccines which have questionable benefit, and there exist vaccines with higher risks that only make sense in certain situations. None of this detracts from the abject denial of reality that is embodied in someone who has decided not to vaccinate their kids at all...
- unclebucknasty 10y ago>None of this detracts from the abject denial of reality that is embodied in someone who has decided not to vaccinate their kids at all I didn't suggest that it should comprise an argument for an automatic rejection of all vaccines. Quite the opposite, actually. But, if you acknowledge that some vaccines have questionable benefit and higher risks that don't make sense for all, then it begs the question: who decides? Seems to me parents should have discretion there. Now, it comes down to whether you agree with their tolerance for risk. To be clear, I think vaccines are mostly wonderful. I just don't think it's my place to go around thumping people on the head about the choices they make for their own children.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoIt is your place when your life or the life of your children or family is dependent on "the choices [other people] make for their own children,"