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Teen Gets Vaccines During Measles Outbreak, Despite Mom's Belief
- gnicholas 8y agoI have a Facebook friend who is fairly active in the anti-vaccine community. I don’t know much about the science, but the one thing she has posted that has concerned me is that insurers pay doctors significant sums (tens of thousands) if the super-majority or their patients are vaccinated on a certain schedule. She has posted printouts that allege this, and I’ve not seen any arguments that dispute this claim (there are lots of people disputing other claims of hers, just not this one). Does anyone know if this is true? It resonated with me because when we were vaccinating our baby, we asked if we could slow down the vaccination schedule and spread out the shots a little. The doctor was very strongly against any spacing, even though she couldn’t articulate why. If she’s being measured/compensated based on having patients vaccinated on-schedule as my friend claims is the case, this would explain her reaction. Note: we fully vaccinated our child, despite her having an adverse reaction to the chicken pox vaccine (which we never had as kids, since at that time everyone just got the chicken pox).
- gwbas1c 8y agoCompletely false. Doctors push vaccines because they work very well, and don't want to see you get sick. (I married a pediatrician.) Any financial incentives that exist are because insurance companies are incentivised to have everyone vaccinated for very obvious reasons. If you don't understand what the obvious reasons are, think about how much it costs to take care of someone hospitalized, versus the cost of a shot.
- kingnight 8y agoHaving taken schedules of medicine myself, what resonates with me is the balance between strength and consistency of whatever the medicine is supposed to do. Think about alleviating pain. You want to take as much pain reliever as you can to take effect but not too much at once to overdo it, but you should continue over period of hours to sustain its fever / pain reducing effect.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Confiks 8y agoSounds like general doctor's resistance against picking another schedule, even if it can't be articulated well. See [1] for considerations among pediatricians. Insurance companies may indeed pay more or less for 'well designed' vaccinations programs, and may incentivize vaccination in general in some locales as a long-term cost reduction program [2]. [1] https://seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org/pediatricians-conditional-comfort-with-alternative-vaccine-schedules/ https://seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org/pediatricians-co... [2] https://vaxopedia.org/2017/09/24/that-3-million-vaccine-bonus-for-pediatricians/ https://vaxopedia.org/2017/09/24/that-3-million-vaccine-bonu...
- c22 8y agoFor what it's worth, I typed "vaccination schedule rationale" into a search engine and received many interesting results, several which did not seem to have been paid for by the insurance industry.
- brownbat 8y agoFinancial incentives don't make something automatically wrong. Google provides this explanation about a Blue Cross incentive program similar to what you describe that sounds modest, benign, and completely justified: https://vaxopedia.org/2017/09/24/that-3-million-vaccine-bonus-for-pediatricians/ https://vaxopedia.org/2017/09/24/that-3-million-vaccine-bonu... My insurance program gives incentives for people to achieve a healthy weight, quit smoking, and get regular checkups. I understand the financial incentives, but presumably a couple people in the firm think they might be helping people too. Even insurers can't be sinister all the time.
- JshWright 8y agoI'm happy to believe they're sinister 100% of the time. What they clearly aren't is stupid. If they are spending money to incentivize behavior, it's because that is in their financial best interest. In this case, it just so happens that their best interest (not wanting to pay for care) aligns with mine (not wanting any more care than I have to have).
- tssva 8y agoI don't know if this is true or not but either way why would anyone want to refute this? Insurance companies paying doctors to make sure patients are vaccinated according to the recommended schedule is a ringing endorsement of vaccination. Insurance companies would in effect be saying with their wallet that vaccinations are safe and effective. Effective enough that paying doctors ten's of thousands is cheaper than paying for the increased costs of care resulting from a significant number of patients not being vaccinated. Since insurance companies would also bear a significant part of the cost of care for patients that were negatively affected by vaccines, this also implies that the rate of and impact of negative effects from vaccination are low.
- JshWright 8y agoThere are lots of examples of programs where payers (insurance companies, medicare, etc) pay doctors who are meeting various measures. This could be anything form ensuring patients who are at risk for various diseases (cancer, diabetes, etc) get screened for those diseases, to making sure high blood pressure is well controlled, to making sure patients are getting vaccinated. Check out CPC+ as just one example. There is nothing inherently bad about these incentive models (they are trying to address a number of issues with the current fee-for-service model). If anything, they are proof of the efficacy of these actions. The "evil" insurance company's primary goal is spending less money on care, so if they're willing to pay doctors to vaccinate at the recommended rate, then clearly it's in their financial interest to do so (i.e. vaccinated patients cost the insurance company less money, which is a pretty good proxy for "vaccinated patients have fewer health issues"). Can you articulate why you would want to "slow down" the vaccination schedule? The current guidelines are based on a significant body of research. What evidence are you basing your decision on?
- blackoil 8y agoThis should be a pro-vaccination point. Insurance companies can only be benefited from this if they make short/long term return on it. i.e. people fall less sick reducing insurance claim. Isn't this what vaccines are for? Or, is there some theory that companies are in bed with NSA/Illuminati to make the world impotent?
- wvenable 8y agoThe US is not the only country in the world -- all my vaccinations were free and there was no profit motive built into the system for it.
- JshWright 8y agoPresumably your physician was still paid, and there are plenty of programs in various countries that compensate physicians for following best practices like this (this is generally a good thing).
- wvenable 8y agoMy physician is paid for any sort of checkup. I'm sure every one of them would happily poison their patients for the visit fee. /s
- HillRat 8y agoThe CDC schedule is designed to minimize the risk of infants contracting preventable diseases during periods when they are highly vulnerable. In addition, clinical research and experience is based on the recommended schedule, so once you’re off the schedule you’re in terra incognita. Since research hasn’t shown any clinical benefit to going off-schedule, and because of infants’ extreme vulnerability, pediatricians aren’t generallly going to volunteer to change vaccination frequency, as it would contravene the patient’s best interests (medically speaking). As far as payers are concerned, your insurance may incentivize certain physicians based on overall (covered) patient immunization rates; this isn’t anything new, going back at least a few decades. From the insurance perspective, immunizations are a financial firewall — vaccinated kids means fewer seriously ill (read: expensive) kids. However, there’s no evidence that financial incentives materially change vaccination rates, just the quality of documentation (less of an issue with EMRs these days).
- mindslight 8y ago> we asked if we could slow down the vaccination schedule and spread out the shots a little. The doctor was very strongly against any spacing, even though she couldn’t articulate why You aren't wrong to question, because most professionals seem to just apply a rubric deductively rather than spending thought analyzing every situation. But if you would seriously like to understand / check her advice, then you need to do research on this specific subject and come up with your own informed opinion. Likely there is some debate in the medical community on timing, and the doctor either made that decision and doesn't seem the need to revisit it or is simply following a colleague. What you can't do is take her lack of explanation as if she's hiding something, and then backpropagate and conclude that she must be doing it for nefarious reasons. That is essentially equating laziness with malice.
- gnicholas 8y ago> What you can't do is take her lack of explanation as if she's hiding something, and then backpropagate and conclude that she must be doing it for nefarious reasons. That is essentially equating laziness with malice Note that I didn't do that. I asked a question, which is whether anyone has information on whether such payments are made.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- colemickens 8y agoThis is what I hate the most about this anti-vax thing. They've gotten so much publicity and are so wide-spread, that even people who know vaccines don't cause autism, wind up getting trapped into this game where they think they have to compromise for the anti-vax viewpoint. All they have to do is throw handwavey bullshit out there until enough people doubt and do stupid made-up stuff like spacing out the vaccines for some unknown, unmeasurable benefit. There are people in my state, in the "best country on Earth", dying from preventable diseases because of OTHER PEOPLES' pseudo-scientific crap and "beliefs". I just can't take it. When are we going to drop what we're doing and pour the billions we need into public education? - funding, reform, curriculum, emphasis on personal finance and logical reasoning skills. Pick a topic - climate change, flat earth, vaccines/autism, all of this irrationality starts with education. Also, insurance companies go out of their way to incentivize and encourage proactive health measures, especially for younger groups; given all credible scientific research and data, and barring some other weird conspiracy, it seems reasonable to think they're encouraging vaccines because they keep people from getting preventable diseases and suffering miserable deaths.
- brandonmenc 8y ago> When are we going to drop what we're doing and pour the billions we need into public education? Anecdotal, but most of the anti-vaxxers I know are relatively highly educated.
- tphan 8y agoAnti-vaccination isn't exclusively an American phenomenon. It just seems like it because most commenters would be Americans or foreigners who live in bubbles. I remember in high school in Australia about a decade ago, there was one kid who was said innoculations were akin to "injecting garbage into your bloodstream". I also frequently give blood in Australia and there are also more and more warnings about measles and stuff (interestingly regarding neighbourhoods that tend to vote very progressive). Anecdotal evidence, however!
- madhadron 8y agoI've heard the spacing idea from a number of people, saying it's somehow easier on the kid's system. It doesn't really work that way. All you do by spacing it out is take your kid to the doctor's office to be jabbed by needles more times than necessary and expose them for longer to preventable diseases.
- brandonmenc 8y ago> chicken pox vaccine (which we never had as kids, since at that time everyone just got the chicken pox) If you get chicken pox, your chances of getting shingles later in life is much higher. It is not pleasant. Also, chicken pox can be deadly. That's why we have a vaccine now.
- tomrod 8y agoHerd immunity is immensely important and an underrated benefity in modern society. We lived near a large religious community in Ohio that does not practice vaccination while my children were too small to be fully vaccinated. Whenever measles or other outbreaks would occur, we had legitimate fears for our children's health. I wonder if the benefits of non-compliance were offset with more certain negative impacts if more people would be vaccinated. Something like a tax levied for not being vaccinated set at compensating the ongoing care for people who can't (rather than choose to not) be vaccinated and get sick with things herd immunity would prevent.
- ajmurmann 8y agoI'm terrified by the idea that people like that are allowed to indoctrinate children's mins from early age on. Just because a child had the misfortune to be born to a crazy person shouldn't allow them to mess them up for good.
- mikekchar 8y agoI don't know what the rules are for medicine, etc, but for education here in Japan teachers often trump parents. When I was working at the high school here, I can't tell you the number of times parents were brought in so that the teachers could yell at them for doing a poor job. The teachers even go to the house to ensure that the home environment is acceptable for the child. Personally, I like the system and if I had kids I would happily raise them here. However, I've talked to many expat parents who despise it and believe that the state should never be able to tell them how to raise their children. There are good arguments on both sides and probably there are balance points where it mostly works (and sometimes fails spectacularly) all across the spectrum.
- acomjean 8y agoThere is an currently an outbreak of Measles in Washington. Yet the anti-vaxers are still out in force, against any move by the government requiring vaxination.[1] People with children too young to be vacinated are running scared[2]. its odd. I really wonder sometimes what is driving the anti vax movement. It seems like something that exists with nothing for anyone to gain. I'm all for questioning things, but it seems people aren't able to make the rational decisions and are endangering others. [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/08/washington-measles-outbreak-draws-crowd-hearing-vaccine-law https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/08/washington-... [2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it-will-take-off-like-a-wildfire-the-unique-dangers-of-the-washington-state-measles-outbreak/2019/02/06/cfd5088a-28fa-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it-wi...
- gottalaugh 8y agoand now he has autism
- scintill76 8y ago> "God knows how I'm still alive," Lindenberger wrote on Reddit last November. Seems a bit over-dramatic. "Thank God" for the good luck would make more sense if he wants to say something along these lines; it's not like he defied astronomical odds. Millions of people in poor countries are still surviving without vaccination. Living in Ohio, he also benefits from sanitation and the majority of the community being vaccinated. That last bit is part of the problem -- people see "nobody" is sick anymore and think vaccines aren't needed.
- imgabe 8y agoI think the only way to fix this is to create a counter-conspiracy theory. Maybe something like "the anti-vax movement was started by the lizard people to weed out the weakest people so they'd only have the healthiest slaves in their salt mines" The CDC putting out notices isn't going to help. That just feeds into the rejection of authority at the heart of it. The only hope is to out-crazy them.
- xvilka 8y agoJust put the big fines on anti-vaxers and force them to vaccinate anyway (unless there are medical reasons of course). The only missing piece is a political will.
- petronio 8y agoYeah, I'm waiting to see if when a child dies due to a disease that could've been vaccinated against but parents refused if a state prosecutor will try to slap them with criminal negligent homicide. I guess that will be the real test.
- madhadron 8y agoI've seen a similar case. A kung fu instructor in New Jersey who didn't believe in the germ theory let his kid die of appendicitis instead of taking him to the hospital. Last I heard he was facing some pretty serious charges. I don't remember the final outcome, since I kind of disappeared from that circle.
- myth_drannon 8y agoIs it from Ron Hubbard novel?
- Spooky23 8y agoIt’s a complex issue. It’s a mix of crazy people and politically powerful religious groups. You’ll never crack the religious people as communities that push this crap isolate people.
- itissid 8y agoWhat I am really scared of is mutation of certain disease due to a lack of heard immunity. I thought it was logical that mutation of certain viruses poses a threat, even to vaccinated people within the heard, in a population where heard immunity is compromised?
- true_tuna 8y agoThis should explicitly be allowed under the law. Right now parents can exempt their children from lifesaving vaccines. Kids should be allowed to override that.
- loeg 8y agoMore broadly, kids should have some basic rights to self-determination well before 18. In the US, kids have astonishingly few rights.
- cannabis_sam 8y agoThis is the real age discrimination issue in society. Children get harmed with no recourse, while the adults responsible go free.
- mnm1 8y agoBasically parents are allowed to let their children die this way and this way only. If they let them starve or without shelter, cps comes. Seems like a strange exception in our laws to allow a parent's stupidity and idiocy to kill their child. It also seems so out of place in a society that is so obsessed with controlling children's every move 24/7/365 till they are adults and beyond.
- driverdan 8y agoRefusing to vaccinate children should be considered abuse and endangerment. Other than some rare health conditions there are zero legitimate reasons to not vaccinate.
- loeg 8y agoIt certainly seems like CPS takes kids away from their parents for less already (e.g., independent play or travel).
- BooneJS 8y agoBack in my day, the rebels just got tattoos when they were old enough. Maybe this generation will survive.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jayalpha 8y agoIt is useless to talk to such people. You are using the scientific framework, they are not. Trust me, I tried. Funny thing on the side: Since a vaccination is rarely 100% effective but most people in the western world are vaccinated, more vaccinated people get sick than not vaccinated people. :-)
- darkpuma 8y ago> "It is useless to talk to such people. You are using the scientific framework, they are not. Trust me, I tried." It's possible to get through to these people if you're willing to argue in terms they understand, which means dropping "scientific framework". You might be unwilling to do that, but if you can stomach it, it works. Constructing persuasive irrational arguments for positions that are correct takes some practice, but it's not exactly difficult.
- jayalpha 8y agoGood luck. https://qz.com/1258198/conspiracy-theorists-believe-wild-ideas-because-they-want-to-feel-special/ https://qz.com/1258198/conspiracy-theorists-believe-wild-ide... "It's possible to get through to these people if you're willing to argue in terms they understand" No, because they would lose their feeling of superiority. On what kind of basis do you want to discuss with them? If you present a fact they will just say: "We don't believe this!" If you present scientific evidence they will say: "We don't accept this! This is not proof! We want proof". "Proof" is something that is not not inherent in the scientific method, requiring it shows a total lack of understanding of science.
- darkpuma 8y ago> No, because they would lose their feeling of superiority. Perhaps you've never gotten the hang of it, but it's possible to persuade people in ways that lead them to believe your idea was theirs. Learning this skill will improve your life, because most people you will encounter on your journey through life are not Spock impersonators.
- fixvzbdjzis 8y agoAt first I thought the teen was underage. He isn’t. So, really, “adult gets vaccinated for all the stuff crazy-mom didn’t” An “it’s a wonder I’m still alive” suggests that his mother’s inability to judge risk is inheritable.
- crimsonalucard 8y agoI'm really close to my mom. The difference between us is that I'm a militant atheist (not agnostic, there is a logical reason for that but it's off topic) and she's a hard core jehovahs witness. Imagine the conversations we have.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoMeasles is incredibly bad. What people have found is that the introduction of measles vaccination in a country inevitably leads to a significant decrease in all cause mortality, which doesn't seem to be explained by a reduction in measles cases alone. It has long been known that those recovering from the measles are effectively in an immunocompromised state for several weeks, there is now increasing research pointing to the measles basically knocking out existing acquired immunity and resetting a person back into an immunologically naive state. This "immune shadow" then leaves individuals vulnerable to secondary infections (flu, rotavirus, etc.) which take their own toll and show up in different columns in the statistics down the road. Additionally, a very rare form of encephalitis can develop up to a decade after having the measles and is invariably fatal. Get vaccinated.
- alexozer 8y agoI don't get it. If you don't feed your child, it's child abuse. Why is not providing vaccines any different? Why isn't this something you can make a CPS neglect case out of?
- surfsvammel 8y agoAs one who cannot get some vaccine shots. I am ever thankful to those that do.
- tu7001 8y agoThe only, who are in charge (up to some law cases) in their child health are its parents; if they decide to vaccine or not it's their beef, not ours.