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For that argument to work, people need to change their focus from individual to social welfare. The current political direction in pretty much all first world

by rscho 8y ago

For that argument to work, people need to change their focus from individual to social welfare. The current political direction in pretty much all first world countries pushes in the exact opposite way. Hence the return of preventable disease. That's the real question. Should we allow people a choice or establish dictatorship in important social issues? And who will decide what's worthy of consideration?

jsmeaton 8y ago
You’re right, a lot of the sentiment I hear is “what are you worried about if your kids are vaccinated?”. I’m not particularly worried about my kids. There are going to be a bunch of teenagers getting diseases from the period where the misinformation was doing the rounds without the debunking being so prevalent.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  The worst thing is that in the US the teenagers can't even sneak out to the physician without their parents noticing because health insurance is structured that way. That's part of the wider problem that teenagers in the US are far too supervised and confined. Consider mumps: entirely preventable through a vaccine and 10 % chance of infertility if you are male and past puberty. You'd really like to hand out case photographs to the parents to show what testicular inflammation in adults looks like.
komali2 8y ago
If the community decides a community law together, is that dictatorship? I feel like no.
- hndamien 8y ago
  Should the community have the right to decide what is put into my body? I'm pro-vaccination, but this line of reason leads to some pretty disturbing places.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Yes, absolutely. It should be allowed to determine what vaccinations are required to be a member of that community. Maybe one day you can get a vaccine without an injection, would that be less disturbing? It only disturbs me if you aren't allowed to leave if you disagree. Vaccines are good for humanity. Handwringing around body rights or religion or something don't make any impression at all on me.
    - hndamien 8y ago
      Being allowed to leave makes a big difference. However, not voluntarily choosing to be part of that community also makes a difference. Also, most vaccinations occur at the behest of the guardian and not the individual (which is entirely appropriate). For example, say you (and your guardian) were born into a community (a religious state for example) that believed circumcision was required to be a citizen due to its effectiveness warding off disease. You believe it is ok for the state actor to force everybody to be circumcised so long as when the time comes, there is an option to leave the country? The only way I see this as being reasonable is if there is a country that they can go to, and there is no cost incurred the process.
      - komali2 8y ago
        Your example is false equivalence - circumcision is harmful, vaccines are not.
        hndamien 8y ago
        It isn’t a false equivalence since they both violate body rights. You cannot say that all vaccines are not harmful because you cannot speak for future injections. Many people actually believe circumcision isn’t harmful, and the belief is what matters. The WHO actually has a page specifically for dealing with adverse effects of vaccinations. http://vaccine-safety-training.org/immunization-error-related-reaction.html http://vaccine-safety-training.org/immunization-error-relate... Then you have cases like Thalidomide that were medical tragedies, although not vaccine related, we conducted with the best of medical intention. The question is not are vaccines statistically beneficial (they are). It is not, does medicine have a 100% hit rate at not causing adverse effects (it doesn’t and that is ok). The question is, are you violating somebodies body rights by forcing them to undergo a potentially harmful procedure without their consent. Yes, you would be. This is why we don’t force this today.
dmurray 8y ago
The measles vaccine is pretty safe and vaccinating your kid is probably good for the individual (it's definitely good for the society). There are more interesting cases where the vaccine is harmful or risky, like the smallpox vaccine. You can construct a scenario where the rational thing for any individual is to opt out of the vaccine if enough of his peers are vaccinated to reduce the risk of an epidemic, but the herd immunity is valuable enough that on the whole, vaccinating everyone improves public health. In that case, should researchers play down the downsides of the vaccine? Should the state play them down? Should doctors recommend vaccination even if statistically speaking it is bad for the health of the individual? Note I don't believe this is the situation with any diseases right now: the measles vaccine is safe enough that vaccination is good for the individual, smallpox vaccination would no longer be good for the herd. However, it's an important hypothetical.

by rscho 8y ago

jsmeaton 8y ago

You’re right, a lot of the sentiment I hear is “what are you worried about if your kids are vaccinated?”. I’m not particularly worried about my kids. There are going to be a bunch of teenagers getting diseases from the period where the misinformation was doing the rounds without the debunking being so prevalent.

HarryHirsch 8y ago
The worst thing is that in the US the teenagers can't even sneak out to the physician without their parents noticing because health insurance is structured that way. That's part of the wider problem that teenagers in the US are far too supervised and confined. Consider mumps: entirely preventable through a vaccine and 10 % chance of infertility if you are male and past puberty. You'd really like to hand out case photographs to the parents to show what testicular inflammation in adults looks like.

komali2 8y ago

If the community decides a community law together, is that dictatorship? I feel like no.

hndamien 8y ago
Should the community have the right to decide what is put into my body? I'm pro-vaccination, but this line of reason leads to some pretty disturbing places.
- komali2 8y ago
  Yes, absolutely. It should be allowed to determine what vaccinations are required to be a member of that community. Maybe one day you can get a vaccine without an injection, would that be less disturbing? It only disturbs me if you aren't allowed to leave if you disagree. Vaccines are good for humanity. Handwringing around body rights or religion or something don't make any impression at all on me.
  - hndamien 8y ago
    Being allowed to leave makes a big difference. However, not voluntarily choosing to be part of that community also makes a difference. Also, most vaccinations occur at the behest of the guardian and not the individual (which is entirely appropriate). For example, say you (and your guardian) were born into a community (a religious state for example) that believed circumcision was required to be a citizen due to its effectiveness warding off disease. You believe it is ok for the state actor to force everybody to be circumcised so long as when the time comes, there is an option to leave the country? The only way I see this as being reasonable is if there is a country that they can go to, and there is no cost incurred the process.
    - komali2 8y ago
      Your example is false equivalence - circumcision is harmful, vaccines are not.
      - hndamien 8y ago
        It isn’t a false equivalence since they both violate body rights. You cannot say that all vaccines are not harmful because you cannot speak for future injections. Many people actually believe circumcision isn’t harmful, and the belief is what matters. The WHO actually has a page specifically for dealing with adverse effects of vaccinations. http://vaccine-safety-training.org/immunization-error-related-reaction.html http://vaccine-safety-training.org/immunization-error-relate... Then you have cases like Thalidomide that were medical tragedies, although not vaccine related, we conducted with the best of medical intention. The question is not are vaccines statistically beneficial (they are). It is not, does medicine have a 100% hit rate at not causing adverse effects (it doesn’t and that is ok). The question is, are you violating somebodies body rights by forcing them to undergo a potentially harmful procedure without their consent. Yes, you would be. This is why we don’t force this today.

dmurray 8y ago

The measles vaccine is pretty safe and vaccinating your kid is probably good for the individual (it's definitely good for the society). There are more interesting cases where the vaccine is harmful or risky, like the smallpox vaccine. You can construct a scenario where the rational thing for any individual is to opt out of the vaccine if enough of his peers are vaccinated to reduce the risk of an epidemic, but the herd immunity is valuable enough that on the whole, vaccinating everyone improves public health. In that case, should researchers play down the downsides of the vaccine? Should the state play them down? Should doctors recommend vaccination even if statistically speaking it is bad for the health of the individual? Note I don't believe this is the situation with any diseases right now: the measles vaccine is safe enough that vaccination is good for the individual, smallpox vaccination would no longer be good for the herd. However, it's an important hypothetical.