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Anti-vax movement effectively reversing decades of progress internationally
- rahuldottech 7y agoFull title: The anti-vax movement is effectively reversing decades of progress in disease prevention. WHO no longer consider measles to be eradicated in the UK, Albania, Czech Republic, and Greece.
- sgjohnson 7y agoAm I the only one who doesn't actually care what anti-vaxxers do? It's their purpose of life and happiness. If they want to die from easily preventable diseases, who am I to tell them otherwise.
- mattherman 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
- paulddraper 7y agoSure. That general principal for any number of partially or fully controllable diseases. But how far does that go? How much can I assert control over general sexual behavior because I want to contain AIDS?
- conjectures 7y agoIt's called herd immunity, and they're undermining it.
- ScottFree 7y agoAre they, though? I was under the impression anti-vaxxers are a tiny minority of mostly crazy people. Do we have hard numbers of the number of kids not getting vaccinated?
- teh_klev 7y agoFollow the links in the article. For example: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/19/mmr-vaccine-one-in-seven-five-year-olds-in-england-may-not-be-immunised https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/19/mmr-vaccine-... The figures are sourced from Public Health England which is part of the UK Government. Also in the article: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/29/lives-at-risk-from-surge-in-measles-across-europe-experts-warn https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/29/lives-at-ris... Data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed nearly 90,000 cases and 37 deaths were reported across 48 of the 53 countries in the WHO European region in the first six months of 2019. The data is coming from reputable sources. > mostly crazy people Sadly there's plenty of non-crazy parents who've spent far too much time believing the conspiracy theories and rubbish that originated from Andrew Wakefield's[0] bogus claims. I have a friend who's grandchildren haven't yet been vaccinated because their parents believe this rubbish. These are not crazy people. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
- bryanlarsen 7y agoAsk the parent of a premature baby, or a child on chemotherapy or immuno-compromised in some other fashion. The rage of a mother bear is comparable.
- danzig13 7y agoThe problem is that vaccines are not 100% effective even on people that receive them so that group of people could still get the disease and now there is a percentage of people not getting the vaccines at all and creating a greater opportunity for exposure.
- perspective1 7y agoIgnoring the herd immunity benefit for the moment, most anti-vaxxers are making the decision for their innocent kids and not themselves.
- mikelyons 7y agobut notice they only do it for their kids out of selfishness
- seanhunter 7y agoThe problem is this reduces herd immunity and radically increases risk to people who for medical reasons are at high risk already and can't have vaccines for one reason or another.
- verisimilidude 7y agoThey are making these choices on behalf of kids. So it's not just their own life and happiness. As others have already mentioned it also reduces herd immunity that's needed to protect people who cannot get the vaccine for legit medical reasons: allergy, cancer treatment, recent coma, etc.
- topologistics 7y agoDividing the issue into pro-vax and anti-vax spreads FUD and obscures the real problems: what preservatives are in the vaccines, what growth medium proteins are in the vaccines due to improper filtering and poor manufacturing processes, how many vaccines are administered at what age, and what all of that that has to do vaccines harming kids (which happens all the time)... bring up any of these issues and you'll be attacked as an antivaxxer who's trying to send us back to the stone age.
- larrik 7y agoI think the fact that we need to portray vaccines as essentially infallable in order to combat the insanity of the anti-vax movement is indeed very dangerous and worrisome. There's so much nonsense to combat that having an actual conversation is impossible. After all, vaccines aren't risk-free, but they don't cause autism.
- Latty 7y agoThis is one of these things that is technically true, but still misleading. Nothing is risk-free. Eating food has risk, taking paracetamol has risk, getting blood drawn has risk. Saying something has risk without talking about the amount of risk and the context of the risks it mitigates is pointless. Vaccines introduce negligible amounts of risk. Giving your child a peanut or taking them for a drive is much riskier, and we almost all do those things without a second thought. By contrast, they mitigate huge risks: the diseases we vaccinate against can, did and do cause horrific harm up to and including death, and do so very well. Vaccines are not immune to criticism, it is just they have weathered all the reasonable criticism leveled at them. If you are willing to put your child in a car, giving them a vaccine should be a complete non-issue for you.
- aldoushuxley001 7y agoYup, some conversations you’re just not allowed to have. Same with discussing the degree to which humans are contributing to climate change.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
- bitwize 7y agoInb4 some hackernews claims to have gotten the tism from vaccines, and been cured by the Cutler Protocol.
- paulddraper 7y agoWeirdest intro I've seen all week > It is a coincidence that the news broke the day after Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, provoked widespread outrage by proroguing parliament. It's not a coincidence; it's just something completely unrelated.
- dev_dull 7y agoThis is the age of confirmation bias. Something bad happening? It’s because is your political opponents and policies you disagree with.
- matthewfelgate 7y agoAlso the UK government is explicitly pro-vaccination.
- DoingIsLearning 7y agoI will write the same comment I wrote on the reddit thread. I think calling it a 'movement' is part of the problem. We as a society allow this discourse which gives it a legitimacy that it simply should not have. The most immediate consequence of this is that suddenly journalists are forced to entertain vacine ignorance as a 'valid' or defensable viewpoint to pretend that we have both sides of the 'argument'. It's 2019, there is no argument to be had, stop trying to be respectful, entertaining this is a public health threat.
- boomlinde 7y ago> I think calling it a 'movement' is part of the problem. We as a society allow this discourse which gives it a legitimacy that it simply should not have. But it is a movement. That it is has nothing to do with the legitimacy of their goals and ideas. We haven't elevated it by calling it a movement. That we call a spade a spade doesn't imply respect. > The most immediate consequence of this is that suddenly journalists are forced to entertain vacine ignorance as a 'valid' or defensable viewpoint to pretend that we have both sides of the 'argument'. What is the basis for saying that this is a consequence of calling it a movement?
- AstralStorm 7y agoLet's pick up the good old reductio ad Hitlerium. Neonazis are also a movement, but nobody thinks even a split second of giving them platform to spread their ideas. Views that kill people are rightly prohibited. What will be next, an anti-seatbelt league?
- boomlinde 7y ago> Neonazis are also a movement, but nobody thinks even a split second of giving them platform to spread their ideas. Hence no one has taken the word "movement" in that case to imply respect and legitimacy. Why should you?
- DoingIsLearning 7y ago
- perspective1 7y agoIt's so bizarre seeing measles come back. It's like some terrible thing out of Jurassic Park, "life finds a way."
- thecleaner 7y agoWell I guess the antivaxers will be eradicated before the diseases.
- statguy 7y agoUnfortunately, they will end "eradicating" some sane people as well....