8 ms·

I saw a kid with polio deformed legs a few months ago. Something that I have never seen while the immunization calendar was state mandated and I was young. I h

I saw a kid with polio deformed legs a few months ago. Something that I have never seen while the immunization calendar was state mandated and I was young. I have also never seen a case of autism. In a few years we will have outbreak of something preventable. I just feel poor for all the kids that had real reasons not to get the shots. A friend of mine after very bad Hodgkin was with compromised immune system for 10 years. He was constantly sick and popping antibiotics like tic-tacs. If the herd immunity was not so strong he would have been dead. The stuff we vaccinate against is not harmless. I would also recommend Ben Goldacre's "bad science" where he makes one of the best analysis of the MMR scare insanity and its origins and development. It is mostly the media's fault.

robbiep 13y ago
in a few years there will be an outbreak of something preventable There's an outbreak of preventable childhood measles in England at this very moment
- dtf 13y ago
  I think it's south Wales that copped the worst of it. 1,219 cases of measles, 88 hospitalisations and one death. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-23168519 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-23168519 National newspapers are very much involved. Journalists like to present two sides of the story as equal rivals for "balance", even when one side is science and the other is paranoid quackery. When it comes to public health, this is a disaster.
  - dhughes 13y ago
    A family from my region went on a trip to Wales and both kids contracted measles and were sick when they returned. When the children were young the parents never had them vaccinated and now they're sick. It was just sheer luck this happened when school was out, the school system here doesn't require kids to be vaccinated as most places in Canada require. It's so easy for a stupid thing to escalate into a world-wide event all because of a few anti-vaccination idiots.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  Same thing in the Netherlands. No surprise: all in the Bible Belt. This is a map of the Dutch Bible Belt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_%28Netherlands%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_%28Netherlands%29 , and this is a map of the epidemic: http://www.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ANP-23877900-568x500.jpg http://www.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ANP-23877900-56... And just for clarity: these are areas with a low population density.
  - Steuard 13y ago
    At least in the US, my impression is that vaccination refusal is more common among left-wing anti-corporate types than among fundamentalist Christians. It thrives any time there are non-rational beliefs, but it doesn't seem to be too picky about which kind.
    - pkennedy 13y ago
      One of the current big US measles outbreaks is church-related: http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-center-of-measles-outbreak http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-... My anecdotal experience among anti-vaccination people I've known is that they're only weakly correlated with religion or politics--leaning slightly left but still all over the map.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        It is a conspiracy thing. Left or right wing conspiracy-minded people adopt it. Some people replace vaccines with "faith healing", others replace it with new-age shit.
        pkennedy 13y ago
        That makes sense. All of the above run strong in the rather new-agey community I grew up in.
        fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Did the antivaccination craze reach the UK too?
  - anon1385 13y ago
    It started in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
  - misnome 13y ago
    We had our very own, home-grown craze! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      Yaaay!
TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
+1 for Bad Science, that book is amazing! Not only in this respect; it covers many topics really, really well. Everyone should have read it.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Bad Pharma too, also by Goldacre.
jsingleton 13y ago
His blog (http://www.badscience.net http://www.badscience.net) is also very good and he writes for the Guardian.
up_and_up 13y ago
> I have also never seen a case of autism. Not sure where you live. There are two kids with autism on my block. Both young boys. Autism is a common disease where I live in the midwest. We have 3 large organizations that only work with Autistic kids. My wife and I have 3 kids and vaccinate them selectively on our own schedule. We vaccinate our kids for the same things that we received as children, nothing more and nothing less. > The stuff we vaccinate against is not harmless. Our medical system wants to vaccinate for everything now, chicken pox etc.
- minikites 13y ago
  Why not vaccinate for chickenpox? Helps reduce chance of scarring and reduces the chance for shingles. When I was a kid I gave chicken pox to my mom who got super sick. It would have been nice to have a vaccine back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine I'm surprised at the number of comments on a tech site showing fear of technology.
  - brown9-2 13y ago
    As an adult who had shingles, allow me to add that you definitely do not want shingles and it is not as benign as most of us remember childhood chicken pox as.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    It isn't so much a fear of technology, as a distrust of the authorities. Like the author said, some of it has a rational basis, and some does not. I know vaccines usually work, and are mostly safe. I remain very skeptical though for several reasons including: The difficulty of proving vaccine injury, and inadequate remedies. The business incentives caused by the NVCIA[1] (no fault vaccine court). Personal experience with doctors, pediatricians, and other medical professionals. The lack of credible statistics for vaccine adverse reactions. It is nearly impossible to find authorities on the subject who can calmly and rationally explain the risks and benefits, and help you evaluate the risk properly. It is also nearly impossible to find objective impartial information from any source. The "debate" on the subject is very polarized. Skepticism is often treated as heresy or idiocy. We still vaccinate our children, but not for everything[2], and not always on schedule. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj... [2] We delayed the HEP-B at birth and opted not to take the rotavirus vaccine.
aestra 13y ago
>I have also never seen a case of autism. What? You can't tell just by looking at someone if they have autism. You must have some sort of preconceived notions of what autism looks like. For example, here is two people in my family with autism (they are identical twins) http://i.imgur.com/9PP5O6T.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9PP5O6T.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aedlKYR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aedlKYR.jpg Rather than saying something incredibly ignorant like "I've never seen it," why don't we use science? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673699012398 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673699... http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134 Those are just some peer reviewed scientific publications disproving any association between autism and vaccines. If you aren't looking at real facts, you are just as bad as the anti-vacciners. NOW, lets talk about how this got started. The association was started by one study authored by Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet. Andrew Wakfield had serious conflicts of interests and it was later found he was paid money by British trial lawyers to prove the vaccine was dangerous so the lawyers could get rich suing. Hundreds of thousands of pounds we are talking. It was found he had manipulated evidence and broken other ethical codes to publish that paper in The Lancet. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004 and fully retracted in 2010, and Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practice medicine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
- mpyne 13y ago
  I think he simply meant that he's never met someone with autism, in his experience. The point to that being that, if vaccines do cause autism, he should have met someone with autism. The fact that he didn't seems to argue against the hypothesis that vaccines do cause autism.
  - aestra 13y ago
    My point, how does the grandparent know he's never met someone with autism? Autism isn't always a visible disease. The faces of autism are the faces of everyday people. My guess is they have meet or seen an autistic person, and didn't know they were autistic because they have some kind of preconceived notion of what an autistic person looks or sounds like or acts like. Look at the pictures I posted above of my two autistic family members, if you were to see them out and about, would you think "there's some autistic kids?" Well, they aren't kids anymore, they are in their early 20s.

robbiep 13y ago

in a few years there will be an outbreak of something preventable There's an outbreak of preventable childhood measles in England at this very moment

dtf 13y ago
I think it's south Wales that copped the worst of it. 1,219 cases of measles, 88 hospitalisations and one death. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-23168519 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-23168519 National newspapers are very much involved. Journalists like to present two sides of the story as equal rivals for "balance", even when one side is science and the other is paranoid quackery. When it comes to public health, this is a disaster.
- dhughes 13y ago
  A family from my region went on a trip to Wales and both kids contracted measles and were sick when they returned. When the children were young the parents never had them vaccinated and now they're sick. It was just sheer luck this happened when school was out, the school system here doesn't require kids to be vaccinated as most places in Canada require. It's so easy for a stupid thing to escalate into a world-wide event all because of a few anti-vaccination idiots.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Same thing in the Netherlands. No surprise: all in the Bible Belt. This is a map of the Dutch Bible Belt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_%28Netherlands%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_%28Netherlands%29 , and this is a map of the epidemic: http://www.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ANP-23877900-568x500.jpg http://www.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ANP-23877900-56... And just for clarity: these are areas with a low population density.
- Steuard 13y ago
  At least in the US, my impression is that vaccination refusal is more common among left-wing anti-corporate types than among fundamentalist Christians. It thrives any time there are non-rational beliefs, but it doesn't seem to be too picky about which kind.
  - pkennedy 13y ago
    One of the current big US measles outbreaks is church-related: http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-center-of-measles-outbreak http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-... My anecdotal experience among anti-vaccination people I've known is that they're only weakly correlated with religion or politics--leaning slightly left but still all over the map.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      It is a conspiracy thing. Left or right wing conspiracy-minded people adopt it. Some people replace vaccines with "faith healing", others replace it with new-age shit.
      - pkennedy 13y ago
        That makes sense. All of the above run strong in the rather new-agey community I grew up in.
      - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
StavrosK 13y ago
Did the antivaccination craze reach the UK too?
- anon1385 13y ago
  It started in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
- misnome 13y ago
  We had our very own, home-grown craze! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Yaaay!

TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago

+1 for Bad Science, that book is amazing! Not only in this respect; it covers many topics really, really well. Everyone should have read it.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Bad Pharma too, also by Goldacre.

jsingleton 13y ago

His blog (http://www.badscience.net http://www.badscience.net) is also very good and he writes for the Guardian.

up_and_up 13y ago

> I have also never seen a case of autism. Not sure where you live. There are two kids with autism on my block. Both young boys. Autism is a common disease where I live in the midwest. We have 3 large organizations that only work with Autistic kids. My wife and I have 3 kids and vaccinate them selectively on our own schedule. We vaccinate our kids for the same things that we received as children, nothing more and nothing less. > The stuff we vaccinate against is not harmless. Our medical system wants to vaccinate for everything now, chicken pox etc.

minikites 13y ago
Why not vaccinate for chickenpox? Helps reduce chance of scarring and reduces the chance for shingles. When I was a kid I gave chicken pox to my mom who got super sick. It would have been nice to have a vaccine back then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine I'm surprised at the number of comments on a tech site showing fear of technology.
- brown9-2 13y ago
  As an adult who had shingles, allow me to add that you definitely do not want shingles and it is not as benign as most of us remember childhood chicken pox as.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  It isn't so much a fear of technology, as a distrust of the authorities. Like the author said, some of it has a rational basis, and some does not. I know vaccines usually work, and are mostly safe. I remain very skeptical though for several reasons including: The difficulty of proving vaccine injury, and inadequate remedies. The business incentives caused by the NVCIA[1] (no fault vaccine court). Personal experience with doctors, pediatricians, and other medical professionals. The lack of credible statistics for vaccine adverse reactions. It is nearly impossible to find authorities on the subject who can calmly and rationally explain the risks and benefits, and help you evaluate the risk properly. It is also nearly impossible to find objective impartial information from any source. The "debate" on the subject is very polarized. Skepticism is often treated as heresy or idiocy. We still vaccinate our children, but not for everything[2], and not always on schedule. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Injury_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj... [2] We delayed the HEP-B at birth and opted not to take the rotavirus vaccine.

aestra 13y ago

>I have also never seen a case of autism. What? You can't tell just by looking at someone if they have autism. You must have some sort of preconceived notions of what autism looks like. For example, here is two people in my family with autism (they are identical twins) http://i.imgur.com/9PP5O6T.jpg http://i.imgur.com/9PP5O6T.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aedlKYR.jpg http://i.imgur.com/aedlKYR.jpg Rather than saying something incredibly ignorant like "I've never seen it," why don't we use science? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673699012398 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673699... http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197365 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134 Those are just some peer reviewed scientific publications disproving any association between autism and vaccines. If you aren't looking at real facts, you are just as bad as the anti-vacciners. NOW, lets talk about how this got started. The association was started by one study authored by Andrew Wakefield and published in The Lancet. Andrew Wakfield had serious conflicts of interests and it was later found he was paid money by British trial lawyers to prove the vaccine was dangerous so the lawyers could get rich suing. Hundreds of thousands of pounds we are talking. It was found he had manipulated evidence and broken other ethical codes to publish that paper in The Lancet. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004 and fully retracted in 2010, and Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practice medicine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

mpyne 13y ago
I think he simply meant that he's never met someone with autism, in his experience. The point to that being that, if vaccines do cause autism, he should have met someone with autism. The fact that he didn't seems to argue against the hypothesis that vaccines do cause autism.
- aestra 13y ago
  My point, how does the grandparent know he's never met someone with autism? Autism isn't always a visible disease. The faces of autism are the faces of everyday people. My guess is they have meet or seen an autistic person, and didn't know they were autistic because they have some kind of preconceived notion of what an autistic person looks or sounds like or acts like. Look at the pictures I posted above of my two autistic family members, if you were to see them out and about, would you think "there's some autistic kids?" Well, they aren't kids anymore, they are in their early 20s.