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I find the fact that people die of a treatable side-effect resulting from a voluntary medical treatment to be particularly terrible. >It's precisely due such p
by fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
I find the fact that people die of a treatable side-effect resulting from a voluntary medical treatment to be particularly terrible.
>It's precisely due such poor understanding of statistics is why there are large groups if people opposed to vaccination - they fixate on a smaller probability negative outcome in the immediate future and ignore large probability negative outcome three months down the road.
No, the probability of death or injury from all diseases (for people in the US) is small. It may be relatively large compared to the probability of death or injury from vaccination, but it is still small for each individual.
- mikeash 13y agoThat small probability is largely because of vaccination. But there's a huge herd effect, so your analysis is correct for the individual, while still badly wrong for society as a whole.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago>That small probability is largely because of vaccination. That's true. But I suspect that better sanitation and nutrition played a large part as well. >so your analysis is correct for the individual, while still badly wrong for society as a whole. I know. Which is why it is important to have safe and effective vaccines.
- ceejayoz 13y ago> That's true. But I suspect that better sanitation and nutrition played a large part as well. Not in every case. Polio, for example, became a more serious problem because of sanitation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/diseases/polio.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/diseases/polio....
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoThanks. I didn't know that.