11 ms·

How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

106 points by wallflower 12y ago

palmer_eldritch 12y ago
At least it ends on a hopeful note: "We all took the vaccine after that. I had one shot, and I still took the other one and we had all our kids vaccinated, too. After people saw how sick people got, they changed their minds."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- confluence 12y ago
  People used to line up for vaccines back when we first had massive distribution. The horrors of the diseases they prevented were so great the lines would go on for blocks. People are insulated from those times. When those diseases don't seem so scary anymore, people start to worry about what they're getting injected with. Teaching people about how vaccines work seems to be one solution, but another one is a horrifying outbreak that shocks people. The growing anti-vax movement is a danger to everyone, and they're a powder keg ready to explode.
  - nsgi 12y ago
    To play devil's advocate, just because some people used to line up for vaccines doesn't mean everyone did.
skynetv2 12y ago
it breaks my heart to see so many "adults" making "informed decisions" about NOT vaccinating their children. They should really go live in undeveloped countries where vaccines are scarce and unavailable to experience first hand what lack of vaccinations actually means, what the implications are for the general population. I grew up, fortunately with out any problems, seeing so many kids suffering from polio, handicapped for life, limping, wondering why they got this disease thats so easily controlled; saw many kids die from cholera, typhiod, TB, bed ridden for months with measles, viral fevers .... and here we are in the most advanced country in the world with access (ok ... I know healthcare in the US is not easy access to everyone) to vaccinations and parents CHOOSE to not vaccinate their kids .... and risk so many lives. sad does not begin to explain what I feel.
- semperfaux 12y ago
  Sad doesn't even begin to describe how people should feel. People should feel irate. Of course, that assumes people are or become informed about the nature of and reason for vaccination. Which should (and, at least as of my education, was) be a trivial part of US education. Granted: The fact that many people apparently considered Jenny McCarthy a reliable source of scientific information points to a far more basic stupidity than a failure to understand high school microbiology. It's hard to educate people in general; it's way harder to educate people who have left the compulsory school system and decided that Twitter and celebrity are reliable sources of valid health advice.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "and risk so many lives" This is the worst part in my opinion. By making this choice they are putting others (those who can't afford or haven't had the chance to get the vaccine yet) at risk.
- stelonix 12y ago
  While I agree I'd do anything to help my child, I also realize it's not up to me or most importantly, the government to dictate how other parents should raise their children. The right to raise your child the way you see fit, obviously without any major abuse is an universal right any parent has and it's above any social construct. Abuse, in this context, should be real abuse, which means physical or psychological violence. Abuse does not mean disagreeing with the ways a secular capitalist democracy is heading. As much as some people want to enlist "religious indoctrination", lack of vaccination, circumcision and other forms of non-western-conforming customs as "abuse", it is of my opinion that we should refrain from that and respect the inalienable right to have different customs from the globalized state. Governments are not supposed to be our parents and pass diktakts telling people what's the "correct way" to raise children.
  - panopticon 12y ago
    The problem is that choosing to not vaccinating your children has an effect on the people around you. I'm all for raising children how the parent sees fit, but you're talking about a public health issue. Whether or not little Timmy learns about sharing is apples and oranges to spreading disease.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
Trying to pin the blame on the Amish doesn't seem right. Sure they weren't vaccinated but they are also less educated and have much, much less access to information on health than us. The 'informed' members of society who choose not to vaccinate are the real problem, otherwise the disease would have been contained to a small community of people. These informed individuals have no excuse. Take the latest outbreak for example [0] in Disney land. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31034379 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31034379 NB: Just a reminder. The down vote button is not an 'I disagree with this person' button.
- mhurron 12y ago
  Anyone who is not vaccinated and goes around in public is a danger. It doesn't matter why they aren't, the why doesn't make them more or less of a danger. They are all dangers to society.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    I didn't say they were less of a danger. My point was that there mistake can be excused easier due to lack of information. People who are informed about the vaccine and make the decision not to use it however cannot be excused at all as there behaviour is reckless. Attempting to point the blame at the Amish instead of the latter group doesn't seem right to me.
    - richardwhiuk 12y ago
      Aren't the Amish deliberately not vaccinated as they deliberately don't have access to the information? How is that different from someone who has access to the information but deliberately chooses to ignore it or disbelieve it?
      - larsiusprime 12y ago
        Put it in perspective before you lash out. We "informed" people know car accidents are a leading cause of preventable death, and yet we kill more people with car accidents than unvaccinated non-car-driving Amish people (who are apparently swiftly adjusting their behavior re: vaccinations, which is a good thing).
mrfusion 12y ago
I think a lot of anti-vax stuff might be fixed with a compelling documentary. Vaccines need their own "Blackfish" documentary. Simply producing that one vivid, compelling movie is now completely changing how whales and dolphins are kept at aquariums. The power of a well produced documentary is really unbelievable. It makes sense. People are visual creatures, and natural story tellers (and listeners) so sometimes showing the horrors of these issues and weaving it into a story is the best way to convince large amounts of people and bring attention to an issue.
- robert_tweed 12y ago
  Absolutely. And it should explain herd immunity very clearly, a bit like this demo: http://op12no2.me/toys/herd/ http://op12no2.me/toys/herd/ People need to stop believing that it's a personal choice for them alone. That is no more true than if they were to go around blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of other people. It's anti-social behaviour and even worse, the consequences are potentially deadly.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    And this is why i find the whole economics idea, that multiple entities doing their thing for individual profit will produce general social improvements, questionable at best.
    - Swizec 12y ago
      I thought the current economic theory was that everyone should do what's best for them AND the group? Case in point, tobacco companies sponsoring anti-smoking ads because talk of smoking increases revenues for the smoking industry as a whole. Instead of trying to advertise themselves individually.
      - mikeyouse 12y ago
        The anti-smoking advertisements aren't out there out of the goodness of Altria's cold, dead heart - even if they do result in more smoking. As part of the tobacco settlement in the 1990s, the tobacco companies had to give billions of dollars to anti-smoking groups. The largest of which, the American Legacy Foundation (behind the 'Truth' ad campaign) has over a billion dollars in an endowment to run anti-smoking ads. Due in part to these ads, the teenage smoking rate is literally half of where it was before the settlement; http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0612-YRBS.html http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0612-YRBS.html
moogleii 12y ago
Did the missionary eschew modern technology in order to get to the Philippines? Got it guys, the answer is no. They use technology when it suits them.
- larsiusprime 12y ago
  You do not understand the Amish. They do not have some simplistic "all modern technology is bad" ban. They selectively use some modern technologies, and eschew others.
  - saltysugar 12y ago
    Anything that's convenient for them, I guess?
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      They generally don't electrify their homes. That doesn't seem like it is a contrived choice designed to enhance convenience. (My understanding is that the choices tend to hinge on whether something creates an ongoing reliance on the greater world)
    - derekp7 12y ago
      What it boils down to, is whether or not taking advantage of a technology puts them under the influence of those outside their community. For example, if they use electricity then they have to be involved with the affairs of the town, and not self-reliant. But they can choose to use a diesel engine to power equipment for their farms, as they have the ability to make their own bio-fuel. And they use modern refrigeration and battery-powered lights on their carriages for safety reasons. In short -- does a technology pull them away from their faith, or is it needed for a greater good? Not to mention, that each Amish community is independent and sets their own rules (there is no central Amish version of the Pope, for example).
      - moogleii 12y ago
        It seems to me using a plane would be a bit of a slippery slope then. A commercial airplane's main purpose is to access somewhere beyond one's own community, and the experiences of international travel to a foreign land will change you (not to mention, I'm curious why they would target the Philippines vs any modern local American city). But people will do as they do, I suppose.
agentsmith 12y ago
The media is filtering out the logic from this debate. I would have hoped HN would be more informed. Its well established that no vaccine has an effect that lasts longer than seven years. This is the reason for booster shots. Every vaccine researcher and pharma company will tell you this. The reason we immunize children is because their hygiene practices are poorer than most adults and they are a marginalized class. They get more diseases due to poor hygiene which encourages adults to look for easy solutions. And adults are in a position to force those solutions on the powerless. Adults do not immunize themselves every seven years because the risk/reward profile simply isn't worth it. Every shot, vaccine or not, is a risk. On the other hand, adult-quality hygiene and typical first world nutrition cause people to avoid dying from diseases already. For a recent example look at Ebola. Many people simply can't get it because they are too healthy. This is why ebola never went anywhere in the USA and many other countries. Adults with poor hygiene that get more diseases are ignored because they are a smaller group and in a position to resist so they are not worth targeting. Most people aren't aware that the USA stayed polio-free for many years while a live attenuated virus was given to children. It was known by pharma companies that the live attenuated virus would become a full strength virus in the child's stool. Look it up, I remember at least one American woman catching it from changing a diaper and it was in the news. Now we use dead virus because of people like her. But the larger point is that for many many hundreds of thousands of diaper changes, there just wasn't a problem. Other countries with the live vaccine had lots of problems. What was the difference? Hygiene and nutrition. Vaccines are a great tool. Like any tool they should be voluntary. People who choose not to use them are not a problem because if they were then every adult who hasn't had a vaccine in seven years is also a problem so the blame should be pretty thin. And finally, please note that no one died and many were hospitalized for precaution, not an actual need. Healthy, first world people die from measles at an extremely small rate. I know it doesn't sell newspapers or get people to read your blog but this was not a deadly epidemic. All of the angry rhetoric around this event could have been avoided if people were informed ahead of time that there would be no deaths in otherwise health people. Meanwhile, heart disease is a deadly epidemic and there is no vaccine for that.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Got a cite for that "seven years" figure? According to this web page, lots of vaccines last more than 7 years, with some lasting for life: http://www.traveldoctor.co.nz/vaccinations.aspx http://www.traveldoctor.co.nz/vaccinations.aspx Of those that don't last for life, adults do get booster shots. I don't know why you think they don't. I get a flu shot every year and I get boosters for other diseases every so often when I have a physical. I don't immunize my child because she's marginalized and powerless to resist. I do it because it's a cheap, easy, and safe way to reduce her chances of discomfort, disability, and death. Her mother and I often try to get our vaccinations at the same time she does so we can show her that she's not alone.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
theandrewbailey 12y ago
Wow. Mount Vernon, Ohio (Knox County seat) is where I grew up. Go down certain roads out of town, especially to the north and east, and it's all Amish.
rebootthesystem 12y ago
The problem might very well be that our level of scientific education isn't in step with the realities of the world we live in. If someone wants to get a good grasp for the entire "story" of vaccination they have to have a basic understanding of evolution by natural selection. Fully 42% of the US population does not "believe" in evolution, which is further proof of the level of ignorance we are dealing with. I put "believe" in quotes because evolution by natural selection is not something one believes, that's nonsense. It is something one accepts or rejects based on over 150 years of evidence across a range of scientific disciplines. Perhaps this might help: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo
kolev 12y ago
I don't think anybody's against vaccines, but against vaccines made with compromises to lower costs, allow for mass production, and cheaper administration. Having cheaper ingredients with the premise "What could possibly go wrong?" is what most people are against and also giving many at the same time and not ensuring health status is also a cost-lowering move and not a science-based one. So, the anti-vax movement has some wins like removing ethylmercury (actually, I assume that as it could just be a coincidence), which, as far as I know, is still in the pretty useless flu vaccines. My kids get vaccinated, but they don't get more than a shot at a time and no two shots without at least 2 months of space between them. Also, we always pushed to have them as late as possible and, thankfully, our pediatrician was okay with this schedule.
codingdave 12y ago
I still rarely see an accurate representation of the thought process of those who don't vaccinate. There is this impression that it is ignorant people who don't understand how they work, or don't understand herd immunity. There is also an impression that it is all or nothing - people either take all vaccinations, or none. While there are extreme cases when parents think like this, for the vast majority, that is not a true picture. Most parents I know who skip vaccinations do so in a much different manner. I know of almost nobody who skips the polio vaccine. I do know people who delay it, though, not wanting to put it into an infant. MMR is taken by many. Chicken pox... not so much. HPV... not so much. But many parent simply want to let the kids grow up a couple years before doing the vaccines. It is a risk calculation. Polio is devastating, and clearly worth the small risk presented from a vaccine. As the diseases get less and less damaging, more parents decide that the risk is greater than the potential reward, and do not choose to get that specific vaccination at that specific time. And while the percentages of children who have adverse reactions to vaccines is small, they do exist. As a purely anecdotal story, my neighbor's child developed shingles after getting the chicken pox vaccine. They were told he may have lifelong problems because of it. Now, the doctors were astounded, and said it is an extremely rare case, practically never heard of before. But it did happen, as do other rare cases, so flat out denials that problems never happen come off as ignorant, and destroy trust between the two sides of these arguments. So the problem with most of the comments I am seeing here is that they are bypassing the actual thought process of people who skip vaccinations, and killing avenues for potential discussion. If you want people to engage in honest discussion, you need to engage them on the risk/reward basis, providing education on the actual risks of vaccines vs. not. The whole attitude of "If you don't vaccinate, you are an ignorant idiot." is not a good mechanism to improve communication, and does not produce positive results for anybody.

106 points by wallflower 12y ago

At least it ends on a hopeful note: "We all took the vaccine after that. I had one shot, and I still took the other one and we had all our kids vaccinated, too. After people saw how sick people got, they changed their minds."

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
confluence 12y ago
People used to line up for vaccines back when we first had massive distribution. The horrors of the diseases they prevented were so great the lines would go on for blocks. People are insulated from those times. When those diseases don't seem so scary anymore, people start to worry about what they're getting injected with. Teaching people about how vaccines work seems to be one solution, but another one is a horrifying outbreak that shocks people. The growing anti-vax movement is a danger to everyone, and they're a powder keg ready to explode.
- nsgi 12y ago
  To play devil's advocate, just because some people used to line up for vaccines doesn't mean everyone did.

skynetv2 12y ago

it breaks my heart to see so many "adults" making "informed decisions" about NOT vaccinating their children. They should really go live in undeveloped countries where vaccines are scarce and unavailable to experience first hand what lack of vaccinations actually means, what the implications are for the general population. I grew up, fortunately with out any problems, seeing so many kids suffering from polio, handicapped for life, limping, wondering why they got this disease thats so easily controlled; saw many kids die from cholera, typhiod, TB, bed ridden for months with measles, viral fevers .... and here we are in the most advanced country in the world with access (ok ... I know healthcare in the US is not easy access to everyone) to vaccinations and parents CHOOSE to not vaccinate their kids .... and risk so many lives. sad does not begin to explain what I feel.

semperfaux 12y ago
Sad doesn't even begin to describe how people should feel. People should feel irate. Of course, that assumes people are or become informed about the nature of and reason for vaccination. Which should (and, at least as of my education, was) be a trivial part of US education. Granted: The fact that many people apparently considered Jenny McCarthy a reliable source of scientific information points to a far more basic stupidity than a failure to understand high school microbiology. It's hard to educate people in general; it's way harder to educate people who have left the compulsory school system and decided that Twitter and celebrity are reliable sources of valid health advice.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "and risk so many lives" This is the worst part in my opinion. By making this choice they are putting others (those who can't afford or haven't had the chance to get the vaccine yet) at risk.
stelonix 12y ago
While I agree I'd do anything to help my child, I also realize it's not up to me or most importantly, the government to dictate how other parents should raise their children. The right to raise your child the way you see fit, obviously without any major abuse is an universal right any parent has and it's above any social construct. Abuse, in this context, should be real abuse, which means physical or psychological violence. Abuse does not mean disagreeing with the ways a secular capitalist democracy is heading. As much as some people want to enlist "religious indoctrination", lack of vaccination, circumcision and other forms of non-western-conforming customs as "abuse", it is of my opinion that we should refrain from that and respect the inalienable right to have different customs from the globalized state. Governments are not supposed to be our parents and pass diktakts telling people what's the "correct way" to raise children.
- panopticon 12y ago
  The problem is that choosing to not vaccinating your children has an effect on the people around you. I'm all for raising children how the parent sees fit, but you're talking about a public health issue. Whether or not little Timmy learns about sharing is apples and oranges to spreading disease.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

Trying to pin the blame on the Amish doesn't seem right. Sure they weren't vaccinated but they are also less educated and have much, much less access to information on health than us. The 'informed' members of society who choose not to vaccinate are the real problem, otherwise the disease would have been contained to a small community of people. These informed individuals have no excuse. Take the latest outbreak for example [0] in Disney land. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31034379 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-31034379 NB: Just a reminder. The down vote button is not an 'I disagree with this person' button.

mhurron 12y ago
Anyone who is not vaccinated and goes around in public is a danger. It doesn't matter why they aren't, the why doesn't make them more or less of a danger. They are all dangers to society.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  I didn't say they were less of a danger. My point was that there mistake can be excused easier due to lack of information. People who are informed about the vaccine and make the decision not to use it however cannot be excused at all as there behaviour is reckless. Attempting to point the blame at the Amish instead of the latter group doesn't seem right to me.
  - richardwhiuk 12y ago
    Aren't the Amish deliberately not vaccinated as they deliberately don't have access to the information? How is that different from someone who has access to the information but deliberately chooses to ignore it or disbelieve it?
    - larsiusprime 12y ago
      Put it in perspective before you lash out. We "informed" people know car accidents are a leading cause of preventable death, and yet we kill more people with car accidents than unvaccinated non-car-driving Amish people (who are apparently swiftly adjusting their behavior re: vaccinations, which is a good thing).

mrfusion 12y ago

I think a lot of anti-vax stuff might be fixed with a compelling documentary. Vaccines need their own "Blackfish" documentary. Simply producing that one vivid, compelling movie is now completely changing how whales and dolphins are kept at aquariums. The power of a well produced documentary is really unbelievable. It makes sense. People are visual creatures, and natural story tellers (and listeners) so sometimes showing the horrors of these issues and weaving it into a story is the best way to convince large amounts of people and bring attention to an issue.

robert_tweed 12y ago
Absolutely. And it should explain herd immunity very clearly, a bit like this demo: http://op12no2.me/toys/herd/ http://op12no2.me/toys/herd/ People need to stop believing that it's a personal choice for them alone. That is no more true than if they were to go around blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of other people. It's anti-social behaviour and even worse, the consequences are potentially deadly.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  And this is why i find the whole economics idea, that multiple entities doing their thing for individual profit will produce general social improvements, questionable at best.
  - Swizec 12y ago
    I thought the current economic theory was that everyone should do what's best for them AND the group? Case in point, tobacco companies sponsoring anti-smoking ads because talk of smoking increases revenues for the smoking industry as a whole. Instead of trying to advertise themselves individually.
    - mikeyouse 12y ago
      The anti-smoking advertisements aren't out there out of the goodness of Altria's cold, dead heart - even if they do result in more smoking. As part of the tobacco settlement in the 1990s, the tobacco companies had to give billions of dollars to anti-smoking groups. The largest of which, the American Legacy Foundation (behind the 'Truth' ad campaign) has over a billion dollars in an endowment to run anti-smoking ads. Due in part to these ads, the teenage smoking rate is literally half of where it was before the settlement; http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0612-YRBS.html http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0612-YRBS.html

moogleii 12y ago

Did the missionary eschew modern technology in order to get to the Philippines? Got it guys, the answer is no. They use technology when it suits them.

larsiusprime 12y ago
You do not understand the Amish. They do not have some simplistic "all modern technology is bad" ban. They selectively use some modern technologies, and eschew others.
- saltysugar 12y ago
  Anything that's convenient for them, I guess?
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    They generally don't electrify their homes. That doesn't seem like it is a contrived choice designed to enhance convenience. (My understanding is that the choices tend to hinge on whether something creates an ongoing reliance on the greater world)
  - derekp7 12y ago
    What it boils down to, is whether or not taking advantage of a technology puts them under the influence of those outside their community. For example, if they use electricity then they have to be involved with the affairs of the town, and not self-reliant. But they can choose to use a diesel engine to power equipment for their farms, as they have the ability to make their own bio-fuel. And they use modern refrigeration and battery-powered lights on their carriages for safety reasons. In short -- does a technology pull them away from their faith, or is it needed for a greater good? Not to mention, that each Amish community is independent and sets their own rules (there is no central Amish version of the Pope, for example).
    - moogleii 12y ago
      It seems to me using a plane would be a bit of a slippery slope then. A commercial airplane's main purpose is to access somewhere beyond one's own community, and the experiences of international travel to a foreign land will change you (not to mention, I'm curious why they would target the Philippines vs any modern local American city). But people will do as they do, I suppose.

agentsmith 12y ago

The media is filtering out the logic from this debate. I would have hoped HN would be more informed. Its well established that no vaccine has an effect that lasts longer than seven years. This is the reason for booster shots. Every vaccine researcher and pharma company will tell you this. The reason we immunize children is because their hygiene practices are poorer than most adults and they are a marginalized class. They get more diseases due to poor hygiene which encourages adults to look for easy solutions. And adults are in a position to force those solutions on the powerless. Adults do not immunize themselves every seven years because the risk/reward profile simply isn't worth it. Every shot, vaccine or not, is a risk. On the other hand, adult-quality hygiene and typical first world nutrition cause people to avoid dying from diseases already. For a recent example look at Ebola. Many people simply can't get it because they are too healthy. This is why ebola never went anywhere in the USA and many other countries. Adults with poor hygiene that get more diseases are ignored because they are a smaller group and in a position to resist so they are not worth targeting. Most people aren't aware that the USA stayed polio-free for many years while a live attenuated virus was given to children. It was known by pharma companies that the live attenuated virus would become a full strength virus in the child's stool. Look it up, I remember at least one American woman catching it from changing a diaper and it was in the news. Now we use dead virus because of people like her. But the larger point is that for many many hundreds of thousands of diaper changes, there just wasn't a problem. Other countries with the live vaccine had lots of problems. What was the difference? Hygiene and nutrition. Vaccines are a great tool. Like any tool they should be voluntary. People who choose not to use them are not a problem because if they were then every adult who hasn't had a vaccine in seven years is also a problem so the blame should be pretty thin. And finally, please note that no one died and many were hospitalized for precaution, not an actual need. Healthy, first world people die from measles at an extremely small rate. I know it doesn't sell newspapers or get people to read your blog but this was not a deadly epidemic. All of the angry rhetoric around this event could have been avoided if people were informed ahead of time that there would be no deaths in otherwise health people. Meanwhile, heart disease is a deadly epidemic and there is no vaccine for that.

mikeash 12y ago
Got a cite for that "seven years" figure? According to this web page, lots of vaccines last more than 7 years, with some lasting for life: http://www.traveldoctor.co.nz/vaccinations.aspx http://www.traveldoctor.co.nz/vaccinations.aspx Of those that don't last for life, adults do get booster shots. I don't know why you think they don't. I get a flu shot every year and I get boosters for other diseases every so often when I have a physical. I don't immunize my child because she's marginalized and powerless to resist. I do it because it's a cheap, easy, and safe way to reduce her chances of discomfort, disability, and death. Her mother and I often try to get our vaccinations at the same time she does so we can show her that she's not alone.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

theandrewbailey 12y ago

Wow. Mount Vernon, Ohio (Knox County seat) is where I grew up. Go down certain roads out of town, especially to the north and east, and it's all Amish.

rebootthesystem 12y ago

The problem might very well be that our level of scientific education isn't in step with the realities of the world we live in. If someone wants to get a good grasp for the entire "story" of vaccination they have to have a basic understanding of evolution by natural selection. Fully 42% of the US population does not "believe" in evolution, which is further proof of the level of ignorance we are dealing with. I put "believe" in quotes because evolution by natural selection is not something one believes, that's nonsense. It is something one accepts or rejects based on over 150 years of evidence across a range of scientific disciplines. Perhaps this might help: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo

kolev 12y ago

I don't think anybody's against vaccines, but against vaccines made with compromises to lower costs, allow for mass production, and cheaper administration. Having cheaper ingredients with the premise "What could possibly go wrong?" is what most people are against and also giving many at the same time and not ensuring health status is also a cost-lowering move and not a science-based one. So, the anti-vax movement has some wins like removing ethylmercury (actually, I assume that as it could just be a coincidence), which, as far as I know, is still in the pretty useless flu vaccines. My kids get vaccinated, but they don't get more than a shot at a time and no two shots without at least 2 months of space between them. Also, we always pushed to have them as late as possible and, thankfully, our pediatrician was okay with this schedule.

codingdave 12y ago

I still rarely see an accurate representation of the thought process of those who don't vaccinate. There is this impression that it is ignorant people who don't understand how they work, or don't understand herd immunity. There is also an impression that it is all or nothing - people either take all vaccinations, or none. While there are extreme cases when parents think like this, for the vast majority, that is not a true picture. Most parents I know who skip vaccinations do so in a much different manner. I know of almost nobody who skips the polio vaccine. I do know people who delay it, though, not wanting to put it into an infant. MMR is taken by many. Chicken pox... not so much. HPV... not so much. But many parent simply want to let the kids grow up a couple years before doing the vaccines. It is a risk calculation. Polio is devastating, and clearly worth the small risk presented from a vaccine. As the diseases get less and less damaging, more parents decide that the risk is greater than the potential reward, and do not choose to get that specific vaccination at that specific time. And while the percentages of children who have adverse reactions to vaccines is small, they do exist. As a purely anecdotal story, my neighbor's child developed shingles after getting the chicken pox vaccine. They were told he may have lifelong problems because of it. Now, the doctors were astounded, and said it is an extremely rare case, practically never heard of before. But it did happen, as do other rare cases, so flat out denials that problems never happen come off as ignorant, and destroy trust between the two sides of these arguments. So the problem with most of the comments I am seeing here is that they are bypassing the actual thought process of people who skip vaccinations, and killing avenues for potential discussion. If you want people to engage in honest discussion, you need to engage them on the risk/reward basis, providing education on the actual risks of vaccines vs. not. The whole attitude of "If you don't vaccinate, you are an ignorant idiot." is not a good mechanism to improve communication, and does not produce positive results for anybody.