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The whole vaccination thing has taken a turn much like the AGW debate -- it has become religion, and people define themselves by their (painfully simplified) po

The whole vaccination thing has taken a turn much like the AGW debate -- it has become religion, and people define themselves by their (painfully simplified) position on it : I have Facebook friends who post such clever articles and meme images daily, literally preaching to the converted for absolutely no gain but their own smug sense of superiority. But here's the thing -- vaccinations carry risks. Of course they do. They have massive upsides, but they invariably have downsides, bad reactions, and so on, and it is the utter foolishness that so many try to paint it otherwise. The net result is of course a major positive -- if 1% of the population has an adverse reaction, but 10% avoids getting a painful disease, then a win for the whole (even if it sucks if you're the 1%) -- but it is infantile if not ignorant to not only pretend these risks don't exist (which is ridiculously common), but to actually question people's own assessment of their risk profile. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/02/05/hpv-vaccine-gardasil-has-a-dark-side-star-investigation-finds.html http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/02/05/hpv-vaccine-ga... All of those incidents might very well be entirely coincidental. Or maybe they aren't. Such is the nature of massive, widespread immunizations, where the abnormal immune system of one person might be sent spiraling out of control, while another might suffer a critical allergic response. Despite endless evidence to the contrary, many seem to believe we have a complete understanding of medicine and the human body. In some ways we remain hacks, and more often than not luck upon our algorithms. But this blind march really makes the movie "The Children of Men" seem more like a prophecy than a fiction. EDIT: -2 within a minute. HN has taken a perilous dump into garbage land -- the classic ignorant back-slapping and sophistry -- as more and more entirely ignorant people get down arrow rights.

tfinniga 12y ago
Vaccinations carry risks, but so does not vaccinating. If you just want to talk percentages, what is the chance that you will have an unusual or adverse reaction to a vaccination vs. what is the chance that you will contract and have an adverse reaction to the illness? Even on those terms it seems worth it to vaccinate against MMR. Those vaccines have been around for a long time, they are effective, and they are safe. They are certainly much safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. It used to be that you could avoid the risk of vaccination entirely by assuming that everyone else around you would vaccinate. That's no longer a good assumption. Plus, there is the compounding factor that by not vaccinating, these people are facilitating harm to others. Government is all about balancing benefit and risk as a whole.
- ptaipale 12y ago
  And the risks of vaccination are largely externalities, risks on other people. If you don't vaccinate, you are not only taking a calculated risk with your own child. You are also taking a risk with other kids, which others cannot necessarily even calculate, let alone mitigate.
jbob2000 12y ago
You're getting downvoted because you're pointing out that vaccines have risks. Fucking everything has risks. It does not help the debate when people say "Yeah vaccines are great, but there are risks". Thanks, great contribution. You took a risk driving your car. We don't fully understand physics, should we be driving cars?
- engendered 12y ago
  It does not help the debate when people say "Yeah vaccines are great, but there are risks". As opposed to mocking and deriding the notion that they have risks? Does that have merit? Because that is the predominate message in any discussion about vaccinations of any sort: There are only upside, no downside, and anyone who has hesitation is just a misinformed creationist. I pointed out that HPV vaccine because it is exactly where we are headed -- there was shockingly little actual testing, zero long term testing, but it was blanketed across an entire generation. This seems profoundly risky, but since we're in the "question it and you're a nutter" world, one dare not voice such a concern: It might upset people's sense of smug superiority. You're getting downvoted because you're pointing out that vaccines have risks No, I'm getting downvoted because HN has become yet another site where people feel very comfortable in this simplified, black and white notions of the world. This is seen in thread after thread, anything complex collapsing down into simple right and wrong, up or down. It is a tragedy, really, but was bound to happen.
  - jbob2000 12y ago
    >There are only upside, no downside, and anyone who has hesitation is just a misinformed creationist. I don't disagree that there are no downsides, only that they should not be the bulk of the discussion. When you discuss the risks alongside the benefits, you elevate the risks to the same level as the benefits. If a vaccine has a 0.1% chance of side effects, but we spend 50% of the time talking about it, doesn't it make the risk seem a lot worse? The article you linked mentioned 60 people in Canada experienced side effects with the HPV vaccine. Whoop-di-fuckin-do. 60 people out of 35,000,000. But yet here we are, with an entire feature article on this vaccine and its side effects, completely neglecting the serious benefits it has provided to Canadian society. Vaccines are something that need to be black and white. For common people who aren't doctors, there should be no middle ground. Leave the skepticism to the researchers and doctors developing the vaccines.
strawman 12y ago
As one of those individuals who suffered an adverse reaction, I'm surprised to find this post in grey text at the bottom of the page while the parade of right-thinkers remains at the top. When the majority starts to frame the debate as "crazy vs. not-crazy", and replaces a balanced, scientific and reasonable assessment of pros and cons with a one-sided ideology, it'll only serve to swell the ranks of the "crazies", since there's nowhere else for intelligent skeptics to go.
- engendered 12y ago
  The anti-anti-vax thing has become a purpose for some people. Some sort of righteous cause over which they can smugly judge. It is an absolute embarrassment, and HN is certainly not immune to it (it hasn't gotten its anti-idiot vaccine).
crocowhile 12y ago
The problem of the anti-vaxers is that they believe vaccines carry risks that actually do not exist, like autism.
JibberMeTimbers 12y ago
How many were vaccinated during for program? It's indicated later in the article that 5 out of 11,000 had an adverse reaction during trials. I wonder if a similar rate was observed during Canada's vaccination program.

tfinniga 12y ago

Vaccinations carry risks, but so does not vaccinating. If you just want to talk percentages, what is the chance that you will have an unusual or adverse reaction to a vaccination vs. what is the chance that you will contract and have an adverse reaction to the illness? Even on those terms it seems worth it to vaccinate against MMR. Those vaccines have been around for a long time, they are effective, and they are safe. They are certainly much safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. It used to be that you could avoid the risk of vaccination entirely by assuming that everyone else around you would vaccinate. That's no longer a good assumption. Plus, there is the compounding factor that by not vaccinating, these people are facilitating harm to others. Government is all about balancing benefit and risk as a whole.

ptaipale 12y ago
And the risks of vaccination are largely externalities, risks on other people. If you don't vaccinate, you are not only taking a calculated risk with your own child. You are also taking a risk with other kids, which others cannot necessarily even calculate, let alone mitigate.

jbob2000 12y ago

You're getting downvoted because you're pointing out that vaccines have risks. Fucking everything has risks. It does not help the debate when people say "Yeah vaccines are great, but there are risks". Thanks, great contribution. You took a risk driving your car. We don't fully understand physics, should we be driving cars?

engendered 12y ago
It does not help the debate when people say "Yeah vaccines are great, but there are risks". As opposed to mocking and deriding the notion that they have risks? Does that have merit? Because that is the predominate message in any discussion about vaccinations of any sort: There are only upside, no downside, and anyone who has hesitation is just a misinformed creationist. I pointed out that HPV vaccine because it is exactly where we are headed -- there was shockingly little actual testing, zero long term testing, but it was blanketed across an entire generation. This seems profoundly risky, but since we're in the "question it and you're a nutter" world, one dare not voice such a concern: It might upset people's sense of smug superiority. You're getting downvoted because you're pointing out that vaccines have risks No, I'm getting downvoted because HN has become yet another site where people feel very comfortable in this simplified, black and white notions of the world. This is seen in thread after thread, anything complex collapsing down into simple right and wrong, up or down. It is a tragedy, really, but was bound to happen.
- jbob2000 12y ago
  >There are only upside, no downside, and anyone who has hesitation is just a misinformed creationist. I don't disagree that there are no downsides, only that they should not be the bulk of the discussion. When you discuss the risks alongside the benefits, you elevate the risks to the same level as the benefits. If a vaccine has a 0.1% chance of side effects, but we spend 50% of the time talking about it, doesn't it make the risk seem a lot worse? The article you linked mentioned 60 people in Canada experienced side effects with the HPV vaccine. Whoop-di-fuckin-do. 60 people out of 35,000,000. But yet here we are, with an entire feature article on this vaccine and its side effects, completely neglecting the serious benefits it has provided to Canadian society. Vaccines are something that need to be black and white. For common people who aren't doctors, there should be no middle ground. Leave the skepticism to the researchers and doctors developing the vaccines.

strawman 12y ago

As one of those individuals who suffered an adverse reaction, I'm surprised to find this post in grey text at the bottom of the page while the parade of right-thinkers remains at the top. When the majority starts to frame the debate as "crazy vs. not-crazy", and replaces a balanced, scientific and reasonable assessment of pros and cons with a one-sided ideology, it'll only serve to swell the ranks of the "crazies", since there's nowhere else for intelligent skeptics to go.

engendered 12y ago
The anti-anti-vax thing has become a purpose for some people. Some sort of righteous cause over which they can smugly judge. It is an absolute embarrassment, and HN is certainly not immune to it (it hasn't gotten its anti-idiot vaccine).

crocowhile 12y ago

The problem of the anti-vaxers is that they believe vaccines carry risks that actually do not exist, like autism.

JibberMeTimbers 12y ago

How many were vaccinated during for program? It's indicated later in the article that 5 out of 11,000 had an adverse reaction during trials. I wonder if a similar rate was observed during Canada's vaccination program.