Or maybe how furries defend against social stigma.
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Ooh, Ooh, I know. Google + Dunning Kruger beats any amount of pharma-shill tainted “knowledge” and so-called “facts.” Come on, what kind of sheeple do you think we are?
ETA: (/s)
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Depends on where you are. In my area, there are two distinct groups, one very liberal, Dunning-Kruger affected Google scholars, the other Alex Jones spouting right wing-nut hyper-religious types. There is virtually no overlap, and the sources they use are equally stupid, but totally different. This is truly an equal opportunity stupid. In a nutshell, on the left anything tainted by “Pharma” is evil, and on the right, anything tainted by “deep state government agents” is toxic. Different routes to the same stupid destination.
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Vaccinations and herd immunity will only work when the government mandates it. Trying education or persuasion only strengthens their anti-vaxx viewpoints.
What is really mystifying is that there doesn’t seem to be a profit motive anywhere in the anti-vaxx position. Any time the government tries a mandate, the companies or people who are financially affected will generally mount a PR campaign based on lies and bullshit - and that often works.
Who profits from this? Seriously, am I missing something?
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It is true that there is no direct profit motive, but if you look at the folks who push antivaxx hardest, most are also heavily involved in “detox” protocols that call for huge numbers of supplements and other “biomedical treatments” that rack up enormous bills for their marks. In that area the profit motive is very very significant.
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reducing the (very small) risk of vaccine side-effects while reaping the benefit of herd immunity from vaccinating sheeple, seems pretty straight-forward
of course if herd immunity wasn’t a thing any more, then the risk of contracting one of these communicable diseases would be more concrete than what it is now, and a lot of these people would certainly vaccinate
it’s like how in the US, third-party bids rise after a couple terms of one party controlling the presidency, people either forget or never knew how bad it can get
I am in the way of thinking that a lot of this shit boils down to vaccines being so effective that a couple of generations have gone by without seeing what these diseases can actually do. I am ceaselessly amazed when I talk to people about iron lung wards during polio outbreaks and getting “Oh, come on. You don’t really believe that actually happened, do you? That is just a scare tactic.” To try to convince people that a disease they have never seen, and no one they know has seen, is actually as bad as it really truly was is next to impossible. Unless and until the antvaxx folks actually succeed in bringing one of these monsters back in force and the body count starts to rise, I do not think the warnings will carry any force. And for the neo-eugenics part of the movement, they will consider it a benefit to remove “the unfit” from the gene pool until it is their own child. Unfortunately many many other innocent kids (some who actually have been vaccinated but for any of a number of reasons did not respond) will die first.
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No argument there, measles is far more contagious than the flu. But my point is that the flu is and historically has been more likely to kill large numbers of people in this country, just going by the mortality rates. Per the CDC, in the last decade before the vaccine was introduced measles killed an average of between 400-500 people a year. Thankfully the vaccine has helped bring that rate down to zero most years. Compare that to the flu, which regularly kills tens of thousands of Americans most years, and killed around 80,000 people here last year. Reducing the flu death rate by even a relatively small percentage would save more lives than the measles vaccine ever did.
I’m not suggesting that measles shouldn’t be taken seriously. But if you’re passionate about mandatory measles vaccines but don’t care much about people getting their flu shots every year then I suggest your priorities don’t match the numbers.
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We know that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism. The original hoax that it did was created out of data falsified by someone who may have had his own competing product. I’m reading now that this was called into question, and maybe he didn’t have a competing product.
Still, it’s easy to see who benefits from anti vaccine hoaxes, it’s anyone who offers an alternative vaccine or treatment for the illness.
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Antivaxx is a political affiliation. At least, enough of one. I’m not sure this issue should be politicized unless it has to be. The last thing we need is for half the population to decide that vaccination doesn’t align with their politics. That’ll tank herd immunity faster than saying it’s bipartisan stupidity.
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California does still have an exception for bona fide medical reasons. But if you choose not to vaccinate your child, well, you’ll probably be more comfortable homeschooling it.
That’s the point made in the realclearscience article: more than even the GOP, being an antivaxxer is being a member of America’s bi-partisan and venerable Dangerous Idiot Movement.
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California had to eliminate the very easy to get “I am smarter than the CDC” exemption tho.
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Slightly deceptive just because the incidence of flu is orders of magnitude higher than measles. Bad flu epidemics (1957, 1968) have had case fatality rates of up to 0.1%, the worst (1918) got up to 2.5%. Additionally, with the notable exception of the 1918 epidemic, flu tends to take out the already compromised, while measles is an equal opportunity killer. Measles at baseline directly kills ~0.1% (1/1000) while also leading to dramatically increased all-causes infectious morbidity and mortality for years after an infection, because the virus just trashes the immune system. This is also leaving out later complications like SSPE, occurring years later, untreatable and universally fatal. Measles is a nasty bug and does nasty things. Flu is also a nasty bug, but if not for MMR, would be considered a minor problem next to measles (as it was for most of our history.)
ETA: Minor being a relative thing, as any vaccine preventable disease fatality is unacceptable!
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Unfortunately in practice it can be difficult—often impossible—to know with real certainty which individuals you have infected or which individuals infected you.
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How is that deceptive?? I never implied otherwise! Universal use of the flu vaccine would save more lives than universal use of the measles vaccine for exactly the same reason that universal use of the measles vaccine would save more lives than universal use of the rabies vaccine. Untreated, rabies kills nearly 100% of the people it infects, but the incidence rate is low enough that we’ve got higher priorities to deal with.
The incidence rate of a disease should absolutely be taken into account when setting public health policies. You disagree?
Edit to add: in the sentence you quoted above I probably should have said “going by total mortality numbers” rather than “going by the mortality rates.” Sorry if the word “rates” gave the wrong impression. But overall I stand by my point.
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If only the professional had “learned” the subject instead of “leaned” it.
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We could set up a school for un-vaccinated kids. They could MAGA together, it would be… educational.
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Your point is sound. The statistics can be deceptive, in a situation where the vast majority are vaccinated against measles, only a small minority against flu.
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