Hi Aloisius,
Thank you for pointing out the corrections! Comments like yours do sway opinions!
Andrew
2 Likes
Itās not actually original - thereās a parent who made that very specific āYou freak out if a kid has peanut butter but allow unvaccinated kids into the school when my kid is on chemo and could die from measlesā complaint to one of the Marin County schools.
And as one of my friends points out, everybody seems to blame liberal moms for this, not liberal dads, who are equally at fault.
2 Likes
Why hi there. Has anyone ever told you that you are a beautiful, intelligent, alluring post?
I would like to kiss this post on the mouth.
On.
The.
Mouth.
4 Likes
The US and Russian governments keep their smallpox stashes around for the ostensible reason that the Evil Other Guys might decide to weaponize their stash and weād need to produce a vaccine in a hurry. Itās not only dangerous to everybody in the world for the stuff to still exist, but itās extra-hypocritical because we can keep cowpox around to use for vaccination.
1 Like
Iām glad we here at the BBS didnāt assault you, and that you were able to at least listen to our arguments.
Vaccinations are a strangely emotionally charged topic. Iāve caught myself telling people who are in favor of allowing philosophical exemptions that theyāre abusing their children. That Typhoid Mary didnāt believe she was harming anyone, Iāve been really nasty about it. And Iām glad @Aloisius stepped in and explained the situation in a way that you were receptive to hear. Iām glad I didnāt step in and blast you with my anger about this topic.
In the end, I think that vaccines have become victims of their own success. Polio hasnāt been endemic to the US in about 30 years or so now, which means that new parents donāt remember what it was like back in the day. How there were gyms full of children in iron lungs, and how people ended up paralyzed for their whole lives. And how vaccines made such an awful disease a rapidly fading memory to the American public.
Same goes for Measles. It hasnāt been widespread since before the 1990s. People forget that 1 in 10000 kids who get it die because their brain swells up. That a large proportion of kids who got Measles have issues with hearing loss, or visual impairment, or ended up with a disfiguring goiter or neurological damage. 1 in 4 people in the current epidemic have been hospitalized. That pretty much proves Measles isnāt āmostly mildā and ānot a big dealā.
Similarly, it looks like the HepB vaccine confers long-lasting protection against the disease even if titres arenāt necessarily detectable, because of our wonderfully adaptive immune system as @Aloisius pointed out.
In anycase, welcome to the BBS, and we hope to hear from you more!
2 Likes
Thanks LDoBe for your response and I am glad you didnāt as well. For us the question of vaccinations is very important because we frequently travel outside the U.S. but sometimes I find that the emotional charge that has been circulating of late pushes me in the opposite direction. Which is why I am trying to find ways to work through/understand my decision so I dont let my emotions influence me to much.
2 Likes
IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. /morbo
tl;dr: These people arenāt dumb, they are doing a dumb thing; donāt invoke āDarwinā when you mean eugenics, that makes you look uninformed.
I really, really hate it when people bring up the idea of āSurvival of the fittest,ā confuse it with Darwinain Evolution (not even close to the same thing) and use the idea of SotF when they mean eugenics.
For one, there is only a small correlation to heredity and intelligence. Environmental factors, socioeconomic factors are much stronger predictors of intelligence than heredity. Even if we allowed for people to do stupid things to ātake themselves out of the gene pool,ā we will always have people doing dumb things, and will be just causing more suffering to people in general.
Secondly, anti-vax doesnāt just hurt themselves, they hurt everyone. People with cancer, people with immunocomprimization, people who are allergic, people who are too young. People who are related to those people. It creates a loss of economic productivity and hurts the economy as well, which can send ripples down (it usually hurts the people around the poverty line the worst.)
Also, most of the people who are refusing vaccinations arenāt dumb at all, just misinformed, distrustful, and scared. There are two primary groups of people who are not vaccinated in the US, people around the poverty line and people who are upper-middle and upper class. A lot of the issues with people around the poverty line is that they canāt afford it, but there is still some of the other groupās issues mixed in there. The second group, the upper-middle and upper economic classes who donāt vaccinate, they are currently driven by fear, distrust, and misinformation (some which is maliciously spread, some which is just ignorantly spread).
There is a phenomenal amount of distrust and mistrust in both the food and health care sectors, not just in the US but around the world, and I think this is the root of the problem with the anti-vax movement here. There is a lot to distrust about āBIG PHARMAā. All the pharmaceutical companies are profit-driven businesses, and here the way the US has structured businesses and law regarding businesses, they must always do what they can to profit (otherwise they risk lawsuit from shareholders). This causes the pharmaceutical companies to do some things that we find shady or unnerving, things like advertising drugs directly to people, to make it seem like thereās a host of sicknesses out there*. This plants a lot of distrust in peopleās minds. That distrust allows the bad information to take hold. Some of that bad information has been malicious (for example Wakefieldās paper to try and make it seem like his vaccine was safe while the standard one wasnāt), some of it is ignorant, some of it is mutating existing information (the state of Wakefieldās damage now). That distrust is allowing the bad information to take hold and warp peopleās views.
Again, they are not dumb people, they may be doing a dumb thing by not getting vaccinated and not thinking critically about what they are told, but they arenāt dumb people.
*: A lot of people would make fun of adverts about things like restless leg syndrome or other advertised conditions, but I never would have thought about it if there werenāt āBIG PHARMAā adverts about it, nor would I have ever thought to talk to anyone about it. I have minor RLS, and I would have thought it normal. There are plenty of disorders that are lurking in the background of everyoneās ānormal lifeā that may be treatable, or it may even help just knowing that one has the disorder. Iāve had at least three conditions that Iāve put up with throughout my life that I thought were just normal human conditions until I saw something about them. Things like this arenāt all that bad.
** Rant over, phew!
Edit to add this disclaimer: Note: I do not condone or endorse the actions by anti-vaxers, Iām just trying to explain their actions. This in no way is an excuse for them, as this is an inexcusable act. I am in favor, in fact, of mandated vaccinations for everyone (preferably at no cost to the recipient or at least the costs subsidized for those who canāt afford it), except in the condition that they canāt actually receive the vaccine.
5 Likes
1 Like
Darwin first used Spencerās new phrase āsurvival of the fittestā alongside ānatural selectionā in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869. Here it was used as a play on words not as a starter to discuss early Theories of Evolution.
=dumb
If you ask me, while they can certainly coexist, misinformed and dumb are not the same thing. But you know what, even if they are, it doesnāt matter. Wishing for the deaths of these unfortunates, misinformed or dumb, strikes me as a really shitty thing to do.
3 Likes
Iāve always thought that the nut ban was overreaction but this cartoon actually convinces me that its not. It does it by doing two things:
It presents it as a specific persons concern. I can understand that.
Its shown opposite as what I see as a ridiculous opinion.
But isnāt this second opinion a straw man?
Its not about a specific persons concern, its actually about lack of concern.
It doesnāt make people with kids who are allergic to nuts crazy if you notice that its a cheap shot thatās just preaching to the choir.
1 Like
Yeah but weāre speaking about a first world country here and not some third world shithole. Self claimed leader of the free world and according to itās own boasts ābest healthcare/education/XXX in the worldā.
If it were someone misinformed about TV technology thinking TV as ālittle people living in the magic boxā somewhere in the jungles of Papua New-Ginuea then Iām willing to let āmisinformed and dumb are not the same thingā slide but not anti-vax in the US.
Sure it exists in there. But itās not what youāre describing. Itās the survival of the fittest as adapted to the environment, e.g. the finches that can get at food sources; not the dying off of the weak due to disease. Totally different thing weāre talking about here.
Wow, arrogance much? Misinformed, distrustful and scared is absolutely not dumb. Misinformed, distrustful and scared is exactly what I said. Have you ever been any of those things? There is a lot in the worldwide corporate world to be distrustful of, lots of companies in the past have done lots of bad things. Thereās plenty of reason to distrust in that aspect. Misinformed is something to so easily fall into, too. All you have to do is listen to the wrong person, and they can convince you of whatever they want. Everyone gets conned one time or another. Everyone. All of this misinformation about vaccines is done by perpetuating a lot of little con jobs. Some of those are with malicious intent, some without. Which ties into the third point, these people are scared. Everyone is, to a certain extent, itās part of the human condition. A lot of cultural things here also perpetuate that fear further, leading to people being scared and confused. I lot of the anti-vax rhetoric that is spouted is all fear based. There is some sort of guttural fear to getting something you donāt know everything about injected into your body, or worse, your childās body. A lot of these people are scared, misinformed, and just trying to do what they think is right for their child. Sure, itās the absolute wrong thing, but most of them are sincere. Again, not an excuse, more of a glimpse into how they think.
Also, dumb as an overarching term is a terrible thing in and of itself. Very few people are overall ādumbā as I would put it. Intelligence and stupidity are very multifaceted topics, and people can be exceedingly smart at one thing yet completely dumb in another.
Letās take Linus Pauling for example. The man is a two-time Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. The man was a genius in his field. But when he went out of his field, he started supporting things like megadosing vitamins as a panacea, which there was no plausibility or evidence for. This has led to harm just like anti-vax proponents have. Does that make him dumb? No. He just isnāt smart in that field. Many specialists canāt do other tasks. A carpenter probably canāt do nuclear physics. Does that make them dumb? I have relatives who are great at art but canāt do much complex math. Does that make them dumb? Intelligence isnāt a simple point system like in an RPG or an IQ level. Thereās many different types, and everyone varies on all of the scales. This is why I push for dumb actions vs dumb people.
Everyone does dumb things. Everyone. Even you. Does it make you dumb person because youāve done dumb things? No, I would (and you probably would too) say not.
5 Likes
Whatever. You missed the main point of my post.
Iāve always thought that in US English, Socialized = Communist. And that so called āsocialized medicineā was used as a pejorative term to demonize healthcare for all (Where all = most).
Just like āanti vaxxerā is used to dismiss and to polarize āthe otherā, therefore assuring no discussion and hence, no progress is made.
Iām about as mild mannered as a body with a pulse can be, but there are a few things that can get me instantly frothing at the mouth ā antivaxxers are one of them. It simultaneously amuses and horrifies my wife.
4 Likes
I have seen quite a few articles about Doctors that are banning unvaccinated individuals from their offices.
10 Likes
Iām just glad someone pointed out that there are other aspects to this conversation. The amount of marginalization in this sites community is sad sometimes - and I feel this boingboing post went over the top. I donāt have kids and never will. I have strong reasons for choosing to do such and they are centered around population issues and compassion for the environment. But I donāt hop on here and slam everyone for having children in the first place - let alone how they choose to raise those children.
Every human will experience sickness in their lifetime. This is as much a fact as the sun will rise. No amount of vaccinations, sterilizing, quarantine or precaution can prevent this. But once again weāve been duped by the medical industry to point the guns at each other. Donāt people know you can spread health as well as disease?
Of those @Aloisius listed, only sumatriptan succinate (Imitrex) works for me at all, and then only if I take it during the aura onset stage, before the migraine actually hits. Depending on the severity I might get away with 50mg initially and 25mg every half hour for six hours, or I might have to go to 200mg almost immediately (but still another 25mg every half hour, which will end up putting me at three times the recommended max dosage for a 24 hour period). You have to have a heart test before you can take sumatriptan - apparently, if you have an undiagnosed heart condition, you can literally drop dead before the pill even reaches your stomach.
If I wake up in the night with a migraine already in progress, only heavy doses of powerful narcotics can control it. But itās becoming increasingly difficult to legally obtain safe painkillers, because studies have shown that whenever you make legal painkillers unsafe and difficult to obtain, people will turn to heroin, and apparently the US government and medical establishment are determined to do everything in their power to increase the use of heroin, or something. I really canāt follow the contorted illogic of their so-called reasoning, frankly. Anyway, the only painkiller prescriptions I can get are adulterated with potentially lethal levels of acetminophen, which will no doubt eventually kill me. Itās just a matter of time, really.
Interesting - I need warmth, not cold. And bystanders need to not ask questions. Not about anything. Not āwhat is the matterā or ādoes this helpā or anything else. Every question feels like a dull screwdriver being slowly hammered through the exposed, palpitating surface of my brain, and itās not like I can cogently answer them anyway.
3 Likes
