

Anti-vax parents aren’t stupid, love their kids, and aren't disregarding yours - thanatosmin
http://www.thespectroscope.com/read/anti-vaccine-parents-arent-stupid-they-do-love-their-kids-and-by-lenny-teytelman-287

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bikamonki
Jhonny's parents 'believe' vax are unnecessary so he skips the needle. A few
years later he goes to a school with mostly vax kids. Naturally, on such
healthy environment there is nothing for Jhonny to catch so he grows strong
and healthy. His parents conclude that their belief was correct completely
ignoring the fact that un-vax Jhonny never encounter a threat to actually
'prove' that vax are not needed.

Jhonny's mom finds a better job so they move, this time they relocate to a
community with a higher concentration of anti-vax parents. Summer's over, back
to school, a few weeks in: boom a measles outbreak! Jhonny gets sick :(

What went wrong?

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sithadmin
>"They love their kids no less than anyone else and sincerely want to protect
them from harm. They are not trying to selfishly ride the herd immunity. They
are not willfully endangering the health of the other kids."

Oh, really? Willfully allowing your child to become a vector that enables the
spread of disease to other people, including those that have legitimate
reasons to depend on herd immunity rather than vaccinations (i.e., those that
take immunosuppressant drugs after transplant operations, or those with
otherwise compromised immune systems) doesn't count as willful endangerment?

That's nonsense. The anti-vaxxer community operates from a moral low ground,
and deserve to be held accountable for the grave public health risks they
create.

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sklogic
Morons? Probably not. Ignorant? Definitely.

A complimentary read on this topic:
[http://www.badscience.net/](http://www.badscience.net/)

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owly
I thought the main charge of the anti-vax group was the, now debunked,
thimerosal-autism link. Is that not the case? No doubt that pharmaceutical
companies have a history of spreading disinformation for profit. What is the
solution? I believe greater openness and greater CDC oversight of independent
trials is the only way. Much of the work requires very long term studies and
the public is not willing to wait.

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DanBC
The MMR-autism sham involved a doctor (now struck off) who was developing his
own measles vaccine and thus needed to stop people taking MMR, and who was
being paid by a lawyer to find problems with the MMR vaccine for a law suit.
That then-doctor took samples without permission, faked results, lied to
colleagues.

You're right about dishonest pharmaceutical companies losing the trust of the
public, but in the MMR case we've had very strong evidence from a wide range
of scientists and companies to show that MMR vaccine is safe. Although every
thing carries some amount of risk the risks of having a vaccination are much
less than not having the vaccination.

I don't know how we get that message across to parents: there's a risk with
everything, even with doing nothing, and in this case doing nothing is riskier
than doing something.

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SEJeff
I call blatant ignoring of facts, science, and numerous pleas from
pediatricians supporting vaccinations as stupidity. What other word in the
English language fits that description?

~~~
bikamonki
Irrationality

