
Teen Gets Vaccines During Measles Outbreak, Despite Mom's Belief - evo_9
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/09/692819105/defying-parents-a-teen-decides-to-get-vaccinated
======
tomrod
Herd immunity is immensely important and an underrated benefity in modern
society.

We lived near a large religious community in Ohio that does not practice
vaccination while my children were too small to be fully vaccinated. Whenever
measles or other outbreaks would occur, we had legitimate fears for our
children's health.

I wonder if the benefits of non-compliance were offset with more certain
negative impacts if more people would be vaccinated. Something like a tax
levied for not being vaccinated set at compensating the ongoing care for
people who can't (rather than choose to not) be vaccinated and get sick with
things herd immunity would prevent.

~~~
acomjean
There is an currently an outbreak of Measles in Washington.

Yet the anti-vaxers are still out in force, against any move by the government
requiring vaxination.[1]

People with children too young to be vacinated are running scared[2].

its odd. I really wonder sometimes what is driving the anti vax movement. It
seems like something that exists with nothing for anyone to gain. I'm all for
questioning things, but it seems people aren't able to make the rational
decisions and are endangering others.

[1][https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/08/washington-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/08/washington-
measles-outbreak-draws-crowd-hearing-vaccine-law)

[2][https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it-
wi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/it-will-take-
off-like-a-wildfire-the-unique-dangers-of-the-washington-state-measles-
outbreak/2019/02/06/cfd5088a-28fa-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html)

~~~
mindslight
It's a _great thing_ that the anti-vaxers are coming out in force. Ideally on
a calm day.

What a lot of people seem to be missing is that the anti-vaxxers are actually
_pro-science_. They are sacrificing to reproduce a result that the rest of us
consider settled. The quicker they're able to draw a conclusion from their
experiment, the better.

~~~
colemickens
It's a good thing that these people's young children may contract violent
whooping cough, or may die a miserable death, because their parents have
freedom? It's good thing that others who can't vaccinate or otherwise benefit
from herd immunity are getting sick while we let these parents play out their
experiment?

I suspect you didn't mean that, but I think we need to take this more
seriously, again, per the grandparent, given the broader public health risk
that this movement plays, particularly outside its adherents.

~~~
mindslight
What you have said is indeed the _direct implication_ of what I said. And I
did mean to say what I said.

I've got to wonder if the sensationalist panic of our times isn't simply due
to people not being able to accept mild sarcasm in written form. Humor is a
coping mechanism - read some horrible less-mediated truth, shake your head,
sigh, and build some consensus based around calming rather than outrage.

What I am plainly sure of is that getting more and more worked up ("take this
more seriously") about the actions of people I can't control isn't going to
solve the problem either.

~~~
DanBC
When multiple people misunderstand you the problem is with your writing, not
with their comprehension.

~~~
mindslight
I don't think the issue was with understanding, but rather with my comment
detracting from the moral panic.

------
true_tuna
This should explicitly be allowed under the law. Right now parents can exempt
their children from lifesaving vaccines. Kids should be allowed to override
that.

~~~
loeg
More broadly, kids should have some basic rights to self-determination well
before 18. In the US, kids have astonishingly few rights.

------
InclinedPlane
Measles is incredibly bad. What people have found is that the introduction of
measles vaccination in a country inevitably leads to a significant decrease in
all cause mortality, which doesn't seem to be explained by a reduction in
measles cases alone. It has long been known that those recovering from the
measles are effectively in an immunocompromised state for several weeks, there
is now increasing research pointing to the measles basically knocking out
existing acquired immunity and resetting a person back into an immunologically
naive state. This "immune shadow" then leaves individuals vulnerable to
secondary infections (flu, rotavirus, etc.) which take their own toll and show
up in different columns in the statistics down the road. Additionally, a very
rare form of encephalitis can develop up to a decade after having the measles
and is invariably fatal.

Get vaccinated.

------
itissid
What I am really scared of is mutation of certain disease due to a lack of
heard immunity. I thought it was logical that mutation of certain viruses
poses a threat, even to vaccinated people within the heard, in a population
where heard immunity is compromised?

------
surfsvammel
As one who cannot get some vaccine shots. I am ever thankful to those that do.

------
BooneJS
Back in my day, the rebels just got tattoos when they were old enough. Maybe
this generation will survive.

------
imgabe
I think the only way to fix this is to create a counter-conspiracy theory.
Maybe something like "the anti-vax movement was started by the lizard people
to weed out the weakest people so they'd only have the healthiest slaves in
their salt mines"

The CDC putting out notices isn't going to help. That just feeds into the
rejection of authority at the heart of it. The only hope is to out-crazy them.

~~~
technofiend
>The only hope is to out-crazy them.

Or just outlaw all exemptions except medically necessary and block unimmunized
children from attending school.

~~~
voltagex_
They'll homeschool them. In the worst case, you're punishing the kid, not the
parent.

~~~
technofiend
So be it. Fundamentalist Christians have the highest rate of home schooling
now. At least the general public will be protected -- I'll take a slight
uptick in home schooling for a huge increase in vaccination. And besides those
truly committed to the cause the moms doing this because they're just
followers will most likely not home school. Too much trouble.

~~~
klyrs
I have blood relatives (not family) into this crap. Both the homeschooling and
the fundamentalism. They "protect" their children from everything outside of
their narrow worldviews, science being a chief villain. It's an incredible
disservice to the kids. Who are alarmingly numerous and approaching voting
age.

------
alexozer
I don't get it. If you don't feed your child, it's child abuse. Why is not
providing vaccines any different? Why isn't this something you can make a CPS
neglect case out of?

------
driverdan
Refusing to vaccinate children should be considered abuse and endangerment.
Other than some rare health conditions there are zero legitimate reasons to
not vaccinate.

~~~
loeg
It certainly seems like CPS takes kids away from their parents for less
already (e.g., independent play or travel).

------
tu7001
The only, who are in charge (up to some law cases) in their child health are
its parents; if they decide to vaccine or not it's their beef, not ours.

------
jayalpha
It is useless to talk to such people. You are using the scientific framework,
they are not. Trust me, I tried.

Funny thing on the side:

Since a vaccination is rarely 100% effective but most people in the western
world are vaccinated, more vaccinated people get sick than not vaccinated
people. :-)

~~~
darkpuma
> _" It is useless to talk to such people. You are using the scientific
> framework, they are not. Trust me, I tried."_

It's possible to get through to these people if you're willing to argue in
terms they understand, which means dropping "scientific framework". You might
be unwilling to do that, but if you can stomach it, it works. Constructing
persuasive irrational arguments for positions that are correct takes some
practice, but it's not exactly difficult.

~~~
jayalpha
Good luck.

[https://qz.com/1258198/conspiracy-theorists-believe-wild-
ide...](https://qz.com/1258198/conspiracy-theorists-believe-wild-ideas-
because-they-want-to-feel-special/)

"It's possible to get through to these people if you're willing to argue in
terms they understand"

No, because they would lose their feeling of superiority. On what kind of
basis do you want to discuss with them? If you present a fact they will just
say: "We don't believe this!"

If you present scientific evidence they will say: "We don't accept this! This
is not proof! We want proof".

"Proof" is something that is not not inherent in the scientific method,
requiring it shows a total lack of understanding of science.

~~~
darkpuma
> _No, because they would lose their feeling of superiority._

Perhaps you've never gotten the hang of it, but it's possible to persuade
people in ways that lead them to believe your idea was theirs. Learning this
skill will improve your life, because most people you will encounter on your
journey through life are not Spock impersonators.

------
scintill76
> "God knows how I'm still alive," Lindenberger wrote on Reddit last November.

Seems a bit over-dramatic. "Thank God" for the good luck would make more sense
if he wants to say something along these lines; it's not like he defied
astronomical odds. Millions of people in poor countries are still surviving
without vaccination. Living in Ohio, he also benefits from sanitation and the
majority of the community being vaccinated. That last bit is part of the
problem -- people see "nobody" is sick anymore and think vaccines aren't
needed.

------
gnicholas
I have a Facebook friend who is fairly active in the anti-vaccine community. I
don’t know much about the science, but the one thing she has posted that has
concerned me is that insurers pay doctors significant sums (tens of thousands)
if the super-majority or their patients are vaccinated on a certain schedule.
She has posted printouts that allege this, and I’ve not seen any arguments
that dispute this claim (there are lots of people disputing other claims of
hers, just not this one).

Does anyone know if this is true? It resonated with me because when we were
vaccinating our baby, we asked if we could slow down the vaccination schedule
and spread out the shots a little. The doctor was very strongly against any
spacing, even though she couldn’t articulate why. If she’s being
measured/compensated based on having patients vaccinated on-schedule as my
friend claims is the case, this would explain her reaction.

Note: we fully vaccinated our child, despite her having an adverse reaction to
the chicken pox vaccine (which we never had as kids, since at that time
everyone just got the chicken pox).

~~~
colemickens
This is what I hate the most about this anti-vax thing. They've gotten so much
publicity and are so wide-spread, that even people who know vaccines don't
cause autism, wind up getting trapped into this game where they think they
have to compromise for the anti-vax viewpoint.

All they have to do is throw handwavey _bullshit_ out there until enough
people doubt and do stupid made-up stuff like spacing out the vaccines for
some unknown, unmeasurable benefit.

There are people in my state, in the "best country on Earth", dying from
preventable diseases because of OTHER PEOPLES' pseudo-scientific crap and
"beliefs". I just can't take it. When are we going to drop what we're doing
and pour the billions we need into public education? - funding, reform,
curriculum, emphasis on personal finance and logical reasoning skills. Pick a
topic - climate change, flat earth, vaccines/autism, all of this irrationality
starts with education.

Also, insurance companies go out of their way to incentivize and encourage
proactive health measures, especially for younger groups; given all credible
scientific research and data, and barring some other weird conspiracy, it
seems reasonable to think they're encouraging vaccines because _they keep
people from getting preventable diseases and suffering miserable deaths_.

~~~
brandonmenc
> When are we going to drop what we're doing and pour the billions we need
> into public education?

Anecdotal, but most of the anti-vaxxers I know are relatively highly educated.

~~~
tomhoward
Same here. I'm not antivax myself, but in those I know who are, they don't
lack education. It seems more to do with distrust of authority in my
observation.

~~~
JshWright
In my experience it tends to both extremes...

------
crimsonalucard
I'm really close to my mom. The difference between us is that I'm a militant
atheist (not agnostic, there is a logical reason for that but it's off topic)
and she's a hard core jehovahs witness. Imagine the conversations we have.

