Vaccination exemption in CA, personal down, medical up

[FatAndFaithless]

Sorry for jumping in


Totally agree.


This point of view mystifies me.
Where do these parents get their statistics from that would lead them to think this way?
When vaccines were first introduced, infant mortality related to the diseases targeted by the vaccines steadily decreased.

Then, some schmuck doctor puts out a paper where he wrongfully correlates vaccination with autism.... at a time when nearly everyone is vaccinated... and the gullible idiots eat it up... even though the same doctor has since retracted his paper. And now a whole stupid movement is out there...

Anyway, where I come from, you can't enroll at daycare, school, not even college without an up to date vaccination card. Vaccination itself was never mandatory, I think. But school is. So... vaccination ends up being compulsory.
Exceptions exist, of course.... some people are allergic, some are this, some are that... but they are properly reasonable exceptions.
But, since everyone else is vaccinated, these exceptions get the benefit of herd immunity.

This movement of stupid parents that are punching holes in the web of herd immunity is only making these exceptions that can't get vaccines much more vulnerable than they already were, while, for he most part not feeling any ill effects of not vaccinating, precisely due to herd immunity.
However, I think I've seen some stats on regions where this movement has taken a foot hold and some half forgotten diseases are on the rise in those communities.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/...05806.html
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“However, if vaccination rates fall it is relatively easy for infectious diseases to re-establish themselves, especially the highly contagious ones like measles and diphtheria,” she warns. “The UK experienced a significant measles outbreak in 2012 and 2013 - particularly in South Wales - caused by a dip in MMR vaccination rates in the early 2000s. In 2012 there were 2,016 cases of measles in the UK. In the first six months of 2013 there were a further 1,287 cases of measles; 257 of these people were admitted to hospital, including 39 with serious complications such as pneumonia, meningitis and gastroenteritis, and one young man died of measles complications.
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“The anti vaccine movement is very dangerous."They are also completely misinformed and believe that doctors make money by giving vaccines. The truth is that the cost to physicians and health organisations is enormous. In the US, doctors and hospitals have to purchase vaccinations up front. They then have to store them and administer them. If the vaccines go unused, they lose money. Vaccine costs go up exponentially and this is actually a reason many private practice physicians have closed their practices. The cost for them to keep their patients healthy is unrealistic."

"They are insidious as they plant false ideas into the minds of worried parents. The irony is that they all survived because they were vaccinated and did not succumb to common childhood illnesses that cause death or permanent disability. They shouldn't be given a platform in the interest of balance. It's a bit like climate change. We have to move away from framing every scientific discussion as though it were a political issue with two equal sides."

Asked what the public needs to take away from immunisation week, Larson adds: “Vaccines are one of the best health inventions in history, and have saved millions of lives. They are not perfect, and they will never be perfect.

“But, as with all science and health interventions, you need to keep aspiring to improve what you have to make it better. And in the meantime use the best tools we have to prevent disease and save lives."
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I don't know if I'd call Wakefield a scmuck. He was being paid good money to establish causal links between vaccines and autism ensured he found some, mainly by falsifying data and subjecting infants to unnecessary, risky & very painful operations like lumbar punctures.

There are much stronger terms for people like him.

On the topic of Wakefield - just one further point - my senior thesis in college was on the history of the anti-vaccination movements (they certainly didn't start with Wakefield, they've been around for centuries), and Wakefield misrepresented or altered the medical records of every single one of the 12 participants in his study.  Not to mention the fact (which I'm sure has been mentioned somewhere in this thread) that he had applied for patents on a rival MMR vaccine during his shitty study.

But I agree with Wololo.  Not a schmuck, just a morally bankrupt, utterly cynical, self-deluded money-grubbing snake-oil salesman.