Vaccinations-- Sanjay Gupta is my hero!

[bennyboy]

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/health...index.html

(CNN)—Over the last few hours, I have started, scratched out and even abandoned the writing of this op-ed. I couldn't do it. It wasn't there. Didn't feel it.

Something kept nagging at me, and it wasn't until this very moment that I finally figured out what.

It's the idea that this article would be labeled "opinion" or "editorial" in the first place. Sure, there are some topics that seem to lend themselves appropriately to opinion pages:

The President's new budget.

The death penalty.



Is Tom Brady the greatest quarterback ever?

Vaccines, however, which have prevented 6 million deaths every year worldwide and have fundamentally changed modern medicine, should not be on that list.

The benefit of vaccines is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact.

Studies, including a meta analysis of 1.2 million children this past December, show no link between vaccines and autism. That is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact.

That you are 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to have a serious allergic reaction to the vaccine that protects you against measles is not a matter of opinion.

That is also a matter of fact.

Measles outbreak: How bad is it?

Facts should matter, and science should win, but after 13 years as a medical reporter, I know it is not that simple.

Science often loses the zeal argument to ideology, and in some ways it is easy to understand why.

At the heart of the vaccine argument is the awesome challenge of trying to prove a negative.

If you or your child never gets the disease the vaccine was designed to prevent, there is no surprise. There is no headline. Life goes on.

The flip side, though, is that the one in a million child (literally, 1/1,000,000) who has a serious adverse reaction. It is likely to make the news, confirm the worst fears and lead to the enlistment of an army in the fight against vaccines.

It is worth pointing out that 12 out of 10,000 people who take an aspirin are at risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding in the brain. People who regularly take too much acetaminophen are the largest group of people hospitalized for acute liver failure. And, on average, one person in the United States dies every year from H20 intoxication, or drinking too much water. And yet, no armies have formed against aspirin, Tylenol or water.

David Katz, from Yale School of Public Health, wrote that it makes no more sense to rant against vaccines because you heard of someone who might have had an adverse reaction than to stop walking because you heard about a pedestrian struck by a car.

5 things to know about measles

In many ways, it is a luxury to be able to have this discussion at all.

Having spent time in West Africa covering the Ebola outbreak, I saw how people hoped, wished and prayed for a vaccine -- to no avail.

On the other hand, the measles vaccine is readily available, and yet vaccination rates in certain areas of the United States are similar to the refugee camps I have visited in Haiti, Pakistan and Jordan.

Yes, parents have a choice in this country.

It is a choice that so many others around the world will never have.

Of course I vaccinated my children. Didn't think twice. Not a big fan of the measles or mumps or rubella -- to name a few very preventable diseases.

And here is where I may lapse for a moment -- into opinion.

The anti-vaccination argument is often snugly wrapped in the "I love my kids" sentiment. And, I find it, well, a little insulting.

To suggest that anyone who vaccinates their kids doesn't love them is a whole new level of lunacy. But here is the fact of the matter, for me.

It's not just because I love my kids that I vaccinated them -- it's because I love your kids as well.

[Cato]

[Minimalist]

Even John Boehner gets it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post...accinated/

[Creed of Heresy]

Even John Boehner gets it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post...accinated/

I've seen everything, now.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'm really sorry we put Andy Wakefield over to you guys. What with Jenny MCarthy and all the other nutjobs running around in the US, seems like you've got an almost perfect storm.

Naturally, whenever a child dies from measles you'll never be able to pin these loony tunes down and get them to admit that a perfectly safe vaccine could have prevented their death. Instead all you'll get is some wacko shit about "autism" or "big pharma!"

[FreeTony]

The problem with people like this is that they haven't reached their conclusions by looking at the scientific evidence, so using a scientific argument doesn't do a whole lot of good.

For some, they have reached their conclusions because they think that it makes them special in some way to hold an opinion that is different to that of the experts. It is empowering to feel like you know more about a subject than a group of people who study it daily, and have years of data to back up their thinking. This isn't any different to many climate change denialists, creationists or conspiracy theorists.

Now there are also those that could not be bothered to vacinate, and are using this as a post-hoc justification.

Then there are those that genuinely have little science education, or perhaps focused on subjects where opinions were more important than facts - the latter can apply to many well-off educated types too that visit spiritual healers on a wednesday evening at £50 a go.

[rexbeccarox]

I'm really sorry we put Andy Wakefield over to you guys. What with Jenny MCarthy and all the other nutjobs running around in the US, seems like you've got an almost perfect storm.

Naturally, whenever a child dies from measles you'll never be able to pin these loony tunes down and get them to admit that a perfectly safe vaccine could have prevented their death. Instead all you'll get is some wacko shit about "autism" or "big pharma!"

Part of this convo sounds really familiar to me... have we had it before? :p

[bennyboy]

This isn't any different to many climate change denialists, creationists or conspiracy theorists.

I have noticed that these groups seem to overlap a lot. There is one important addition to the no-vaccine group though: even some liberal mothers have chosen not to go with a vaccine. I suppose fear trumps logic when it comes to the instinct to protect. As Dr. Gupta said, they see their refusal to allow the vaccinations as an act of love-- despite the fact that statistically, they are much more likely to be bringing harm to their children than saving them from it.

[Esquilax]

What's worse is the "Just Asking Questions" anti-vaxxers that I've encountered over the last few days, these inexplicable people who both vaccinate their children yet search for any angle to confirm that those same vaccinations are, in fact, dangerous.

First they'll ask what risk not being vaccinated poses to others if they've been vaccinated themselves. So I'll explain it to them, using Luckie as an example: she's immunosuppressed, what she catches from other people can easily get serious. Instead of taking that as an answer, they'll instead be skeptical, as though somehow they can question Luckie into non-existence: what's the actual chances of people like her getting sick and dying from that? And I respond by pointing out how offensive it is that they're willing to gamble my wife's life, anyone's life against the largely illusory risks of vaccines, and the pridefulness of certain parents, but I also provide the answer: what risk there is only rises the more people refuse to vaccinate, the more diseases they refuse to vaccinate against, and the more opportunities this allows viruses to mutate in a live host and transfer to those that are vaccinated.

I've had the same conversation twice now; in the first instance the response was to merely insist that the chances of getting sick and dying from an unvaccinated person was low, and in the second they changed the subject to allergies to vaccination, as though presenting a small risk invalidates the rising risk I'd posited. In neither case was any evidence presented by these people, though they expected reams of it from me.

Those are the people that really baffle me, the ones who, as FreeTony said, seem addicted to the idea of having beliefs counter to accepted science, even when they've vaccinated themselves. At least proper anti-vaxxers have stuck to their beliefs; these assholes are doing it just to be different.

[Cato]

I'm really sorry we put Andy Wakefield over to you guys. What with Jenny MCarthy and all the other nutjobs running around in the US, seems like you've got an almost perfect storm.

Not to worry, we're a resilient bunch. Joe McCarthy will still be remembered as a prick 100 years from now, but only die hard Playboy aficionados will remember Jenny. Tim Wakefield was celebrated for the crazy shit he threw out, but Andy is hardy known in these parts.