Anti-Vaxxer Sympathy

[Cato]

But wait a second. We have (Australia) maybe 93-94% rate of childhood immunisation. Now compare that to say the fact that 20% of women in Australia report that they have experienced childhood sex abuse. I don't have the statistic in front of me but it's something around half that for men. But here's another statistic - more than 23% of children in Australia experience seeing domestic violence in their home between their parents.

Last I checked, being an abuse victim or being witness to abuse is not communicable. If there was an inoculation that prevented abuse do you not think this would become part of the standard battery? And yet you think I'm the one that needs to grow some perspective.

You also prattled on about the threshold for community immunization so your argument can be summarized that these fucking nitwits can benefit from immunization regimens without actually having to participate. Do you seriously not know how fucking dumb this argument sounds?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Secondly how do you suppose anyone is going to contract the disease when no one has it?

How can you assume no one has it? Simply because you've met a statistical goal doesn't mean you've eradicated a disease. Polio was declared "eradicated", yet it is still extant, for exactly the reason you listed -- that even immunized folks can get a disease. Yet here, you're assuming that inoculation confers immunity, and provides for eradication. You're trying to have it both ways.

I'm tell you that it's morally wrong to blame patients for the failings of healthcare delivery.

I know what you're telling me. I disagree with your view on the matter, because I know for a fact that in many cases it isn't a "failure of health-care delivery", it's people latching on to something a celebrity said on a talk-show who take up the cause themselves, reading biased literature along the way, and deliberately avoiding unbiased information. Those people do not deserve my respect, and whether or not you think I'm moral or immoral doesn't really matter to me.

Your labelling of people as "anti-vaxxers" is not helpful. You're simply looking to the extremes.

Actually, it's the extremes that I'm addressing.

I already explained to you there is not just one reason why a person doesn't vaccinate their child. Put it this way - let's say you open a business and you sell a product that you think the public wants. And potential consumers come to you, and some of them are put off because you are mean, arrogant, forceful and disrespectful. From your point of view it's "their fault" that they don't want your service, but from their point of view you didn't earn their trust, and because of their experience they don't want to buy products from your company.

This idea that patients are to blame for not seeking and receiving the medical advice and services that they need is WRONG. It's backwards.

Except that many are, including the lady in the OP's video.

If there's a problem it is not on their end - end of story. It's on the side of healthcare services - they're the ones who need to ensure they're offering products and services that don't push their customers out the door never to return.

Justify your blanket absolution.

Even in your extremist argument - "well some people say they are against vaccination". Yes. Some - a small minority compared to the total number of people who don't vaccinate.

Source this claim with specific numbers, please.

However, for many of those people it will not be because they are "intellectually objected" that will be a secondary reason and you will find that in the majority of cases, even where people say they object, the primary reason is something else. Their doctor was rude or inconsiderate to them once. They had some other negative experience with healthcare at some time. They have legitimate concerns that haven't been listened to or addressed.

Source this claim with specific numbers, please.

There are many reasons why people who should access a health service that you think is important fail to do so. It's not at all limited to vaccination, and if you want to address it you have to fix the services not fix the patients.

Well, we're talking about vaccination, and we both know there's a hell of a lot of woo about on the matter. Pretending that it's all the health-industry's fault -- and that wooists are not responsible for their own views -- doesn't seem supportable to me.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Put shortly, you still haven't explained how the bacteria in the 5% unimmunized should simply die off. Australia has a population of over 23 million. 1.38 million would be the uninoculated.

[downbeatplumb]

Put shortly, you still haven't explained how the bacteria in the 5% unimmunized  should simply die off. Australia has a population of over 23 million. 1.38 million would be the uninoculated.

Providing a pool for the little buggers to infect others. Anti vaxxers are selfish idiots, and that's me being nice.

[Mister Agenda]

Gist of the article:
Sometimes even smart people get taken in by junk science but a loving empathetic approach can bring them around.

Yes, even smart people can be duped by junk science, especially when it's coupled with fear.

Love and empathy bringing them around. Usually bullshit.

Maybe it's bullshit. What works better than love an empathy?

[Mister Agenda]

Sympathy is good and all, but it takes too damn long with no guaranteed end results.

The same sympathy argument can be made for criminals as well, but locking them up is usually a better solution due to time and resources.

Is locking them up on the table?

[Mister Agenda]

The problem of Anti-vaxxers is exacerbated by quack doctors who proclaim things like Vaccines cause Autism.  Then you have people like Jenny McCarthy (what is it with McCarthy's and their witch hunts?) who spread the word.  And people start trusting Jenny McCarthy over their doctors.  

As a High School teacher, I'm required to get my flu shot every year.  (They offer it at our school, but I can't get it there because I have a severe latex allergy.  And while they would accommodate me, I'd rather trust my pharmacist)  If i were an Anti-Vaxxer, I'd potentially be putting many of my students in danger.  Just as children who don't get vaccinated potentially put other children at risk.  Particularly ones who cannot be vaccinated for reasons such as severe allergies and auto-immune defeciencies.  

It's also in a way a form of child abuse not to get your children vaccinated.  It makes them susceptible to easily preventable diseases.

Feel free to have sympathy for them.  But they need to be educated on the dangers of not vaccinating their children, and shouldn't be allowed to just close their eyes and refuse to immunize their children.

Maybe part of the solution is to require publc school children to have their shots unless there is a good medical reason why they shouldn't, such as certain immunological disorders. If the parents feel so strongly about not getting their kids vaccinated that this is not acceptable, they can send their children to a private school that doesn't require vaccinations or homeschool them. That would also reduce their children's contact with public school children.

[brewer]

Vaccine requirements by state.

http://www.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/school-vaccinations.pdf

This is an anti vaccination site. They talk about filing exemptions. Surf around a little.

http://www.nvic.org/vaccine-laws.aspx

[brewer]

Look this is my field of study,

Credentials please. Articles, books, papers, any supporting evidence.

[Aroura]

Immunisation is about preventing outbreaks, not individual cases. So this whole argument that parents are putting their own children at greater risk is not correct - they are putting the community at greater risk - but only if a significant number of others in the community also doesn't get their children immunised. You guys seriously don't even seem to understand that in this thread - and that I think is what gets a lot of people confused in the first place. They don't see an individual benefit for their child, because there isn't one, and therefore they question whether they really need it - which they don't if the community has a 95% immunisation rate.

But the communities are falling well below 95% because of individuals.

I get what you are saying, but we cannot make people give a shit about, or even be able to see, the bigger picture and the community as a whole.

Letting people make this choice as individuals is causing the herd immunity to drop into the mid 80's%, I think where I live it is now 83% immunized, WELL below what is safe for us as a group.

People need to realize that the good of the community IS for the good of their individual child.  So....that makes me not get your argument.  I immunize my child toprotect her, but also to protect the kid next door with bone marrow disease who cannot get immunized.  If people can't see that, then it needs to be forced on them.  Period.