futureevilscientist:whatshappeningtothekids:ucsdhealthsciences:Lest We ForgetRecently, members of th

futureevilscientist:whatshappeningtothekids:ucsdhealthsciences:Lest We ForgetRecently, members of the committees on infectious diseases and practice and ambulatory medicine at the American Academy of Pediatrics published a survey reporting that 87 percent of doctors said they have encountered parents refusing to vaccinate their children, up from 75 percent a decade earlier. Most parents who were hesitant about vaccines weren’t necessarily opposed to immunizing their children, but rather were unsure or uninformed. The most common reason given was that vaccines didn’t seem to be necessary because diseases like measles, mumps and rubella were not seen anymore.Of course, the reason for that is, well, vaccines. As Americans have again learned, it doesn’t take much for the broad, protective effects of vaccines to weaken or fail. High immunization rates protect vulnerable individuals (who can’t be vaccinated due to medical problems or because they’re too young) because everybody else is vaccinated. When significant numbers of unimmunized individuals cluster, herd immunity is lost. In January 2015, for example, a measles outbreak in California occurred because an estimated 3 percent of kindergartners had a non-medical exemption from the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Unimmunized children acquired measles during this outbreak. For parents who have never seen a case of the measles, the stereoscope card above from 1916 shows a young girl with typical diffuse red maculopapular rash from measles. Other symptoms include fever, cough, and a runny nose. In those days, measles sometimes killed or caused eye damage — it still does in developing parts of the world with inadequate vaccination programs. Routine measles vaccines in the 1960s ended that threat in the U.S. — until perhaps now. Parents are refusing vaccination for many reasons. One very important one is the clearly declining health of the the current generation of children. Parents are uniquely qualified to sense real threats to their children and should be respected. They are not “unsure”; they are educating themselves with regard  to:the lack of scientific safety studies with regard to individual vaccines, the lack of scientific safety studies with regard to the current vaccine schedule - synergistic effects when multiple vaccines are given, the lack of liability of the pharmaceutical companies marketing these products,the fraud of the pharmaceutical companies in reporting the effectiveness of their products resulting in the elusive “herd immunity” and never ending boosters.the allegations of the fraud of the CDC in reporting their results in the study of the MMR and autism, the blatant attempts to create fear around diseases that may have been problematic in 1916 but were routine 50 years later when we understood how to support children through the infections. (As a child of the 1960s, I can assure you that I and my four siblings all survived measles, mumps, German measles, and chickenpox - without even a visit to the doctor. AS DID MOST CHILDREN!) Children in developing parts of the world are at risk because they lack the basic necessities of healthy living: sanitation, nutrition, education, protection from the elements. the idea that long term and true “herd immunity” that can only come from acquiring these infections. Stop vilifying parents and ignoring their concerns - they are real and they are valid and they are growing. Oh boy.“Parents are uniquely qualified to sense real threats to their children and should be respected.” Say what. Citation needed. Parents have magical spider senses now? Where were they when the current state-of-the-art medicine was letting patients lose a shitton of blood, I wonder? Parents are not magical. Parents don’t deserve a special kind of respect and consideration just for having pushed out a child into the world. Parents are fully capable of making bullshit decisions both for themselves and on behalf of those they are responsible for. BECAUSE they are responsible for other human beings, it is completely natural that they be held to a higher standard. I will vilify parents all I like if what I’m vilifying them for is their ignorance and lack of common sense.As a child of the 1960s, I can assure you that I and my four siblings all survived measles, mumps, German measles, and chickenpox - without even a visit to the doctor. AS DID MOST CHILDREN!…Literally EVERYBODY alive right now either survived these diseases, contracted them but did not get sick due to vaccinations or natural immunity, or did not contract them. Those are the three groups. The fourth group, group “contracted the disease and DIED because of it”, is conspicuously unavailable for comment. I wonder why? However, I raise you a great-uncle I had who died of a tetanus infection to an injury during WWII. I raise you my grandfather, who caught pertussis at an early age and NEARLY died. Even so, anecdotal evidence means nothing (as someone running a scientific blog ought to well know), least of all in a situation like this which by its nature is filled with reporter bias. No shit, the people alive to talk about it today survived these illnesses. No shit, Sherlock. The only thing that says about the diseases involved or the vaccinations is that the diseases did not have a 100% lethality rate. That is literally the only information that can be gleaned from it. It’s devoid of any further meaning.the idea that long term and true “herd immunity” that can only come from acquiring these infections. That wasn’t even a sentence but I guess you meant that herd immunity can only be achieved by getting sick and surviving the sickness, not by vaccination. And I call bullshit on that as a blanket statement, because whether or not full, lifelong immunity is even achievable for a given disease depends on the DISEASE. Some diseases, you can catch once and basically be protected from for the rest of your life, or at least for a good few decades. Others, our immune system sucks at developing effective antibodies for. There are different mechanisms for this among pathogens; an example of this is so-called ‘variable surface glycoprotein’ in the Trypanosoma genus, i.e. changing the surface antigens every time the immune system develops a response to them. Others, like Plasmodium falciparum (the most dangerous malaria-causing pathogen), have a high rate of polymorphisms in their surface proteins. These are just a few examples. Many of the deadliest diseases are “smart”, and if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have racked up such a high kill count of us throughout history. It’s laughable to think it’s all as simple as getting sick once and surviving it with the right care and then being immune. And speaking of surviving it with the right care…Children in developing parts of the world are at risk because they lack the basic necessities of healthy living: sanitation, nutrition, education, protection from the elements. In other words, “all diseases are always survivable with the right care”? Citation needed. Because last I checked, those diseases are pretty good at killing us. Maybe not always, but often enough to make blanket vaccinations safer on the whole than blanket “let’s just feed you chicken soup and keep you hydrated and hope for the best”.First of all, get an eyeful of this page. Specifically the diseases for which no treatment exists, but also the diseases with a high ‘case fatality rate’ even in cases of early treatment. But the idea that any illness can be rendered harmless if you just take good care of the sick is bullshit just on principle.  In order to “defeat” any disease, your immune system needs to produce antibodies to neutralise the pathogens which will have, by then, multiplied like hell in your body. This is a process that takes time. It can’t not take time, because it’s literally the immune system trying to “hack” the pathogens’ antigen structure and pick the right antibody structure to bind to it. The genetic variance of possible gene combinations in an antibody is roughly 10^14. That’s ten to the power of fourteen, i.e. “more than you can possibly imagine or visualise”. Even though it’s a directed process and not entirely random and thus goes much quicker than just trying every combination, there are still thousands of combinations to try. So it will, on average, take DAYS for your body to produce the right antibodies for an illness, no matter if it’s Ebola or the flu. And if it IS goddamn Ebola, or anthrax, or ANY of the goddamn dozens of fairly wide-spread diseases that are dangerous to us, those are days you DO NOT HAVE. If it’s something really nasty, between the disease wrecking hell on your body and damaging organs and tissue (and, you know, all that stuff that needs to be kept up and running to maintain such processes as the IMMUNE SYSTEM that keeps trying to produce those antibodies) and your own body trying to cook the pathogen to death while also cooking its own proteins to death. There are many, many diseases for which the immune reaction is actually more lethal than the disease itself - since you mentioned 1916, it’s worth saying that in the case of the Spanish flu, the epidemic that killed ca. 5% of the world population then, the high fatalities were attributed in part to the cytokine storm aspect of the disease i.e. basically an immune reaction from hell. So the argument that vaccines are superfluous and with any disease, you should be able to just take good care of the patient and wait it out is bullshit on a million of levels.the allegations of the fraud of the CDC in reporting their results in the study of the MMR and autism, Yoou know what? Okay. Let’s assume, for sake of argument, that vaccines DO cause autism. Let’s just put aside the 'if’ question and assume the answer is yes. I mean, as far as I’m aware, it’s nonsense, but let’s play along.Next question: Is autism worse than pertussis, worse than smallpox, worse than Lyme’s disease, worse than tetanus, worse than tick-borne meningoencephalitis? No. No, it is not. There. Dilemma solved. the lack of scientific safety studies with regard to individual vaccines,the lack of scientific safety studies with regard to the current vaccine schedule - synergistic effects when multiple vaccines are given,the lack of liability of the pharmaceutical companies marketing these products,See 'autism’ point above. The difference in the death rate from infectious diseases (in those countries with the infrastructure to provide wide-scale immunisations) between now and a hundred, two hundred years ago: There’s your “safety study”. It doesn’t need to be 100% safe, it only needs to be “the lesser evil” to be viable. (Or, in this case, not particularly evil at all. But even IF you believe the vaccination industry to be evil, there’s no question that diseases are evil-er.) Questions along the lines of “is the vaccination industry perfect” are relevant for the topic of how to improve the vaccination industry, not whether or not it’s NECESSARY. -- source link

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