A Nice Pro Vaccine Perspective
This is from JJ Keith at the Huffington Post. I think she gives a really good pro vaccine point of view. Here are some highlights:
- In California, where I live, there is a database of vaccine rates listed by school. There are pockets where the vaccine rates are dipping below 50 percent. For herd immunity to be effective, vaccination rates need to be at least in the ballpark of 80 percent.
- There seems to be two main types of parents who are skipping routine immunization for their healthy children: the ultra-crunchy and the ultra-conservative (plus a third group that I’ll address later). The two camps of “ultras” might not seem to have a lot in common, but they’re buying their doomsday rations from the same catalog, if you catch my drift. Both groups often have intense distrust of modern medicine and the government.
- Some members of both camps of ultras subscribe to the idea that there is a “coordinated media blackout” to conceal the dangers of vaccines because “the exact same people who own the world’s drug companies also own America’s news outlets,” as one recently viral article put it. Even if that were true, our alleged oligarchy doesn’t own science and history. Science has repeatedly disproven a link between vaccines and autism. History has shown that vaccine-preventable diseases flourish where there is no herd immunity.
- Being informed parents who research the recommendations of their pediatricians is one thing. Doctors aren’t infallible. However, anti-vaccine advocates are asking parents to disavowing nearly the entire medical establishment and for much the same reason that cults cut off their followers from their families: If someone is to be convinced of something that cannot be supported legitimately, then legitimate sources must be discredited — however clumsily.
Please go to the article are read the rest. She does a really great job. Then when you want to get lost in a sea of stupidity, see some of the comments at the end of the article.
One word….POLIO. When it comes back there will be mass hysteria.
Its really hard for some people to understand what the diseases that we vaccinate for are really like. They see the rash, fever, diarrhea not the long term consequences. As a resident I saw a 7 week old with pertussis. She could not eat without her oxygen levels going really low. There was also a 15mo who became deaf from her measles while she was in the hospital. I had 4 patients with post polio syndrome. Not vaccinating scares me.
Idiots.
I’m waiting for the pandemic that wipes them out of the gene pool, as is their only proper fate.
I’ll take my chances on incomplete immunity from my own vaccinations, just for the pleasure of being able to tell them that a vaccine won’t do them any good now that they’re sick, and that they just have to trust in God now (or in Gaia, or The Universe, or whatever their flavor of BS is).
Good grief…paging Dr. McCarthy…