We need to think of a better way to convince parents to vaccinate their children than hitting them with sarcasm. While these are fun to read from our smug pro-vax point of view, they provide no effect on everyone else.
We need to show parents what life was like before the polio vaccine. Before measles/mumps. Hell, before smallpox. Part of the problem is that younger parents don't believe that these diseases were all too real and way too common before the treatments. There aren't many polio survivors around anymore, and the only place you'll ever see measles is on Brady Bunch reruns.
I used to be a mormon, and I served a mission. People that had been exposed to the absurdity of mormonism were difficult to convert, and people that had never heard of mormonism were relatively simple.
Satire and sarcasm might not convince an anti-vaxxer that vaccines are good, but they might convince an uninformed person of the ridiculousness that the anti-vaxxer position is. It can stop the conversion.
There are situations where you should convince people, there are situations where you must mandate a decision. Whenever personal freedom produces large negative externalities, the law must mandate behaviours.
These mandated behaviours should be such that freedom is restricted by the minimum needed amount. As an unrelated example: smoking is not prohibited; Smoking in closed public spaces is.
For vaccination, I believe the sweet spot of mandated behaviour is to mandate vaccination of children participating in large public groups. Children that go to public schools must get vaccines. Children playing team sports must be vaccinated.
Parents then maintain the freedom of not vaccinating their kids, but must abide by the rules that prevent those kids from being a menace to the rest of the population.
Note that this is only needed because vaccines rely on "herd protection". If vaccination coverage drops, vaccine efficacy drops precipitously. The effect is very pronounced. 90% coverage is much less effective than 99% coverage. Not vaccinating a child poses a risk for the child, but also poses a risk to all other children he/she is in regular contact with.
P.S. A lot of other discussions may arise: Government prohibitions tend to be slippery slopes; Children should be somewhat protected from their own parents; Should groups be allowed to skip vaccination altogether?. These are secondary issues, irrelevant to the main decision that is: Mandate vaccination for children that are members of larger groups, so that the group maintains disease protection.
I'm less than 50 and I remember how life was (Italy here). When I was little some children had polio and couldn't walk properly, I didn't know why at the time. Luckily they were the last ones and luckily I was vaccinated. However I had both measles and mumps, not a big deal but maybe only because I was little or because of proper treatment. I think every child at school had them sooner or later and all of them came back to school. We were the last ones not to be vaccinated against those diseases.
As an adult I got vaccinated against hepatitis, cholera, yellow fever, typhus, tetanus etc (I travel around the world on vacations). No consequences. Vaccination for me is an obvious choice. I can think that measles is easily survivable but I won't expose a child of mine to polio. Get all the vaccinations they offer you, it's a good investment.
However, if you don't live a problem you don't really appreciate it. Example: talking with people born in the mid 80s, it was impossible to convince them that there was a real concern about nuclear war at the time they were born (remember Reagan, Brezhnev, Andropov, the Star Wars shield?) Obviously nobody was going to fire missiles, they say. Go read the newspapers, watch the movies, etc I say. No way.
If they aren't convinced by science, and they can't be convinced by satire, what is left to convince them with?
This isn't limited to anti-vaxxers either. The number of people who believe we haven't visited the moon is growing year over year. There are also people who believe that the Holocaust did not happen, despite having survivors and well documented photographs.
As unfortunate as it is, there's little we can do for some folks, other than treat them as we do children who don't understand why sticking their fingers in outlets are bad, and say "Because I said so".
While these are fun to read from our smug pro-vax point of view, they provide no effect on everyone else.
I actually suspect the effect may be negative.
The piece seems persuasive if you already agree with its premise: that vaccines are essential for safety, and that their costs and risks are overwhelmed by their benefits. But someone who disagrees with that would find the analogy false, and hence the piece merely obnoxious and misleading.
In fact, consider the effect such an article from the other side would have on you. Set in the 1950's, the author writes, "Well, sure I smoke tobacco. They keep coming out with studies that say it's beneficial, and the government sure seems to want me to, and sure I trust those guys..."
I'm not sure what your reaction would be to that sort of thing, but mine (which I suspect is common) is, "Ah ha! The fact that they are forced to resort to bad analogies proves they don't have any good arguments!"
By way of contrast, study my rhetorical hero, Milton Friedman. Seriously -- agree or disagree with his stance on things -- go watch a clip from a debate with him on Youtube. He radiates a profound respect and agreeableness, constantly smiles, assumes the best of his opponents' characters (even when arguing they are making the world a much worse place for many people!), seems almost apologetic that he is forced to disagree with them, and focuses relentlessly upon the meat of the argument as the source of that unfortunate disagreement. He makes it very easy to change your mind. Very easy to agree with him. By assuming you are a good and smart person and focusing only on evidence, it is safe to say, "Oh, yes, I hadn't thought about that", and remove emotion from the equation.
That is the most effective strategy I am aware of for changing people's minds -- and he's good at it.
I get all this, but I really think the only way to sort this out will be to heavily stigmatize it. It needs to be shameful not to vaccinate your child.
It takes a lot of effort to convince people of things. For many things, it is worth spending the time to understand why people believe what they believe, and crafting arguments to try and sway them.
For the anti-vax crowd, it's simply not. We don't spend a bunch of time trying to figure out how to convince people it's not a good idea to fire off an AK-47 in their backyard when they have neighbors. A large majority of us decided rationally that such behavior causes way too much risk to the rest of us, and made it illegal.
The anti-vaccination crowd are on equally shaky ground. I'm not saying we should mandate the flu shot or a brand new vaccine, but for something as contagious as measles with a 60+ year track record of safety and efficacy, I don't have time or patience to reason with the last 3% of people that don't want to vaccinate their kids.
I've had some serious health problems in my life that were just luck of the draw in genetics. I'm now short one organ, and I'm incredibly thankful that I live in 2015 and I can live a healthy and happy life due to modern medicine. Still, I'm at risk for a lot of diseases because I'm weaker than I would otherwise be. It pisses me off that healthy people don't realize that their actions can kill other people. If my kid was the one with leukemia and his healthy classmates were not getting their vaccines because their parents are idiots, I would be spending all of my time fighting to keep those kids out of schools, doctors offices, public places, etc.
> We need to show parents what life was like before the polio vaccine. Before measles/mumps.
The problem is if they already decided to not vaccinate unless you take them back in time, whatever you show them will just be "yeah this is propaganda you are working for 'them'" this is all computer generated.
In a way this seemingly calm and rational way to handling this is already a loosing ground. For example see how you (perhaps unconsciously) phrased this:
> our smug pro-vax point of view
Note the "pro-vax" label. That is the problem. Once you start calling everyone "pro-vax" it validates the crazies as if their point as equally valid. It should instead be "crazies" vs "non-crazies".
Nobody discusses whether we should be "pro-rape" or "anti-rape". There is nothing to debate there. Granted, it should be the same way about torture. We lost that ground. We are just discussing how effective or ineffective torture can be in intelligence gathering as opposed assuming anyone who does it is a sick criminal. I think vaccinations should be in the same domain of discourse.
So quickly pushing for legislature to restrict opting out based on "personal beliefs" is the right choice.
A local school district kicked a bunch of kids out of school for 20 days recently when someone came down with pertussis. Those kids didn't have their vaccine. Guess what happened. The majority went out and got he vaccine and were back in a day or two. Can you imagine being a kid in that position? They probably unleashed the fury on their parents and demanded the vaccine.
I agree with you but I think some of the following needs to happen as well. There is a huge miss trust of government and pharma. Vioxx, AZT, Fen Phen, and Thalidomide to name a few 'miss steps'.
- Big pharma should have some responsibility and making sure vaccines are safe. [1]
- There should be a clear line between what vaccines are absolutely necessary and which ones aren't. Right now it seems like you need all (maximum profit)
- Big pharma should not be permitted to lobby for new vaccines to be mandatory (HPV?). That decision should be made by someone not under a motive to make profit.
First off I'm pro-vaccination. However this example doesn't really add up for me. I'm not a doctor, but if the rest of us vaccinate our kids, won't they NOT GET SICK? Hence calling it an immunization.
So if the rest of us are immunized the only people getting sick are the anti-vaxxers. For this allegory of the Car Brakes and Social Responsibility to truly be a 1-to-1 comparison of social risk with regards to pro/anti immunization he'd have to basically present the premise that everyone else who has car brakes is protected from the less informed anti-brakers.
I'm not so sure. In between convincing the anti-vaccine folks that they're wrong (not gonna happen) and mere trolling is a third option: moving the Overton Window.
Many people believe that we shouldn't try to be "fair and balanced" when it comes to vaccination. The science is just too solid, and the stakes are just too high. If one is pushing for a mandate, then one tool is to marginalize and trivialize the anti-vaccinationists' POV to such a point that nobody even listens to them. Then there's no resistance. To that end, derision does serve a purpose.
Note that I'm not actually condoning these tactics, even though I believe that in this case the goal is a worthy one. I'm just explaining part of what I believe lies beneath these otherwise-just-obnoxious kinds of comments and posts.
The problem here is that not all diseases are the same in terms of risk to health/life or even the ability to infect others. Comparing Smallpox to Polio to the Measles in equal terms is a stretch at best and probably closer to being dishonest. Many people recognize that either wittingly or unwittingly and so getting vaccinated against Measles and Chicken Pox just isn't a high priority. Now to talk about the MMR vaccine: It has had a rough go the last few decades. It was reformulated a couple decades or so ago and the efficacy was massively reduced to around 30% or less if I remember correctly. They went back to the old formulation later but not after a full decade or more of using the new formula that didn't really work. In several of the measles outbreaks of the last decade or so - most, if not all, of those that got the measles had been vaccinated. Of course then everybody blames the anti-vaxers for the outbreaks :(
I guess you could stand in front of abortion clinics with pictures of children in iron lungs, wheelchairs or braces with a sign that days "Choose life, choose vaccination" but there's an overlap with people who are both anti abortion and anti vaccination, oddly. I'm not sure you can convince someone using faith-based arguments without potentially challenging their faith.
Well, anti-vaxxers are about to see how bad it gets with all these measles and whooping cough outbreaks they've caused.
Personally, I'm past convincing parents to vaccinate. Let's move straight ahead to involving Child Protective Services and throwing anti-vax parents in prison for criminal negligence.
Normally, I would be the first to mention that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But in that case I'll say: I will hit with whatever works. Be it sarcasm, legislation, or graphic photos of people with vaccine-preventable diseases.
What about asking the kids that were recently exposed to do a public service campaign and visit the homes and families of other anti-vaxxers so that they can see the effects of MMR "in the flesh"?
Studies show presenting hard evidence to irrational believers strengthens their beliefs. I'm not sure how you can convince these people. The best thing I've found is to lead by example.
I know this will be down voted, nonetheless, after reading many of these threads it is clear to me that most pro-vaxxers are horribly uneducated about the facts, and simply go around parroting others and making holier than though smug comments. If they would actually take the time to listen they would see that most so called "anti-vaxxers" are nothing of the sort. While there will of course always be the few that are extreme about it, most are simply concerned about safe delivery and over vaccination for the sake of pharmaceutical company profits. They want better oversight and safe guards. They want to spread vaccination schedules out and not have to get any that aren't absolutely necessary. If these concerns were addressed, the die-hard "anti-vaxxers" would be such a small number as not to matter for herd immunity.
Not all anti-vaxers are stupid or ignorant, some of them simply have a different quality metric. I've had extensive correspondence with a former colleague who fully accepts all the science, but simply believes that natural immunity is "better" than artificial immunity, and that a 0.1% mortality rate (which is about what measles produces) is an acceptable price to pay. We both accept the science, but he likes the odds and I don't. I have no idea what to say to someone like that.
Tell him that he has no right to make that choice for others, and while he may think he is only making that choice for his own family he is also choosing to put others at a greater risk. The braking analogy in this article is quite apt.
Prior to the measles vaccine, about 3-4 million people got measles every year. In such a world, a 0.1% mortality rate still leaves 3000-4000 people dead from an easily preventable disease. And this says nothing of the people who suffer from it but don't die. The economic costs from kids and parents getting sick and missing school and work would total in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even intelligent people can be narrow-minded. There is much more to a disease than its mortality rate.
You: "How does natural immunity work?"
They: "You get really miserable and sick and...something something antibodies and maybe t-cells"
You: "Oh, I see...and vaccines work differently?"
They: "Well, vaccines are made of, uh, weakened or dead virus cells that induce the creation of, hmmm, antibodies...and maybe t-cells."
You: "Those sound really similar"
They: "Yes, but natural immunity is *stronger* and *more complete*."
You: "It is?"
Any whiff of patronizing in your voice will invalidate any progress you make. There will be no satisfying payoff for you on this - they will never outright admit that you've convinced them. You're just planting the seed of 'Oh crap, this doesn't really make sense'.
> Not all anti-vaxers are stupid or ignorant
Maybe not stupid, but ignorant...'liking the odds' of not vaccinating is the same as 'not knowing statistical methods'.
Nope. You don't both accept the science, you do, he doesn't. He believes that natural immunity is better than "artificial" immunity. That's plain nonsense, absolutely no science there. Also, with measles, it's not just the mortality rate, it's also about the grave side effects for those who do survive. He just says he accepts the science, but it's all empty words to make sticking head into the ground easier for him.
In snow in the winter, slamming on the brakes actually can prevent you from stopping your car. I grew up in Minnesota, where you learn how to deal with this very quickly.
If you've never driven in snow/ice before, there's a situation where the brakes can "lock up", causing your tires to freeze instead of slowly spin down. For some physics reason I don't entirely understand, the tires have better friction with a slippery surface when they're still spinning, so when they stop spinning your car just turns into a giant hockey puck, and you can no longer stop the car without getting the tires to spin again.
Newer cars have what's called an "Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)", but it usually doesn't work very well. I'm pretty sure it's just there for the people that have never driven in snow before. It's actually worse to trigger it sometimes.
If you've never driven in snow before and just moved to a place where it does, find an empty driveway and learn how to pulse the brakes. Seriously could save your life.
The analogy doesn't really hold up. And I love it how you can be so right, so unwaveringly correct as to leave no air or room for debate. While illustrating a point poorly the author just comes across like an asshole to anyone that doesn't completely agree with him. Circle jerk much?
I have a strong personal stake in this one right now. I am the parent of a 2 month old who can not get the MMR vaccine for another 10 months. Knowing that I have to take my daughter on a commercial flight in the next few weeks scares me, especially with the recent news of the outbreaks.
Anti-vaxx movement seems to be a symptom of a deeper problem - I see it as a combination of people being increasingly unable to comprehend the world around them and growing mistrust toward the authorities.
The second one is perfectly understandable - politicians cheat us all the time. Journalists lie in every other sentence. Big companies consistently spew bullshit. A lot of small companies are run by fraudsters. The fundamental trust of society toward its structures is broken. It's easy to assume that politicians and businessmen try to push things for profit and not for the social benefit.
That itself is not enough for a movement like anti-vaxxers though. I'm pro-vax, but not because I trust the government or pharmaceutical companies. There's definitely a lot of fraud, bribery and fudging results there. But the general scientific idea is sound, and it adds up to other things.
It's the kind of feeling I believe big part of population doesn't have. That things add up. I believe in mainstream science because it's coherent, logical and agrees nicely with observable reality. I understand some genetics, know enough maths to have a feel for exponential growth, etc. But many people don't really understand anything about the world (yay education!), it must seem like a black box for them. Some things happen because they happen. When you eat dirt you get sick, etc.
Along with anti-vaxxers, I often talk with anti-GMO and anti-nuclear people. The situation is always the same - they don't trust the autorities and they don't understand a thing about the topic domain. "Nuclear energy" is the scary thing. Chernobyl. Soviet lies. Fukushima. Japanese lies. It's hard to make them do the math and understand that this is our only viable option for now. They don't trust governments and they don't have enough knowledge to evaluate the topic themselves - so they don't trust the solution.
I'm afraid that as a civilization, we're going to really hurt ourselves beacuse of trust issues. That's why in my books, lying to people is one of the biggest sins. It's literally destroying humanity's ability to work together.
The biggest problem with the anti-vaccin groups is that not only does it negatively affect their children (which is bad enough), it also negatively affects others due to reduced herd immunity. In other words, those that have had ineffective vaccinations or that are simply more susceptible are also at an elevated level of risk.
After reading the 123 comments so far of this delightful discourse, I'm curious why no one has mentioned how we handle the immigration issue and vaccination? Does ICE check the health records or what? I guess those legally entering with visas etc are good... dare I mention illegals?
I actually and really went through half the article thinking 'Wow, what an interesting point of view!'. It was only in the last couple of paragraphs that I realized the satire. I am not a very bright person.
I thought it was going to be a metaphor about central banking systems and the gold standard. Perhaps this is generally a style of argument that works against any sort of "things used to be better" viewpoint.
The whole vaccination thing has taken a turn much like the AGW debate -- it has become religion, and people define themselves by their (painfully simplified) position on it : I have Facebook friends who post such clever articles and meme images daily, literally preaching to the converted for absolutely no gain but their own smug sense of superiority.
But here's the thing -- vaccinations carry risks. Of course they do. They have massive upsides, but they invariably have downsides, bad reactions, and so on, and it is the utter foolishness that so many try to paint it otherwise. The net result is of course a major positive -- if 1% of the population has an adverse reaction, but 10% avoids getting a painful disease, then a win for the whole (even if it sucks if you're the 1%) -- but it is infantile if not ignorant to not only pretend these risks don't exist (which is ridiculously common), but to actually question people's own assessment of their risk profile.
All of those incidents might very well be entirely coincidental. Or maybe they aren't. Such is the nature of massive, widespread immunizations, where the abnormal immune system of one person might be sent spiraling out of control, while another might suffer a critical allergic response.
Despite endless evidence to the contrary, many seem to believe we have a complete understanding of medicine and the human body. In some ways we remain hacks, and more often than not luck upon our algorithms. But this blind march really makes the movie "The Children of Men" seem more like a prophecy than a fiction.
EDIT: -2 within a minute. HN has taken a perilous dump into garbage land -- the classic ignorant back-slapping and sophistry -- as more and more entirely ignorant people get down arrow rights.
Vaccinations carry risks, but so does not vaccinating.
If you just want to talk percentages, what is the chance that you will have an unusual or adverse reaction to a vaccination vs. what is the chance that you will contract and have an adverse reaction to the illness?
Even on those terms it seems worth it to vaccinate against MMR. Those vaccines have been around for a long time, they are effective, and they are safe. They are certainly much safer than measles, mumps, and rubella.
It used to be that you could avoid the risk of vaccination entirely by assuming that everyone else around you would vaccinate. That's no longer a good assumption.
Plus, there is the compounding factor that by not vaccinating, these people are facilitating harm to others.
Government is all about balancing benefit and risk as a whole.
You're getting downvoted because you're pointing out that vaccines have risks. Fucking everything has risks. It does not help the debate when people say "Yeah vaccines are great, but there are risks". Thanks, great contribution. You took a risk driving your car. We don't fully understand physics, should we be driving cars?
How many were vaccinated during for program? It's indicated later in the article that 5 out of 11,000 had an adverse reaction during trials. I wonder if a similar rate was observed during Canada's vaccination program.
As one of those individuals who suffered an adverse reaction, I'm surprised to find this post in grey text at the bottom of the page while the parade of right-thinkers remains at the top.
When the majority starts to frame the debate as "crazy vs. not-crazy", and replaces a balanced, scientific and reasonable assessment of pros and cons with a one-sided ideology, it'll only serve to swell the ranks of the "crazies", since there's nowhere else for intelligent skeptics to go.
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply
In other words, it's a riler-upper. Please don't post riler-uppers to Hacker News.
[+] [-] emil10001|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|11 years ago|reply
We need to show parents what life was like before the polio vaccine. Before measles/mumps. Hell, before smallpox. Part of the problem is that younger parents don't believe that these diseases were all too real and way too common before the treatments. There aren't many polio survivors around anymore, and the only place you'll ever see measles is on Brady Bunch reruns.
[+] [-] saosebastiao|11 years ago|reply
Satire and sarcasm might not convince an anti-vaxxer that vaccines are good, but they might convince an uninformed person of the ridiculousness that the anti-vaxxer position is. It can stop the conversion.
[+] [-] sergiosgc|11 years ago|reply
These mandated behaviours should be such that freedom is restricted by the minimum needed amount. As an unrelated example: smoking is not prohibited; Smoking in closed public spaces is.
For vaccination, I believe the sweet spot of mandated behaviour is to mandate vaccination of children participating in large public groups. Children that go to public schools must get vaccines. Children playing team sports must be vaccinated.
Parents then maintain the freedom of not vaccinating their kids, but must abide by the rules that prevent those kids from being a menace to the rest of the population.
Note that this is only needed because vaccines rely on "herd protection". If vaccination coverage drops, vaccine efficacy drops precipitously. The effect is very pronounced. 90% coverage is much less effective than 99% coverage. Not vaccinating a child poses a risk for the child, but also poses a risk to all other children he/she is in regular contact with.
P.S. A lot of other discussions may arise: Government prohibitions tend to be slippery slopes; Children should be somewhat protected from their own parents; Should groups be allowed to skip vaccination altogether?. These are secondary issues, irrelevant to the main decision that is: Mandate vaccination for children that are members of larger groups, so that the group maintains disease protection.
[+] [-] pmontra|11 years ago|reply
As an adult I got vaccinated against hepatitis, cholera, yellow fever, typhus, tetanus etc (I travel around the world on vacations). No consequences. Vaccination for me is an obvious choice. I can think that measles is easily survivable but I won't expose a child of mine to polio. Get all the vaccinations they offer you, it's a good investment.
However, if you don't live a problem you don't really appreciate it. Example: talking with people born in the mid 80s, it was impossible to convince them that there was a real concern about nuclear war at the time they were born (remember Reagan, Brezhnev, Andropov, the Star Wars shield?) Obviously nobody was going to fire missiles, they say. Go read the newspapers, watch the movies, etc I say. No way.
[+] [-] falcolas|11 years ago|reply
This isn't limited to anti-vaxxers either. The number of people who believe we haven't visited the moon is growing year over year. There are also people who believe that the Holocaust did not happen, despite having survivors and well documented photographs.
As unfortunate as it is, there's little we can do for some folks, other than treat them as we do children who don't understand why sticking their fingers in outlets are bad, and say "Because I said so".
[+] [-] Dove|11 years ago|reply
I actually suspect the effect may be negative.
The piece seems persuasive if you already agree with its premise: that vaccines are essential for safety, and that their costs and risks are overwhelmed by their benefits. But someone who disagrees with that would find the analogy false, and hence the piece merely obnoxious and misleading.
In fact, consider the effect such an article from the other side would have on you. Set in the 1950's, the author writes, "Well, sure I smoke tobacco. They keep coming out with studies that say it's beneficial, and the government sure seems to want me to, and sure I trust those guys..."
I'm not sure what your reaction would be to that sort of thing, but mine (which I suspect is common) is, "Ah ha! The fact that they are forced to resort to bad analogies proves they don't have any good arguments!"
By way of contrast, study my rhetorical hero, Milton Friedman. Seriously -- agree or disagree with his stance on things -- go watch a clip from a debate with him on Youtube. He radiates a profound respect and agreeableness, constantly smiles, assumes the best of his opponents' characters (even when arguing they are making the world a much worse place for many people!), seems almost apologetic that he is forced to disagree with them, and focuses relentlessly upon the meat of the argument as the source of that unfortunate disagreement. He makes it very easy to change your mind. Very easy to agree with him. By assuming you are a good and smart person and focusing only on evidence, it is safe to say, "Oh, yes, I hadn't thought about that", and remove emotion from the equation.
That is the most effective strategy I am aware of for changing people's minds -- and he's good at it.
[+] [-] tdees40|11 years ago|reply
I think satire plays into that.
[+] [-] krschultz|11 years ago|reply
For the anti-vax crowd, it's simply not. We don't spend a bunch of time trying to figure out how to convince people it's not a good idea to fire off an AK-47 in their backyard when they have neighbors. A large majority of us decided rationally that such behavior causes way too much risk to the rest of us, and made it illegal.
The anti-vaccination crowd are on equally shaky ground. I'm not saying we should mandate the flu shot or a brand new vaccine, but for something as contagious as measles with a 60+ year track record of safety and efficacy, I don't have time or patience to reason with the last 3% of people that don't want to vaccinate their kids.
I've had some serious health problems in my life that were just luck of the draw in genetics. I'm now short one organ, and I'm incredibly thankful that I live in 2015 and I can live a healthy and happy life due to modern medicine. Still, I'm at risk for a lot of diseases because I'm weaker than I would otherwise be. It pisses me off that healthy people don't realize that their actions can kill other people. If my kid was the one with leukemia and his healthy classmates were not getting their vaccines because their parents are idiots, I would be spending all of my time fighting to keep those kids out of schools, doctors offices, public places, etc.
[+] [-] rdtsc|11 years ago|reply
> We need to show parents what life was like before the polio vaccine. Before measles/mumps.
The problem is if they already decided to not vaccinate unless you take them back in time, whatever you show them will just be "yeah this is propaganda you are working for 'them'" this is all computer generated.
In a way this seemingly calm and rational way to handling this is already a loosing ground. For example see how you (perhaps unconsciously) phrased this:
> our smug pro-vax point of view
Note the "pro-vax" label. That is the problem. Once you start calling everyone "pro-vax" it validates the crazies as if their point as equally valid. It should instead be "crazies" vs "non-crazies".
Nobody discusses whether we should be "pro-rape" or "anti-rape". There is nothing to debate there. Granted, it should be the same way about torture. We lost that ground. We are just discussing how effective or ineffective torture can be in intelligence gathering as opposed assuming anyone who does it is a sick criminal. I think vaccinations should be in the same domain of discourse.
So quickly pushing for legislature to restrict opting out based on "personal beliefs" is the right choice.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|11 years ago|reply
Roald Dahl (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) had a daughter who died of complications from the Measles. He wrote a letter about it:
https://roalddahl.com/roald-dahl/timeline/1960s/november-196...
[+] [-] jstalin|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|11 years ago|reply
- Big pharma should have some responsibility and making sure vaccines are safe. [1]
- There should be a clear line between what vaccines are absolutely necessary and which ones aren't. Right now it seems like you need all (maximum profit)
- Big pharma should not be permitted to lobby for new vaccines to be mandatory (HPV?). That decision should be made by someone not under a motive to make profit.
[1] http://www.fiercevaccines.com/story/supreme-court-drugmakers...
[+] [-] cshu22|11 years ago|reply
So if the rest of us are immunized the only people getting sick are the anti-vaxxers. For this allegory of the Car Brakes and Social Responsibility to truly be a 1-to-1 comparison of social risk with regards to pro/anti immunization he'd have to basically present the premise that everyone else who has car brakes is protected from the less informed anti-brakers.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|11 years ago|reply
I've come to the conclusion that this is really the key change that allowed the anti-vax movement to flourish.
Not sure what to do about it though.
[+] [-] notacoward|11 years ago|reply
I'm not so sure. In between convincing the anti-vaccine folks that they're wrong (not gonna happen) and mere trolling is a third option: moving the Overton Window.
http://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow
Many people believe that we shouldn't try to be "fair and balanced" when it comes to vaccination. The science is just too solid, and the stakes are just too high. If one is pushing for a mandate, then one tool is to marginalize and trivialize the anti-vaccinationists' POV to such a point that nobody even listens to them. Then there's no resistance. To that end, derision does serve a purpose.
Note that I'm not actually condoning these tactics, even though I believe that in this case the goal is a worthy one. I'm just explaining part of what I believe lies beneath these otherwise-just-obnoxious kinds of comments and posts.
[+] [-] DiffEq|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technofiend|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|11 years ago|reply
Personally, I'm past convincing parents to vaccinate. Let's move straight ahead to involving Child Protective Services and throwing anti-vax parents in prison for criminal negligence.
[+] [-] mynegation|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] calbear81|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarfy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] transfire|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lisper|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] john_b|11 years ago|reply
Prior to the measles vaccine, about 3-4 million people got measles every year. In such a world, a 0.1% mortality rate still leaves 3000-4000 people dead from an easily preventable disease. And this says nothing of the people who suffer from it but don't die. The economic costs from kids and parents getting sick and missing school and work would total in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Even intelligent people can be narrow-minded. There is much more to a disease than its mortality rate.
[+] [-] michael_h|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nzp|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyledrake|11 years ago|reply
If you've never driven in snow/ice before, there's a situation where the brakes can "lock up", causing your tires to freeze instead of slowly spin down. For some physics reason I don't entirely understand, the tires have better friction with a slippery surface when they're still spinning, so when they stop spinning your car just turns into a giant hockey puck, and you can no longer stop the car without getting the tires to spin again.
Newer cars have what's called an "Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)", but it usually doesn't work very well. I'm pretty sure it's just there for the people that have never driven in snow before. It's actually worse to trigger it sometimes.
If you've never driven in snow before and just moved to a place where it does, find an empty driveway and learn how to pulse the brakes. Seriously could save your life.
[+] [-] nostromo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alttab|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisBob|11 years ago|reply
Maybe education about protecting infants could go a long way to change people's minds. Maybe there needs to be more legal action against the anti-vax movement. http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/01/28/measles-is...
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|11 years ago|reply
The second one is perfectly understandable - politicians cheat us all the time. Journalists lie in every other sentence. Big companies consistently spew bullshit. A lot of small companies are run by fraudsters. The fundamental trust of society toward its structures is broken. It's easy to assume that politicians and businessmen try to push things for profit and not for the social benefit.
That itself is not enough for a movement like anti-vaxxers though. I'm pro-vax, but not because I trust the government or pharmaceutical companies. There's definitely a lot of fraud, bribery and fudging results there. But the general scientific idea is sound, and it adds up to other things.
It's the kind of feeling I believe big part of population doesn't have. That things add up. I believe in mainstream science because it's coherent, logical and agrees nicely with observable reality. I understand some genetics, know enough maths to have a feel for exponential growth, etc. But many people don't really understand anything about the world (yay education!), it must seem like a black box for them. Some things happen because they happen. When you eat dirt you get sick, etc.
Along with anti-vaxxers, I often talk with anti-GMO and anti-nuclear people. The situation is always the same - they don't trust the autorities and they don't understand a thing about the topic domain. "Nuclear energy" is the scary thing. Chernobyl. Soviet lies. Fukushima. Japanese lies. It's hard to make them do the math and understand that this is our only viable option for now. They don't trust governments and they don't have enough knowledge to evaluate the topic themselves - so they don't trust the solution.
I'm afraid that as a civilization, we're going to really hurt ourselves beacuse of trust issues. That's why in my books, lying to people is one of the biggest sins. It's literally destroying humanity's ability to work together.
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leichtgewicht|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] transfire|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rkroondotnet|11 years ago|reply
TLDR: Oregon, Michigan, Idaho and Vermont are the worst offenders with over 5% of their kindergarten students having nonmedical exemptions.
[+] [-] allthatglitters|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sidcool|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanderjd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ColinDabritz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gear54rus|11 years ago|reply
For the added effect, we don't have that kind of movement where I live so it was not immediately on my mind.
[+] [-] engendered|11 years ago|reply
But here's the thing -- vaccinations carry risks. Of course they do. They have massive upsides, but they invariably have downsides, bad reactions, and so on, and it is the utter foolishness that so many try to paint it otherwise. The net result is of course a major positive -- if 1% of the population has an adverse reaction, but 10% avoids getting a painful disease, then a win for the whole (even if it sucks if you're the 1%) -- but it is infantile if not ignorant to not only pretend these risks don't exist (which is ridiculously common), but to actually question people's own assessment of their risk profile.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/02/05/hpv-vaccine-ga...
All of those incidents might very well be entirely coincidental. Or maybe they aren't. Such is the nature of massive, widespread immunizations, where the abnormal immune system of one person might be sent spiraling out of control, while another might suffer a critical allergic response.
Despite endless evidence to the contrary, many seem to believe we have a complete understanding of medicine and the human body. In some ways we remain hacks, and more often than not luck upon our algorithms. But this blind march really makes the movie "The Children of Men" seem more like a prophecy than a fiction.
EDIT: -2 within a minute. HN has taken a perilous dump into garbage land -- the classic ignorant back-slapping and sophistry -- as more and more entirely ignorant people get down arrow rights.
[+] [-] tfinniga|11 years ago|reply
If you just want to talk percentages, what is the chance that you will have an unusual or adverse reaction to a vaccination vs. what is the chance that you will contract and have an adverse reaction to the illness?
Even on those terms it seems worth it to vaccinate against MMR. Those vaccines have been around for a long time, they are effective, and they are safe. They are certainly much safer than measles, mumps, and rubella.
It used to be that you could avoid the risk of vaccination entirely by assuming that everyone else around you would vaccinate. That's no longer a good assumption.
Plus, there is the compounding factor that by not vaccinating, these people are facilitating harm to others.
Government is all about balancing benefit and risk as a whole.
[+] [-] jbob2000|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JibberMeTimbers|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strawman|11 years ago|reply
When the majority starts to frame the debate as "crazy vs. not-crazy", and replaces a balanced, scientific and reasonable assessment of pros and cons with a one-sided ideology, it'll only serve to swell the ranks of the "crazies", since there's nowhere else for intelligent skeptics to go.
[+] [-] crocowhile|11 years ago|reply