prisoner of the flesh's dilemma

[vito_excalibur]

So jedusor posted about vaccinations and I was thinking about them.

Okay, let's take a look at just one set. Let's look at the MMR vaccine. That's measles, mumps, and rubella.

If you give your kid the MMR vaccine, they have less than a one in a million chance of getting seriously ill or dying (encephalitis). Call it one in a million.

If your kid gets

Comments

[denelian]

so... we covered this in Foresic Anthropology [yeah, it seems sort of weird. and it was part of a lecture on determining cause of death that is specifically from a disease, as opposed to "dying from thirst/starvation" or "dying of a heart attack" etc

[vito_excalibur]

I have friends who are anti-vaccine. You don't have to respect their opinions, but you do have to respect them. Your facts are fine, but be aware that you're calling people stupid to their faces; do it again and I'll delete your comment.

[denelian]

i'm sorry; you are correct. i was -meaning- not that the people were stupid, but that the idea was. i did NOT mean to say that i thought people were stupid. it came out that way, i see that it did. i am very sorry. if you want to delete it, i will understand. [i am not *asking* you to. that's a little too close to trying to pretend i never messed up. i messed up.]

also: thank you for pointing it out. i obviously need to do more work on NOT doing this :(

i apologize again :( and i WILL work harder on this.

[vito_excalibur]

Thanks for being cool about it. :) I didn't want to delete it because, like I said, your info is good!

[denelian]

yeah, but my delivery sucked :(

i'll admit, it was a struggle to "be cool" - i was REALLY upset with myself. but it wasn't about me, ya know? i like to think i can be an adult, and admit when i fuck up, and try to fix it. and i appreciate that *you* treated me like that sort of person :) that's why i like you [and read your LJ - the pics are wonderful, but the honestly is what keeps me coming back :) ]

i'd LIKE to say "it will never happen again", but that's just begging Fate...
so i continue to say, instead, "I will try as hard as i can to never, ever do it again".

[fanw]

I think the best thing I can do as a future doctor is to tell people the risks of disease. When they refuse vaccines (and I'm sure some will) I will tell them the signs and symptoms of mumps, measles and rubella and ask them to please seek medical help if they see any of these symptoms immediately.

I know one pediatrician that got a family to vaccinate simply by handing them papers describing the symptoms of childhood diseases and asking them to sign a form saying they were refusing a medically advised procedure. Maybe it was a bit heavy-handed, but it worked.

P.S. Herd immunity works at about 90-95% coverage. Washington state is one of the worst culprits with some counties only at 80% coverage. If I were working there, I'd be sure to throw that in saying "I do advise you to get vaccines, but if you choose not to, please speak with other parents and encourage THEM to vaccinate or there is a serious risk of an epidemic in this county." Maybe THAT will reach them!

[angelbob]

Mostly you're right, but I'll bring this up anyway

[shoutingboy]

This 'minds me of an argument I waded into once upon a time. A fellow who was, I think, on the side of the angels, was ranting about the anti-vax people. But the argument he made, over and over, was "there's no mechanism by which mercury/thimerosol could cause autism".

Now, if he'd said "there's absolutely no evidence that it causes autism", and tossed in "and we have no other reason to think it could do that, because we don't know of any mechanisms by which it would cause autism"--I'd have had no quarrel. But his argument really was "there's no mechanism, therefore it can't happen." And this struck me as crankery marshalled against crankery. Because "there's no mechanism" only means "we're not aware of a mechanism", and there's a lot we're not aware of

[kcatalyst]

I hate it when crankery is deployed against crankery! Perhaps even more than the original crankery. And there's a lot of it in vaccine discussions. I've started summarizing such arguments as "I'm using science, because I'm arguing for vaccines, and vaccines are MADE of science! Therefore I'm logical and you're a crank!"

[vito_excalibur]

"Apparently you don't understand science!"

[kcatalyst]

*laugh* Exactly!

[shoutingboy]

It is a glorious day... FOR SCIENCE!

[angelbob]

Yeah, that's wrong just on the face of it.

Mercury poisoning can and does cause autism-like symptoms (and thus, by our definition, autism) in large amounts. What he means is that there's a mechanism in general, but thimerosal in vaccines just isn't enough mercury (and the wrong kind of mercury? I forget) to cause that by itself.

A lot of these arguments are hard for exactly that reason -- "I can't imagine a reason that would happen" is different from "that doesn't happen." Or my favorite way of phrasing it, "truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."

[vito_excalibur]

Yep. There basically isn't thimerosal anymore in vaccines for kids under six, and it's ethylmercury, not the really poisonous variation which is methylmercury.

[rebbyribs]

It reminded me of an article I read about an HIV-doesn't-cause-AIDS crank, who was actually a tenured biochemist (if memory serves).

That would be Peter Duesberg.

[shoutingboy]

Yup, that was the gentleman in question!