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Old 08-02-2010, 09:49 PM   #26
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You know, I had debated this topic last year and I can't remember a damn thing about it. So I'll just copy and paste statistics from my case:

"According to the CDC, in 2000, a study of vaccine effectiveness on healthy adults was conducted. The inactive influenza virus found in the vaccination was 86% effective against the laboratory-confirmed influenza. This threshold is high enough to make an effective herd immunity within a society. Additionally, according to CDC officials, fully vaccinating all U.S. children born in a given year from birth to adolescence saves an estimated 33,000 lives and prevents an estimated 14 million infections."

"According to the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 'routine childhood immunization with 7 vaccines was cost saving from the direct cost and societal perspectives, with net savings of $9.9 billion and $43.3 billion, respectively. Without routine vaccination, direct and societal costs of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, H influenzae type b, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, congenital rubella syndrome, hepatitis B, and varicella would be $12.3 billion and $46.6 billion, respectively. Direct and societal costs for the vaccination program were an estimated $2.3 billion and $2.8 billion, respectively.'"

And apparently my con case was about violating human rights, but that's not what EK is arguing.
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Old 08-02-2010, 09:50 PM   #27
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Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper View Post
...
If everyone is suitably vaccinated, nobody will get chicken pox at all. Isn't that better? >.>
Can you read? I'm just wondering, because you seem to have skipped over the part about... - well, just about all of it, actually. I'll make it simple.

VACCINES =/= CURES

So getting vaccinated does not prevent you from getting said disease. There's no possible way to spin it. People who get vaccinated can still get sick, and often die from something that is so mild in their younger years that they could have easily gotten over. That is why vaccines are not perfect, and that is why it is false to imply that any who are not vaccinated are "more at risk" than those who are not. It is you, in face, who are taking the risk when you get vaccinated.
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Old 08-02-2010, 09:57 PM   #28
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>It is you, in face, who are taking the risk when you get vaccinated.
You guys aren't much problem to us- thanks to vaccines, we have the antibodies, and any diseases will do much, much less. You're only endangering yourself. Get those vaccines now.

Ps. Vaccines prevent us from ever getting the disease(due to our immune system being able to deal with the virus). Prevention is better than cure.
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Old 08-02-2010, 10:00 PM   #29
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Okay, well, debating with someone who clearly has no idea what he's talking about and who apparently can't read is starting to get boring, since I'm finding myself repeating the same shit over and over again.

Enjoy wasting your money on dozens of vaccines and gallons of hand sanitizer, and have fun dying at fifty from chicken pox (because there's no nobler a death).
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Old 08-02-2010, 10:07 PM   #30
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>Dying at 50 from chicken pox
See, it's all to obvious you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. If chicken pox attacks me at 50, it will be greatly weakened.
And as I am forced to repeat, if everyone took vaccines, why, there would BE no chicken pox when I am 50.
Edit: Re: Wasting money
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tdos
"According to the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 'routine childhood immunization with 7 vaccines was cost saving from the direct cost and societal perspectives, with net savings of $9.9 billion and $43.3 billion, respectively. Without routine vaccination, direct and societal costs of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, H influenzae type b, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, congenital rubella syndrome, hepatitis B, and varicella would be $12.3 billion and $46.6 billion, respectively. Direct and societal costs for the vaccination program were an estimated $2.3 billion and $2.8 billion, respectively.'"
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Old 08-03-2010, 01:37 AM   #31
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Originally Posted by EarthKwake View Post
Vaccinations may reduce the possibility of contracting a disease, but they in no way prevent it.
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Originally Posted by EarthKwake View Post
Many people have been vaccinated only to catch the disease anyway.
You ALWAYS catch the disease, the point is once the pathogen enters your system, it doesn't cause the classical symptoms because of the vaccine's presence.

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Vaccines are no substitute for a real immune system, and that is the point I am trying to make.
Nearly all vaccines work with your immune system by presenting pieces of the pathogen so when you get infected, you get the secondary immune response and so don't have to suffer through the symptoms, which can be fatal if you are unlucky.

The only instance I can think of where vaccinations "replace" the immune system is the tetanus anti-toxin, because the toxin is so potent the amount present is so small the immune system can't detect it and develop antibodies for it. So you are given shots with those antibodies to neutralize the toxin if it enters your body. The antibodies don't last forever, and that's why you need boosters.

Most other vaccines = adaptive immunity is primed for life.

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Because I would rather get the measles/mumps/etc now when I'm relatively young and my immune system is stronger than vaccinate myself only to be stricken with the disease in my fifties or sixties.
That's incredibly stupid.

What you're basically doing is standing in front of a train and gambling that you can survive the impact because you're confident you can. And while there's a slim chance you could survive while young, you certainly aren't going to when you get old.
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Old 08-03-2010, 06:55 AM   #32
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That's incredibly stupid.

What you're basically doing is standing in front of a train and gambling that you can survive the impact because you're confident you can. And while there's a slim chance you could survive while young, you certainly aren't going to when you get old.
Oh yes, because getting chicken pox or the measles is like "getting hit by a train". Once again, you've proven my point that people who get vaccinated only do so because they are irrationally terrified of disease. Children and teenagers can survive almost any disease with proper medical care (note that I said care, not vaccination), and doing so will ensure that they will NOT get it in their old age. Most of the things you get vaccinated for are less like speeding trains and more like mosquito bites.
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Old 08-03-2010, 07:04 AM   #33
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>Most of the things you get vaccinated for are less like speeding trains and more like mosquito bites.

You know, I'm fairly sure that over any period of time the number of fatalities caused by speeding trains is vastly outnumbered by the number of fatalities caused by mosquito bites.
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Old 08-03-2010, 07:07 AM   #34
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XFD.
EarthKwake, you say irrational fear of disease like it's a bad thing. Ps: Polio is much worse than a mosquito bite. So is Heptatis B. And Chicken Pox is bad. ;x


BTW, your argument is saying that you'd rather stand in front of a speeding train going at 100 mph, than one going at 150 mph but wearing *insert cool armour*.
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Old 08-03-2010, 07:16 AM   #35
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XFD.
EarthKwake, you say irrational fear of disease like it's a bad thing. Ps: Polio is much worse than a mosquito bite. So is Heptatis B. And Chicken Pox is bad. ;x
Is it fun fact time? I think it is.

1) Polio was on its way to being eradicated in the 1950s anyway, so the vaccine cannot take credit. Polio was eradicated in other areas of the world where the vaccine was not widely deployed, and other diseases were eradicated even though no vaccine was ever found.

So hide your wives and children, because POLIO is in the - wait, where'd it go? I guess VACCINE-MAN saved the day again! Or not...

2) The acute illness (Heb B) causes liver inflammation, vomiting, jaundice and—rarely—death.

So it's a speeding train that rarely causes death...? Hmm...

3) Chickenpox is rarely fatal, although it is generally more severe in adult males than in adult females or children. Pregnant women and those with a suppressed immune system are at highest risk of serious complications.

Get it while you're young, or risk having a more severe (and often deadlier) case when you're an adult or when you're pregnant. Instead of just prolonging the disease, you're potentially risking your life and the lives of your children.
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Old 08-03-2010, 07:59 AM   #36
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How nice you missed the more juicy parts of Hep B.
Chronic hepatitis B may eventually cause liver cirrhosis and liver cancer—a fatal disease with very poor response to current chemotherapy.
Originally known as "serum hepatitis", the disease has caused epidemics in parts of Asia and Africa, and it is endemic in China. About a third of the world's population, more than 2 billion people, have been infected with the hepatitis B virus.This includes 350 million chronic carriers of the virus.
What is rarely? Let's take 1% as an example. If 1% of chronic carriers die, that's 3.5 million. Of one disease. And that's just chronic.
Also, they'd have to waste money on treating it. Zomg!
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Old 08-03-2010, 09:08 AM   #37
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Also keep in mind that Hep B is an STD. So of course it's an epidemic in third-world countries where protection is either inadequate or simply unavailable. Also, the disease only becomes chronic if untreated. Once again, proper treatment can easily overcome these diseases, and there's no reason to get a vaccine.
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Old 08-03-2010, 10:18 AM   #38
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>STD
So is AIDS. But that's finding its way through UK/USA just fine.

Once again, vaccines make it so that if you even GET the disease, it will be severely WEAKENED. Also, treatments aren't magical.
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Old 08-03-2010, 11:14 AM   #39
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Also, treatments aren't magical.
ICP would argue otherwise.
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Old 08-03-2010, 12:49 PM   #40
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This is turning into more of an argument than a debate, in large part because the pro-vaccine side is presenting statistics and definitions which the anti-vaccine side is either refusing or else incapable of acknowledging. When one side refuses to meet the other side's facts and definitions with acceptance, debate cannot be had.
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Old 08-03-2010, 01:28 PM   #41
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I'm still waiting for EK's response, or I can make one for him based on human rights issues.
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Old 08-03-2010, 03:18 PM   #42
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>STD
So is AIDS. But that's finding its way through UK/USA just fine.

Once again, vaccines make it so that if you even GET the disease, it will be severely WEAKENED. Also, treatments aren't magical.
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XFD.
EarthKwake, you say irrational fear of disease like it's a bad thing. Ps: Polio is much worse than a mosquito bite. So is Heptatis B. And Chicken Pox is bad. ;x

BTW, your argument is saying that you'd rather stand in front of a speeding train going at 100 mph, than one going at 150 mph but wearing *insert cool armour*.
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This is turning into more of an argument than a debate, in large part because the pro-vaccine side is presenting statistics and definitions which the anti-vaccine side is either refusing or else incapable of acknowledging.
Fancy statistics like "treatments aren't magical", "chicken pox is bad", and "insert cool armor". Wow, I totally feel overwhelmed in this debate by all the hard facts being displayed. I do think you're right though - this is becoming more of an argument, due to the fact that the pro-side seems to be recycling their points in every one of their posts regardless of the evidence disputing their claims. Also, because the OP has claimed his side has won without even having made a post in a page and a half.

What was the pro-side's last point again? Oh yeah. "Treatments aren't magical". Well, I'm just not sure how to respond to that.
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Old 08-03-2010, 03:43 PM   #43
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The OP hasn't made a post in a page and a half for a variety of reasons, but ineptitude is certainly not one of these. That is unfair of you to imply and it is also beyond the scope of this forum. We hold debates here, not flame wars: or at least we try to, anyway.

One reason I have not taken your arguments seriously is because telling me that you do not believe vaccines offer more good than harm is the same as telling Dr. Zahi Hawass that you believe the Great Pyramid of Khufu was built by aliens. He did not take kindly to that assertion, nor do I to the assertion that vaccines are not worth their weight in gold-pressed latinum. I have seen the horrors of babies born to local anti-vaccination religious communities in rural Indiana. I have seen what can happen to babies exposed to German measles (rubella) when their mothers have refused inoculation. (Pictures. Warning: content may be disturbing for some individuals.) (See: "Congenital rubella syndrome".)

But in deference to your insistence that I take you seriously, I may try to do so. I will go back through my first post and re-identify the major talking points I established in it. I will then go back through your posts and see which claims you made. If you made claims which contradict claims I made, I will direct your attention back to my original post. Claims you made which are entirely new and unrelated to the claims I made, I will address.
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Old 08-03-2010, 03:58 PM   #44
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1. Weighing Pros and Cons
In this paragraph, I discuss the equal-risk choice between a debilitating disease and a terminal disease. This is not to do with being anti-vaccine only, but rather has to do with being anti-vaccine on the grounds that vaccination causes autism in children.

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2. The Age Argument
In this paragraph, I address the demand by the anti-vaccine camp to repeal the currently legal mandates in place for certain pediatric vaccinations. I challenge a parent's right to choose whether their child will or will not be vaccinated on the grounds that denying children the opportunity to receive certain vaccinations is recklessly life-endangering.

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3. Being Bossy vs. Being Pro-Choice
In this paragraph, I discuss my distaste with the mass hysteria certain outspoken proponents of the anti-vaccination movement have created. I hint at, but do not clearly state (and shall so clearly state now), that in 2008 certain speakers from the movement were calling for a Federal-level ban on pediatric vaccines, i.e. they were not fighting for the right to raise their own children as they saw fit but rather to force their ideals upon the entire nation by way of Federal law. In short, to turn the tables on those who they greatly despise: those of us who support the status quo, where Federal law mandates that they give up their children to Federally-mandated immunization programs or else be denied entry to public schools, universities, and some workplaces.


In summary, I don't really talk about how vaccines work. Mine was an entirely social set of arguments. You raised criticisms of the validity of vaccination as a medical practice, so I will address these in a different post, along with addressing others of your complaints.
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Old 08-03-2010, 04:17 PM   #45
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Sources:
Fauci et al. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. 17th Edition.
Janeway et al. Immunobiology - the Immune System in Health & Disease. 6th Edition.
Kumar et al. Robbins & Cotran's Pathologic Basis of Disease. 8th Edition.
Murray et al. Medical Microbiology. 5th Edition.

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I highly doubt that I am a liability to humanity.
If you doubt it, then you have not studied epidemiology. The infectious cycle of the influenza virus, among numerous other examples, shows to us the danger in leaving any one member of the community susceptible to infection. If you can be infected, then the pathogen can evolve; and if the pathogen can evolve, then there is a chance for it to evade the humoral and cell-mediated immune responses of all human beings.

The only way to stamp out a disease completely from the planet is to immunize everybody. Because polio has a long history of maiming children, polio is one of the very few diseases to be eradicated from the planet thanks to widespread immunization programs the world over. Unfortunately, the global response was not the same for diseases perceived to be nuisances rather than life-threatening ordeals, and so we have not seen the global eradication of otherwise eradicatable diseases like the measles or the mumps.

So long as even one human being walks the surface of this Earth without having been vaccinated, there is a chance for a disease to resurface. (This is especially true of the abiotic viruses and less true but still applicable for the biotic bacteria, fungi, and macroscopic parasites.)

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Even if I were to catch some hyper-contagious, antibiotics-resisting strain of swine flu, there would be an equal chance of catching the virus from the vaccine itself.
This is factually incorrect. Live vaccines are no longer legal in the United States of America nor have they been for quite some time. All vaccine preparations currently available on the market are either killed or else synthetic. ("Killed" means that the virus has been rendered inoperable prior to vaccination. "Synthetic" means that certain components of the virus have been synthesized from scratch in the lab and are injected into the recipient. Killed vaccines tend to work better, but the public are more comfortable with the thought of synthetic vaccines since they are devoid of genomic material.)

Again, your statement is factually incorrect. I will not tolerate the deliberate spread of misinformation.

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Even putting aside all the issues, there's absolutely no argument for forcing parents to inject anything into their children. It is simply ethically and legally wrong. I would rather get a life-threatening disease than have the government control what I put into my body, especially if it is risking my own health.
I disagree with you (see original post), but this is the first thing you've said which is not factually wrong. Perhaps this is because it is also the first thing you have said which is a matter of opinion and not a matter of fact.
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Old 08-03-2010, 04:34 PM   #46
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Take a look at this.
I took a look at it. I read it closely. This man is making some bold-faced lies which could result in the revocation of his medical license.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Mercola
Vaccines contain foreign tissues and foreign DNA/RNA which act to suppress the immune system via graft-vs-host rejection phenomena.
This is not true. No vaccine has ever been implicated in GVHD (graft versus host disease) in all of medical literature.

In fact, the only thing in the literature on vaccines and GVHD is research into curing cancer. In this research, scientists took cell surface markers found primarily on tumor cells, took CD8+ T cells from the tumor cells' host organism, encouraged the CD8+ T cells to act against that particular epitope, and then re-introduced the CD8+ T cells into the host. The hope was that this would cure the cancer by having the CD8+ T cells command the tumor cells to undergo apoptosis (cell-programmed suicide), but the scientists observed that while this did take place, there was also an unacceptable level of apoptosis of non-tumor cells. Thus, the conclusion was that this would not be a viable way to cure cancer.

Now, whether that's true or not remains to be seen: but the fact of the matter is, this was an isolated study, no human beings were harmed during the study (the models used were murine, a popular choice for tumor research), and the vaccine never went to market. Furthermore, this was specifically about an anti-cancer treatment. This had absolutely nothing to do with what most people think of when they picture "vaccines," i.e. shots which immunize you against disease-causing organisms.

There are many other lies Dr. Mercola has made, but as you can see, explaining to you even one of his lies takes up a lot of space. In the interests of your limited attention span as a human being, I shall ask you to speak up if you want me to expose more of the pseudo-doctor's lies. I will be only too happy to at that time.

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If we live in a germophobic bubble where the only exposure to actual disease is vaccinations and (god forbid) hand sanitizer, then when a truly virulent strain of swine flu or bird flu comes around, the population would be decimated. In most cases, it's actually better to get the disease and overcome naturally than stilting up our bodies with drug after drug (this of course excludes those whose immune systems are already shot in the first place).
There is genuine scientific interest in this claim of yours, but as yet there is no clinical evidence in support of it.
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Old 08-03-2010, 05:07 PM   #47
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Since you've brought up the point, let's return for a moment to your original arguments.

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As a medical student, I find the arguments from the anti-vaccine camp to be more than a little short-sighted. It is human nature for people to cry foul when they get burned -- even when they know that they're the 1 in 100,000,000 case that gets burned. What makes the autism debate different is that (1) the link remains nebulous and so people's imaginations are free to run wild and (2) the incidence of autism in the United States has approached a diagnosed rate of 1 in a 1000 live births, permitting the anti-vaccine camp to argue that all 1 in 1000 have been vaccine-linked. Unfortunately, there are many problems with the anti-vaccine camp's arguments even should they prove to be correct about the link!
Let's imagine a scenario where science had proven a link between autism and vaccines. I would call you insensitive and inhumane for implying that there is any justification for forcing someone to shoot themselves full of vaccines only then to contract autism (and still not completely prevent the original diseases). However, due to the fact that the autism-causing agent in prior vaccines (a preservative that contained of mercury) is no longer used in modern times, I agree that the potential link between vaccines and autism is a little far-fetched. But since no clinical studies have been conclusive, only time will tell whether another agent is responsible for causing the increase in autism rates.


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2. The Age Argument
Many anti-vaccine arguers want to see pediatric vaccines completely taken off the market. This is absurd given the ubiquity of infectious agents like Clostridium tetani, Bordetella pertussis, and poliovirus. Any child who has ever eaten a worm or stuck their muddy fingers into the corners of their eyes, their mouth, or on an open wound has risked exposure to C. tetani. It lives in the soil, and unless you plan on keeping your child off the ground until he's 18, you're going to risk that he contracts tetanus and dies from it. Those in the anti-vaccine camp who at least argue for postponement of childhood vaccinations until the age of 8 or 10, I think, have a more rational head on their shoulders. Though I still think they're making the wrong choice.
You are also correct that removing the option of vaccination entirely is absurd. In my opinion, doing so would be just as bad as forcing vaccines on everyone against their will. I'm always for freedom of choice, so eliminating choices is (to me, at least) unethical.

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The only way to stamp out a disease completely from the planet is to immunize everybody. Because polio has a long history of maiming children, polio is one of the very few diseases to be eradicated from the planet thanks to widespread immunization programs the world over. Unfortunately, the global response was not the same for diseases perceived to be nuisances rather than life-threatening ordeals, and so we have not seen the global eradication of otherwise eradicatable diseases like the measles or the mumps.
However, in this point you are contradicting yourself. Above, you chastised the anti-vaccine camp for forcing everybody to do things "their way", even though they have no solid evidence, even though that is exactly what you propose in this paragraph. You brought up the example of how vaccinations supposedly wiped out such virulent diseases as the measles, polio, and tuberculosis. However, evidence clearly shows that these diseases were well on their way out years before the vaccines were introduced. The pro-vaccine camp has simply no leg to stand on when statistics decimate their long-held belief that vaccines can actually wipe out diseases, when in fact diseases often disappear on their own.

Finally, while I respect your authority on the subject as a medical student, please don't make broad, elitist assumptions that everyone who doesn't hold a medical degree is not aware of the issues.

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Old 08-03-2010, 05:55 PM   #48
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>The pro-vaccine camp has simply no leg to stand on when statistics decimate their long-held belief that vaccines can actually wipe out diseases, when in fact diseases often disappear on their own.

Smallpox left a note in it's will. It says hi.

Complete elimination of a disease is, I would contend, unlikely - from what I understand it, it was largely due to the lack of antigenic shift that smallpox was able to be eradicated. (Antigenic shift is a sudden and large scale change in the antigens on the surface of virus. Antigens are how the immune system recognises a particular pathogen).

I'm usually fairy pro-choice, and if someone is old enough and informed and they want to reject vaccinations then on their own head be it. On the other hand, depriving an innocent child of protection against a wide range of potentially rather horrid diseases? You want inhumane, that's it. I really don't see how any parent who actually a gives damn about their child could justify it.
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Old 08-03-2010, 05:58 PM   #49
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My 2 cents here, because it's something that I take a large interest in:
  • Firstly, Talon never made any elitist assumptions. He said that you weren't providing any valid claims, and went on to prove your claims invalid or not proven.
  • Secondly, you talk of autism as if it is a disease/illness. It is a disability, and not "contracted". You are probably offending every autistic person that is reading this by using the terminology you choose. It's currently believed to be genetic, although it's not known whether mutation or simply rare combinations of genes cause it.
  • Third, and this links into the genetics, is that it is also believed (or certainly was) that a person with the "autism genes" undergoing stress or trauma can act as a trigger of sorts, which could explain why young children first display symptoms after a vaccination, as no young kid likes having needles stuck in them.
  • Finally, while I agree that forcing a child to have a vaccine is inhumane, letting the kid catch the disease because they didn't know what they were getting into is just as bad, if not worse. Remember that a lot of kids are young when they get these vaccines, and that they won't know what rubella or tetanus are. They need their parents to tell them what to do. They need guidance. It's not forcing them if they can't make the decision for themselves, it's simply doing what is best.

And as for wiping out the disease, you cannot say that simply because some diseases were "on their way out", vaccination can't have helped. The fact is that no-one can tell when a disease like tuberculosis will vanish, as it can always evolve, as others already stated, but they can try to stop it ASAP. Risking the well-being of millions just to stop the minority from possibly becoming autistic is inhumane, once again. Would you rather think differently from others or catch a potentially fatal disease like tetanus? I know which I'd rather have.

And before you call me insensitive, I am autistic, so I know all there is to know about the effects of ASDs. As long as there are people that understand them, they can live happily. High-functioning autistics can even leave home and live successful lives.

Tl;dr: If you're old enough to know what you're getting into, do what the hell you like. Younger kids (even at 10 or 11) need guidance, and it is inhumane to put them at risk of death for fear of a hindering but not fatal disease.
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Old 08-03-2010, 06:30 PM   #50
EarthKwake
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Salamencia View Post
[*]Firstly, Talon never made any elitist assumptions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
If you doubt it, then you have not studied epidemiology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Salamencia View Post
[*]Secondly, you talk of autism as if it is a disease/illness. It is a disability, and not "contracted". You are probably offending every autistic person that is reading this by using the terminology you choose. It's currently believed to be genetic, although it's not known whether mutation or simply rare combinations of genes cause it.
"Disease - A condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms"

Hmm, sounds an awful lot like autism. And hell, I should know, as I myself am an Asperger's sufferer, so let's not make hasty assumptions like you did above. It can also be "contracted", as that is another general term used when referring to being afflicted with a disease.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Salamencia View Post
And as for wiping out the disease, you cannot say that simply because some diseases were "on their way out", vaccination can't have helped.
Actually, I can say that. With the trends shown in those graphs, it is unlikely vaccines even made a difference in helping to eliminate those diseases.
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