Ruining It for the Rest of Us (Chicago Public Radio)

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"When they decided not to vaccinate their son against measles, two San Diego parents thought they were making the best decision for their child. But when the 7-year-old came home from an overseas trip suffering from the disease, his family’s personal decision became a whole community’s problem. The resulting outbreak infected 11 children and endangered many others. This and other stories about what happens when people's actions and choices infringe on those around them."

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_E ... pisode=370

thats a shame. but usually people have to ruin it before laws are passed making it mandatory for all children to be vaccinated. people who dont vaccinate there kids because they think child vaccinations cause autism are dumb. and more than likely very religious or paraniod. autism is more than likely genetic and has nothing to do with vaccines

richardbenson gets the award for best comment of the day just for that. Could not have said it any better myself.

Plus they would rather take the risk that their child get a crippling or deadly disease, to prevent the marginal risk that they might develop ASD. I.e. they would rather have a dead child than an ASD child.

One kid wasn't vaccinated and brought the disease back from a trip.

Eleven more kids were infected from this one kid.

Either this kid wasn't the only one not vaccinated, or the vaccination doesn't work too well. Either way, it wasn't just one couple's decision here that brought the problem on...

If 11 others were infected then its obvious most if not all of those people were not vaccinated either. Either that or the vaccine doesn't work. So its not really this one kids fault or his parents if other unvaccinated people contracted the illness.

Vaccines don't always work anyway. About 6 years ago I was given the Pneumonia vaccine which is suppose to last 10 years. Well the year after I got it I contracted pneumonia. In fact I have had viral pneumonia twice and bacterial pneumonia twice since the vaccine so its obvious it doesn't work.

That said you guys seem to be missing a point that people should have the right to their own belief system and just because they don't want a certain thing done to them, like a vaccination, is no reason to condemn them. It's just like the medical community is working on tests so that parents can opt to abort autistic children like they can Downs Syndrome kids. I know some people here disagree with that as an option yet they totally support the medical community trying to force vaccinations. Another thing vaccinations can never be 100% because some people are allergic to eggs and cannot get the vaccine. Not to mention there are a number of doctors suspicious that the enormous increase in the number of vaccines given to people is what is causing the increase in autoimmune illnesses because it is overloading the immune system to the point it can't determine what is an intruder so it sees its own cells as intruders.

Vaccines are not 100% effective; but that's not the same as "doesn't work". What's typical is something like,

Without vaccine: 20% chance of catching illness after exposure
With vaccine: .01% chance of catching illness after exposure

That kind of thing. There's always a chance your body didn't properly develop immunity, and you'll get the illness--though usually a mild version of it. Obviously you aren't protected against what you weren't vaccinated for, which is important with viruses that tend to mutate (like the flu virus) or when there are many causes of a single illness (meningitis or, yes, pneumonia); and immunity can wear off, as with tetanus which requires regular re-exposure to the vaccine to keep up immunity.

Last edited by Callista on 21 Dec 2008, 3:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Vaccinations don't cause autism, what they do is cause children who are very sensitive (such as people with ASD) to have a severe reaction to the ingredients in the vaccines (sometimes causing permanent damage). I started getting seizures myself when Dr's put me on too many medications in order to make me more NT like, looking back I see the ridiculousness of them trying to fix my introversion and dislike of socializing, why should anyone care, I wasn't hurting anyone... back on track now, people should have a choice as to whether they partake in anything medical or otherwise, freedom has a price and if you don't agree with that you should have voted for 4 more years of Bush.

Wait a moment; vaccines aren't the same as medication. If you were heavily medicated it's no wonder you had problems.

Of course, if you're allergic to an ingredient in a vaccine, you'll react to it. Eggs are a particularly big culprit.

*Lots* of vaccines don't "work too well" in the sense that they aren't highly reliable at preventing any single infection. What they do is drive the population-wide infection rate below the critical threshold needed for an epidemic to sustain itself.

It's very common for a vaccine to need 90% uptake or so to effectively contain a disease.

I have not looked into their views at all, but given our evolutionary history, this seems a very unlikely theory.

Kids would get those illnesses in short order during early childhood anyway--the infant/child mortality rates were really high before vaccination.

Autoimmune diseases occur in unvaccinated individuals too. To count them properly you would have to find children from diverse genetic backgrounds--multiple races, but similar culture and environment--who were unvaccinated thanks to religious/philosophical beliefs, not for health reasons.

Last edited by Callista on 21 Dec 2008, 3:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This is an argument FOR getting vaccinated!(BTW, you switched the statistics) If someone gets vaccinated, it means there is a 1 in 99.99 chance they MIGHT get infected IF exposed! There is ALSO a better chance that IF they get infected, the case will be more mild and less contagious!

So with 1000 people going from a civilized area to an undeveloped country, the chances are that only ONE person has a SLIGHT chance of spreading the disease. The chances of that causing a mild epidemic are practically ZERO! They are probably like .0001%! If they WEREN'T vaccinated, about 200 could come back with a FULL case! The chances of THEM starting an epidemic could be about 100%!

BTW People that haven't been vaccinated in a long time, were vaccinated with another strain, are undernourished, have another disease, are tired, etc.... Are FAR more likely to catch the virus. Vaccinations were NEVER 100%, but they DID wipe out polio and smallpox!! !! !! !!

...uh, yes, it was meant to be an argument for getting vaccinated. It's a lot like wearing a seat belt--big chance of having your life saved in a crash, even if you get injured; very small chance of getting tangled in it trying to get out after an accident that lands you in water. And yet people still refuse to wear seat belts because "it might trap me in the car"--even though the chance of dying because you weren't wearing one is much greater. People apparently are willing to do very silly things to eliminate a risk, even if it means greatly increasing another sort of risk.

Switched 'em back, thanks.

Isn't it somewhat a given that if someone is very religious, they will also be paranoid?

yes!