Studies Show Unvaccinated Children Healthier

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Just out of curiosity, what are ya’lls views on the necessity of the flu shot [/quote]

Unnecessary, imo, for most people. [/quote]

This is a hazy area. I have gone back and forth. A graduate-school classmate of mine (who is an infectious disease epidemiologist) and good friend has explained it as such:

It is unnecessary for most people in the sense that “young and healthy people ages 18-55 are unlikely to die if infected with influenza and treated in a first-world hospital.” People like you and me probably are going to go home, tough it out for a few days, guzzle some NyQuil and water and hot tea, and come through on the other side. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger!

But, and this is why the flu shot matters: not everyone is so hardy. I sat on the bus today next to a whole slew of characters. I washed my hands and touched the same soap dispenser that someone else touched; maybe they’re going to go home to their 6-month-old niece. THOSE are the people who are really at risk. The elderly, the very young, and the immunocompromised. If you have any friends-of-friends that have an immune disorder, or an illness like cancer or leukemia, THEY are who might one day be hurt. I get the flu, tough it out because I’m a MAN, and I survive; but I pass it to the 70-year-old man on the bus next to me, he might end up in the hospital with pneumonia.

That, in a nutshell, is why the flu shot can seem “unnecessary for most people” but still is probably a good idea.[/quote]

Ya, that makes sense. I was definitely referring to the healthy crowd when I wrote that. It’s useful for a certain demographic (I’m just not in it).

42

[quote]Severiano wrote:
A good post[/quote]

We’ve disagreed a lot, in a lot of threads, and a lot of topics.

So I owe you one to point out a good post here from you.

43

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

You may not ever get the influenza virus, but if you DO get it, you’ll be a helluva lot better off if you got a flu shot.[/quote]

I stopped getting flu symptoms (which might as well be the flu) since I stopped receiving the shot.

Getting vaccinated is like carrying on a parachute on a plane. It could save a life the but the odds of needing it are insignificant - plus there is the chance that it could have been packed incorrectly.

44

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I stopped getting flu symptoms (which might as well be the flu) since I stopped receiving the shot.
[/quote]

Fail. Fail. Fail, Fail, FAIL. So entirely fail.

Flu symptoms /=/ the flu. Did you even READ my fucking post above?

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Getting vaccinated is like carrying on a parachute on a plane. It could save a life the but the odds of needing it are insignificant - plus there is the chance that it could have been packed incorrectly.[/quote]

Oh, my fucking god. The whole reason that the “odds of needing it are insignificant” is because you have the good fucking fortune that most people walking around you HAVE been vaccinated and aren’t going to give you measles, or mumps, or smallpox.

I do understand the bigger principle - that there’s a big difference between absolute risk and relative risk - but you’re applying it incorrectly.

45

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]Severiano wrote:
Damn, I’m glad I got the vaccination now while I was in the military. People… Holy shit should spend more time in the science and biology class than the Church and media advice from Jenanay McCarthy, whose always been known for her big… Mind…
[/quote]

The church is not a big part of the movement. It’s either deliberate disinformation as spread by the quack who claimed common vaccinations caused autism (which he later stated was a flawed study and withdrew), or just fucking idiots who DO NOT REMEMBER WHAT THE FUCK SMALLPOX IS.

Seriously, who cares about measles. Fuck measles.

I care a lot more about TB and smallpox.

Fuck those diseases.[/quote]

Yeah, church is almost no part of this movement at all.

Also, the guy who claimed vaccines caused autism and did those “studies” had his license revoked. Like, no longer able to practice, because you know…fucking fraud.

And while we’re at it, fuck polio and measles. Measles isn’t too bad…unless you want to go back to the days when over a million kids died of measles in a year. Sounds perfectly okey dokey… Fuck that bullshit.

46

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Fail. Fail. Fail, Fail, FAIL. So entirely fail.

Flu symptoms /=/ the flu. Did you even READ my fucking post above?[/quote]

What’s the difference to someone suffering flu symptoms? The symptoms can kill just as bad as the infection. I read your post but am not convinced by your arguments - or lack thereof.

[quote]Oh, my fucking god. The whole reason that the “odds of needing it are insignificant” is because you have the good fucking fortune that most people walking around you HAVE been vaccinated and aren’t going to give you measles, or mumps, or smallpox.

I do understand the bigger principle - that there’s a big difference between absolute risk and relative risk - but you’re applying it incorrectly.[/quote]

The bigger principle is freedom of choice. I don’t need tyrants like you forcing your opinions into my bloodstream.

47

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Fail. Fail. Fail, Fail, FAIL. So entirely fail.

Flu symptoms /=/ the flu. Did you even READ my fucking post above?[/quote]

What’s the difference to someone suffering flu symptoms? The symptoms can kill just as bad as the infection. I read your post but am not convinced by your arguments - or lack thereof.

[quote]Oh, my fucking god. The whole reason that the “odds of needing it are insignificant” is because you have the good fucking fortune that most people walking around you HAVE been vaccinated and aren’t going to give you measles, or mumps, or smallpox.

I do understand the bigger principle - that there’s a big difference between absolute risk and relative risk - but you’re applying it incorrectly.[/quote]

The bigger principle is freedom of choice. I don’t need tyrants like you forcing your opinions into my bloodstream.[/quote]

You’re going to argue biology against a guy who does it as his career? Ok, it’s your (academic) funeral.

Freedom of choice is a thing. It’s a thing because we put it in our founding documents. It’s a good thing. BUT…You strawmanned his post by bringing in “freedom of choice” when he never said one thing about “forcing people to get the shot”. He said instead “the shot is probably a good idea”. Not, “you should be forced by law to get the shot”. So your reply about freedom of choice is irrelevant and off topic.

Not to mention it’s too fucking close to giving the conspiracy theorist anti-vax crowd any sort of support at all.

The symptoms do NOT = the disease. I can get flu like symptoms from a regular cold, or more than a dozen other NOT INFLUENZA VIRUS illnesses or problems.

48

I have never gotten the flu shot and have just decided that it is mostly a useless based off of anecdotal evidence. Dad on an oil rig, 48 man crew, 46 had the flu shot, 46 got the flu (swabbed), 1 that didn’t get the shot and 1 that did were the only two that didn’t get it. That’s not great odds. The past three years here we have been hit hard by the flu with doctors saying that they totally missed with the shot but it still may provide a benefit to get it, so if they keep missing and its a crap shoot whether or not you’ll get it, flu shot or no flu shot, plus if you get the flu shot you the common FLS for a day or two, then whats the point?

Edit: Not arguing against vaccines, just the flu shot. Plus the chicken pox vaccine seems like one of those things that is inviting unintended consequences but that’s me talking out my ass.

49

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
What’s the difference to someone suffering flu symptoms? The symptoms can kill just as bad as the infection.[/quote]

The symptoms cannot “kill just as bad as the infection.” Flu-like symptoms (fever, headache, chills) - the cluster of unpleasant thingies that people have come to call “the flu” - are not going to kill you. An actual infection of influenza virus, now, that IS something that might kill you.

The fact that I even have to try to explain this is disturbing.

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
The bigger principle is freedom of choice. I don’t need tyrants like you forcing your opinions into my bloodstream.[/quote]

I’m all about freedom of choice. The problem is that the scientific community, despite some very good efforts, has started to lose ground in persuading people that vaccines are, in fact, the correct “choice” to make. For mostly bullshit reasons, some of which I allude to above. Paradoxically, vaccines have done their job so well that people in first-world countries have all but forgotten what these diseases look like now assume that vaccines are superfluous.

Research that’s either heinously flawed (like surveys done by vaccineinjury.info) or outright falsified (the original Wakefield paper) has given nut-jobs a reason to believe that non-vaccination is a better choice than vaccination. It’s not. It’s a potentially devastating choice that’s going to result in, at best, a drain on limited healthcare resources, and at worst an increase in the prevalence of these almost-entirely-preventable diseases.

So, yes, people should have “freedom of choice” - but they should also have the right information available to make said choices, and critical thinking skills to evaluate the information and make the proper choice. Unfortunately, right now, some people are using some very wrong information mixed with very wrong critical thinking skills to make very wrong choices.

50

Can we atleast agree that getting a flu shot is different then getting the measles vaccination?

I feel like this thread could go somewhere if we refocus on the importance of vaccines for life threatening, population changing diseases.

51

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
Can we atleast agree that getting a flu shot is different then getting the measles vaccination?

I feel like this thread could go somewhere if we refocus on the importance of vaccines for life threatening, population changing diseases. [/quote]

Ya, they’re two completely different things.

52

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
What’s the difference to someone suffering flu symptoms? The symptoms can kill just as bad as the infection.[/quote]

The symptoms cannot “kill just as bad as the infection.” Flu-like symptoms (fever, headache, chills) - the cluster of unpleasant thingies that people have come to call “the flu” - are not going to kill you. An actual infection of influenza virus, now, that IS something that might kill you.

The fact that I even have to try to explain this is disturbing.

[/quote]

What actually does the killing can be a little vague and I think you two might just be talking semantics. What I heard, probably on NPR, is the influenza virus doesn’t kill a person. The virus weakens the immune system leading to bacterial infection that does the killing, or for most who get the flu, leads to the “unpleasant thingies” associated with the flu.

Does a man die because he got hit by a car or because his head smashed against the pavement? Or, because he stepped out in the road without looking?

53

Don’t be stupid. Get vaccinated. Especially if travelling over seas

54

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
Can we atleast agree that getting a flu shot is different then getting the measles vaccination?

I feel like this thread could go somewhere if we refocus on the importance of vaccines for life threatening, population changing diseases. [/quote]

Ya, they’re two completely different things.[/quote]

Completely different, I said as much when I originally asked the question.

55

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
Can we atleast agree that getting a flu shot is different then getting the measles vaccination?

I feel like this thread could go somewhere if we refocus on the importance of vaccines for life threatening, population changing diseases. [/quote]

Fair enough.

(Incidentally, I do not always get my flu shot)

Everything I said in my last post stands, though.

I’m all about freedom of choice. The problem is that the scientific community, despite some very good efforts, has started to lose ground in persuading people that vaccines are, in fact, the correct “choice” to make. For mostly bullshit reasons, some of which I allude to above. Paradoxically, vaccines have done their job so well that people in first-world countries have all but forgotten what these diseases look like now assume that vaccines are superfluous.

Research that’s either heinously flawed (like surveys done by vaccineinjury.info) or outright falsified (the original Wakefield paper) has given nut-jobs a reason to believe that non-vaccination is a better choice than vaccination. It’s not. It’s a potentially devastating choice that’s going to result in, at best, a drain on limited healthcare resources, and at worst an increase in the prevalence of these almost-entirely-preventable diseases.

So, yes, people should have “freedom of choice” - but they should also have the right information available to make said choices, and critical thinking skills to evaluate the information and make the proper choice. Unfortunately, right now, some people are using some very wrong information mixed with very wrong critical thinking skills to make very wrong choices.

*Editing to add: I have some vague sympathies because there are many times in the past when science has been “wrong” - which is one of the anti-vaxxers favorite things to point out, that Science was wrong that one time on that one thing, so therefore they might also be wrong about Toxic Vaccines and that the government can’t make them do this and so on. But, please: science is not wrong about vaccines. It’s the greatest public-health advance since ever, with the possible exception of clean water. There’s a lot of shit that is still genuinely controversial - what the best diet is, whether environmental exposures cause Disease X, etc. This ain’t one of those topics.

*Editing to add, part 2: one of the most insane things about all of this is that the anti-vaxxers position often includes a vague statement like “do the research yourself” or vague references to statistics like the increased rate of autism while omitting the rest of the “research” on vaccines, like, oh, the sharp decrease in the rate of every single vaccine-preventable disease since the institution of vaccines. EVEN IF THE VACCINES DID INCREASE THE RISK OF AUTISM, the “research” would still largely support vaccination. Unless you like at sites like vaccineinjury.info, which will over-represent “sick” children who received a vaccination (as their parents rush for something to blame) and “healthy” children who did not receive vaccinations (as THEIR parents rush to justify their decision to not vaccinate their child) and under-represent the largest body, healthy vaccinated children (because their parents don’t go trolling the internet looking for sites about vaccine injury - it’s a complete nonissue in their minds).

56

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
Can we atleast agree that getting a flu shot is different then getting the measles vaccination?

I feel like this thread could go somewhere if we refocus on the importance of vaccines for life threatening, population changing diseases. [/quote]

Fair enough.

(Incidentally, I do not always get my flu shot)

Everything I said in my last post stands, though.

I’m all about freedom of choice. The problem is that the scientific community, despite some very good efforts, has started to lose ground in persuading people that vaccines are, in fact, the correct “choice” to make. For mostly bullshit reasons, some of which I allude to above. Paradoxically, vaccines have done their job so well that people in first-world countries have all but forgotten what these diseases look like now assume that vaccines are superfluous.

Research that’s either heinously flawed (like surveys done by vaccineinjury.info) or outright falsified (the original Wakefield paper) has given nut-jobs a reason to believe that non-vaccination is a better choice than vaccination. It’s not. It’s a potentially devastating choice that’s going to result in, at best, a drain on limited healthcare resources, and at worst an increase in the prevalence of these almost-entirely-preventable diseases.

So, yes, people should have “freedom of choice” - but they should also have the right information available to make said choices, and critical thinking skills to evaluate the information and make the proper choice. Unfortunately, right now, some people are using some very wrong information mixed with very wrong critical thinking skills to make very wrong choices.

*Editing to add: I have some vague sympathies because there are many times in the past when science has been “wrong” - which is one of the anti-vaxxers favorite things to point out, that Science was wrong that one time on that one thing, so therefore they might also be wrong about Toxic Vaccines and that the government can’t make them do this and so on. But, please: science is not wrong about vaccines. It’s the greatest public-health advance since ever, with the possible exception of clean water. There’s a lot of shit that is still genuinely controversial - what the best diet is, whether environmental exposures cause Disease X, etc. This ain’t one of those topics.[/quote]

I think any sane and rational person here would agree that getting vaccinated for the host of life threatening diseases is a good idea. And these vaccines have stood the test of time and the sample size is plenty large enough we know what they are and what they do.

Interested to know your view on the chickenpox vaccine, its role in preventing/contributing to shingles cases, and its necessity? I ask you as you seem to be the most knowledgeable and its a relatively new vaccine for a relatively harmless disease.

57

I’ve gotten swine flu… That shit sucked. I was in bed for four days.

I’ve gotten the flu shot once. It only put me in bed for one.

58

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve gotten swine flu… That shit sucked. I was in bed for four days.

I’ve gotten the flu shot once. It only put me in bed for one. [/quote]

The virus they use in flu shots is dead, I don’t understand how it makes people sick?

59

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Interested to know your view on the chickenpox vaccine, its role in preventing/contributing to shingles cases, and its necessity? I ask you as you seem to be the most knowledgeable and its a relatively new vaccine for a relatively harmless disease.
[/quote]

TBH, I don’t know enough to comment there. I should ask my pal the infectious disease epidemiologist for his opinion.

(relevant disclosure: I’m a PhD epidemiologist, but my research has been in mostly chronic-disease work: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, women’s health, and I’m about to go back to the cardiology world - so I have never actually worked infectious disease stuff, although I have friends that do)

FROM WHAT I CAN TELL:

  • The virus that causes chickenpox, varicella zoster virus, remains latent in nerve cells even after we fight off the infection as kids.

  • As we age, the immune responses that keep varicella zoster virus dormant in the nerves weaken and it can rear itself again.

  • The lifetime risk of shingles is estimated to be 32 percent, and approximately 50 percent of those living until age 85 are expected to develop shingles.

  • I have never known someone with shingles, so I don’t have a good grasp on the morbidity and mortality associated with the disease. It sounds like it’s no fun.

  • I don’t really know whether vaccinating against chickenpox would prevent shingles in later life. Conceptually, it makes sense, but I can imagine that the virus might still linger in some folks that get the chickenpox vaccine, become carriers of the virus but never feel the illness, and later develop shingles as their immune system weakens and the dormant virus becomes active. I don’t know enough about virology to comment.

One more-serious final point worth raising: to most of us, chickenpox is a harmless disease. Something we all got as kids and got over in a few days. But the varicella virus can be life-threatening to someone that’s immunocompromised. Kids with leukemia, anyone with cancer or HIV, etc. They rely on the fact that most everyone around them is vaccinated. So that’s the best qualitative argument I can come up with “in favor” of the chickenpox vaccine (incidentally, this extends to flu shots as well). You can get the chickenpox at age 5 and be done with it. But if your 5-year-old kid gets the chickenpox and goes to gymnastics or the playground and plays with a 5-year-old kid that has a rare childhood cancer and is enjoying one of his rare days in the sun, that kid might die from it.

60

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
I’ve gotten swine flu… That shit sucked. I was in bed for four days.

I’ve gotten the flu shot once. It only put me in bed for one. [/quote]

The virus they use in flu shots is dead, I don’t understand how it makes people sick?[/quote]

Killed-virus vaccines…let me 'splain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

This gets to the earlier discussion of “symptoms” vs. the actual disease. The symptoms we feel - headache, fever, fatigue - are caused by the body’s immune response, not the actual disease. When you get a real virus, your body mobilizes its foot soldiers to fight off the infection, and doing that causes some rather unpleasant symptoms. It has to ramp up production of little killer cells, and send them to do their little killer thingies against the bad guys.

That immune response still happens when you get a killed-virus vaccine, which is why people usually do develop some low-grade symptoms for a day or two. They often have a similar “Ugh, the only time I got the flu was when I got the damned flu shot” reaction that’s been mentioned above. Most of the time, they didn’t actually get an influenza infection, they had a normal immune response, the same thing they’d feel if they got the common cold.

That normal immune response can be a bit uncomfortable and often makes people think they “had the flu” for a day or two. It’s a trade-off. We accept that small amount of discomfort for an assurance that (hopefully) we are protecting ourselves against the potentially life-threatening influenza virus.