Report: Anti-vaxers gain momentum in the US

[davidn3600]

Vaccine hesitancy is increasingly common, and not only when it comes to infant and childhood immunizations, experts say.

Two in three working age adults refuse to get the annual flu vaccine and the same proportion of parents decline the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for young adolescents, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The people we are concerned about are the people who are hesitant. The general demographic is well-educated and upper middle class," said Barry Bloom, a professor of medicine at Harvard University.

In recent years, reports linking vaccines to autism have been debunked, but fears of adverse events -- which experts say are rare -- have proven difficult to erase.

Some parents are troubled by the increasing number of vaccines children are given, which have risen from seven in 1985 to 14 today, a result of medical advances, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I was stunned by the number of vaccines," said Alina Scott, a 37-year-old project manager and mother of a two-year-old son.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-vaccine-denial-goes-mainstream-042429886.html


There are a number of things driving this. Autism isn't driving it anymore. It's mainly a distrust in the government, medical community, and with pharmaceuticals. Some people thinks it's all about profits for drug-makers and healthcare providers. And many people just simply dont like the idea of injecting so many chemicals in the body, regardless if science says it's safe.

[doxydad]

1. Hee's the horrible truth

These non-vaxxers are really, really stupid. Measles, small pox, a vary of diseases can be stopped by simply vaccinating your rug rats. According to one of my docs, whom I spoke to about this basically told me that in 50 years, with people who do not vaccinate, plus those who do get diseases from these morons...will add to the healthcare problem at least 100 fold...also, I am scared of getting shingles at my age (62), and he said that it is a real possibility due to these anti-vaxxers, and that if I were around...say...a child at age 5 that just got the chickenpox, i would be a t great risk of shingles. O top of the Type II diabetes, I am at risk of death, thanks to some douche who is ignorant to the point of not vaccinating their kids. Now, I ask you, WTF?

[HockeyMom]

6. My husband was NOT around children with Chicken Pox

unless of course you want to count our kids who are 30 and 35 years ago. Yeah, he got shingles.

On the other hand, I HAVE been around kids, including working 1:1 with an un-vaccinated child. Sorry, I am not getting any flu shot. I haven't had the flu in 15 years, and have worked for years with little children with the cold, flu, stomach virus, and chicken pox and measles outbreaks in the school. My husband has gotten the flu 3 out 5 times he got vaccinated. This year he got so mad, he has sworn he will not get another. Additionally, he is also furious that I NEVER get vaccinated and NEVER get the flu. I don't even catch it from HIM. We are both 65.

Maybe the difference is that for his working life he has been in office environments. Mine has been with children and disabled adults, which has exposed me for so many years to a lot of diseases. I have a better natural resistance than he does? Or does it all suddenly end when you turn 65? lol

[mainer]

8. Children are fomites. i.e., disease spreaders

So you, as someone exposed to kids, have been exposed to every foul virus that ever goes through the population. You've got natural immunity. Your husband does not.

Truth is, at age 65, your immunity does start to flag, and flu shots aren't as effective in older people. But he SHOULD keep getting his flu shot. And you probably should, too.

Your husband's shingles probably relates to his having gotten chicken pox as a kid.

[HockeyMom]

12. My husband probably has a weakened immune system

having had 5 surgeries in 5 years. He also take a lot of different meds. I don't.

[SheilaT]

33. The shingles vaccine is readily available and if you're over 60

you shouldn't even need a scrip from a doctor. Just go to any pharmacy and request it. Apparently it's one of the things that the ACA requires to be covered, because I didn't even have to make a ten dollar co-pay when I got mine a few months ago. A friend of mine who got hers about three years ago had to pay, I can't remember exactly but it was something fairly significant like over a hundred dollars.

[MurrayDelph]

35. There is a shingles vaccine

I am in a similar position as doxydad (great name, by the way; love them little dogs). 61 years old (tomorrow), diabetic.

So after hearing Craig Ferguson talk about his experience with it, and watching Keith Olbermann suffering from lingering effects of shingles, I asked my doctor about it a couple of weeks ago.

I got the shot. There was a little soreness and swelling on the arm near the injection point, that lasted a little less than a week, and a little less each day, but I figure it beats a full-blown outbreak.

[Vashta Nerada]

75. You're absolutely right. Anti-vaxxers are stupid.

There's no other way to put it.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. It's ignorance and stupidity driving it...

I never get a flu shot but just got a measles/shingles shot and a tetanus booster.

I understand propaganda and viral "news" but I still can't for the life of me understand how people can ignore a doctor, or nurse or anyone else who went to school for years to understand this stuff but listen to some asshole on the radio or a blog tell them their doctor is wrong.

Medical science is not perfect, and may never be, but it's a lot better than a mediocre actress or drunkard in understanding how to keep you alive.

[Submariner]

4. If the Salk vaccine was ready 2 weeks earlier I might have escaped catching polio

I luckily recovered from the paralysis (the doctor said because I ran my 9 year old butt everywhere all the time my leg muscles won out against the paralytic effects) THEN got a double dose of the polio vaccine, a shot then orally. I was just lucky. Lots of neighbors ended up in iron lungs or in braces because there was no vaccine.

Once the vaccines started, polio was history.

[dem in texas]

5. I am 74 years old

When I was a child, I saw children - school mates and neighbors who had damaged eye sight and hearing and some with heart damage from childhood diseases like red measles and scarlet fever. We had neighborhood children who were crippled for life from having polio. I saw the little baby next door choking and gasping for air when she had whopping cough. I know that a neighbor boy almost died from the after-effects of chicken pox. If people today could see how dangerous the diseases can be they would be lining up to get their shots.

[spanone]

11. in the fifties it was more than common to have friends who had polio...

with the crutches....heart breaking.

[HockeyMom]

14. I grew up in NYC in the 50s

so of course I saw kids on crutches, but didn't know any personally. None of my friends had it. I never got polio, and I don't think I ever got the vaccine since it came out in the 60s when I would have been in high school. I would remember that as a teenager. Maybe they figured back then once you reached a certain age, you had already been exposed to the disease and had natural immunity? I know when I went back to college in the 90s, and went to work in the public school system, they said if you were born before 1957 you did not need to show a record of immunizations.

[SheilaT]

31. The Salk vaccine came out in 1955. Not the 60s.

While it is certainly possible you never were vaccinated, if you attended school in NYS in 1955 or 1956 you were almost undoubtedly vaccinated, as there were these incredible mass immunization events at that time.

We lived in Utica at the time, and the Catholic school was one of the ones involved in the testing. My older sister was in second grade and so she was in the test. Alas, our school got the placebo so she had to get the real thing when it actually came out.

[mainer]

46. I remember the mass vaccinations.

I was born in 1953, and would have gotten my first shot before 1960.

[TBF]

60. This is the kind of

anecdotal "evidence" folks are passing around as fact. Perhaps you were not personally vaccinated but instead were protected by the "herd" that did get their vaccines.

More about polio here -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis

[HockeyMom]

61. Exposed to the disease

but never get it, or get it so mild to not even notice it. There is that kind of immunity too. How did people survive when there were no vaccines? Protected by what "herd"? If there was any so called herd in those times, it was the people who had had those diseases and had their own natural immunity. My parents born in the 1920s would have been those people walking around with that, not vaccinated people. Mankind would have died off long ago if there was no such thing.

[TBF]

63. Mankind survived as a whole

but how many children needlessly died? Do you also pass on antibiotics?

[jeff47]

84. No, it was luck.

Our immune systems operate on chance.

When a disease-causing pathogen enters your body, your immune system starts assembling random antibodies. When one of these random antibodies sticks to the pathogen, your body mass-produces that antibody and you fight off the disease.

If you get lucky, you "don't catch" the disease. What actually happened is your immune system stumbled across the right antibody quickly, and killed off the pathogen before it was more than "I don't feel well".

If you get unlucky, the disease ravages your body until you either die, or your immune system eventually stumbles across the correct antibody.

There is no such thing as "natural immunity". What appears to be "natural immunity" is luck.

How did people survive when there were no vaccines?

They didn't.

Infant mortality in 1900 was 10%. Of every 1000 live births, 100 died before age 1. And that was a massive improvement over the historical rate. In the mid 1800s it was 25% (250 per 1000). In France in 1800, less than half of children lived to age 10.

Today, infant mortality is 5.4 per 1000 live births. 0.54%. A very large chunk of that drop is due to vaccinations.

There's a reason people used to not name their children until their first birthday. There's also a reason couples used to have 6+ kids. That gave them enough "rolls of the dice" to ensure that the immune systems of at least two kids got lucky.

[KamaAina]

67. One of my dearest friends had polio and uses a wheelchair

she would hardly describe her disability as "heart breaking".

[spanone]

71. good for your friend. my friend may have seen it the same way. it was heartbreaking for me.

[mountain grammy]

36. I'm afraid they are going to start seeing it soon enough if people insist on being ignorant.

I remember getting our polio shots. Before that, my mom wouldn't let us go to public swimming pools or movies in the summer, she was so afraid of the disease. She survived smallpox with just a couple of scars.
We all had measles, mumps and chickenpox. I got scarlet fever with the measles.. a sick kid and so lucky to be left with no ill effects.

[Lithos]

7. Wish I could say this is a dying breed

But it's the children of the moronic parents who are suffering.

I'm 50 and even I have seen the positive effects of vaccines.

German Measles was a real thing when I was a kid, I still have the scar when every one of us kids were vaccinated at school during an outbreak.

L-

[doxydad]

21. agreed!

[SidDithers]

9. Anti-vax dumbasses...

evolution by natural selection will eventually take care of the problem.

Sid

[Arugula Latte]

23. The problem is their innocent kids and others' innocent kids will suffer.

It takes awhile for babies/toddlers to complete these vaccination cycles and in the meantime they can get fatal diseases thanks to these anti-vax dumbasses.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. I am an asthma sufferer so last year I went to a pharmacy and had the vaccine

Doesn't make me trust corporations any more than I do (which is almost nil). Corporations aren't to be trusted.

[Warpy]

13. The main thing driving it is that the diseases were forgotten

and these mommies and daddies don't want their little snowflake crying when the mean old doctor gives him a shot. They have no idea that these diseases were killers.

I guess there has to be a new wave of dead and handicapped children before reality finally sinks in again.

If these illnesses were mere inconveniences, no one would have developed the vaccines. There wouldn't have been any reason to.

[HockeyMom]

15. I can honestly say as a "Grandma"

of that generation of "dead and handicapped children" I did not see it either. Let me repeat this. I grew up in NYC where there were millions of people.

Sorry, some people are making it seem like children were dying in the streets of all these diseases back then. Did my parents shelter me that much away the masses in my own little apartment building??? From the time I was 10 in 1958 I traveled all around by myself.

[Warpy]

17. I nearly died from measles encephalitis that put me into a coma

and a playmate did die from that particular epidemic.

I had polio when I was two and a half. Not only did I have to learn how to walk again, my legs have always been very weak.

Don't kid yourself. Just because you and your friends were safe in your building and on your block, don't assume that was the reality for everybody.

Kids weren't dying in the street. They died at home or in hospitals. They still died.

But thanks for playing.

[HockeyMom]

22. My parents DID NOT SHELTER me

in my little own building. I went all over. You reversed everything I said. City kids did, and do, that. YOU and your friends must have been among the unlucky, BUT the MAJORITY of kids back then did SURVIVE and were handicapped. It was not visa versa.

I supposed you can count this old woman as an anti vaxer, at least when it comes to ME. Unlike children, whose parents have to make that decision, as an adult you cannot tell me what to do. I can refuse so much as an aspirin if that is what I so choose.

Remember, the children of these anti-vaxers WILL grow up to be adults someday. Then they can make these decisions for themselves. I won't be around then, but it will be interesting to see how they feel about health care then.

Dying in the streets is term used which means a numerous amount of people. It is not a LITERAL statement.

[mainer]

30. The majority of kids do survive. Even those with abusive parents.

It doesn't mean that abusive parents aren't a problem. Just as it doesn't mean that polio, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough aren't a problem.

[progressoid]

19. I grew up in rural IA and can think two close to me.

One was a would be Uncle who died of Pertussis. The other was a favorite professor who had Polio as a child. She was crippled from it and complications from it ultimately shortened a brilliant woman's life.

[jtuck004]

37. This - right here - is why. "What Would Happen If We Stopped Vaccinations?" From the CDC.

Just an aside. You lived in New York which, as with other major metropolitan areas, had clean water, food with decent nutrition, warm places to sleep - a lot of things that prevent people who don't have those luxuries from succumbing to these diseases in the first place, because your bodies are better able to fight it off. Most times.


But without the vaccines, thousands of dead and injured children...who wouldn't need to be...

Introduction
Polio
Measles
Type b (Hib) Meningitis
Hepatitis B
Pertussis (Whooping Cough)

Pneumococcal
Rubella (German Measles)
Varicella (Chickenpox)
Diphtheria
Tetanus (Lockjaw)
Mumps

In the U.S., vaccination programs have eliminated or significantly reduced many vaccine-preventable diseases. However, these diseases still exist and can once again become common—and deadly—if vaccination coverage does not continue at high levels.
Introduction

In the U.S., vaccines have reduced or eliminated many infectious diseases that once routinely killed or harmed many infants, children, and adults. However, the viruses and bacteria that cause vaccine-preventable disease and death still exist and can be passed on to people who are not protected by vaccines. Vaccine-preventable diseases have many social and economic costs: sick children miss school and can cause parents to lose time from work. These diseases also result in doctor's visits, hospitalizations, and even premature deaths.


Polio

Stopping vaccination against polio will leave people susceptible to infection with poliovirus. Polio causes acute paralysis that can lead to permanent physical disability and even death. Before polio vaccine was available, 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio were reported each year in the United States. Annual epidemics of polio often left victims—mostly children—in braces, crutches, wheelchairs, and, in serious cases, iron lungs. Many of the children that survived experienced life-long consequences from the disease.

In 1988, the World Health Assembly unanimously agreed to eradicate polio worldwide. As a result of global polio eradication efforts, the number of cases reported globally has decreased from more than 350,000 cases in 1988 to 187 cases in 2012 (as of November 14, 2012). Only three countries remain endemic for polio in 2012: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Stopping vaccination before eradication is achieved would result in a resurgence of this preventable disease and threaten future generations of children.

This section last updated November 2012.

Measles

Before measles immunization was available, nearly everyone in the U.S. got measles. An average of 450 measles-associated deaths were reported each year between 1953 and 1963.

In the U.S., up to 20 percent of persons with measles are hospitalized. Seventeen percent of measles cases have had one or more complications, such as ear infections, pneumonia, or diarrhea. Pneumonia is present in about six percent of cases and accounts for most of the measles deaths. Although less common, some persons with measles develop encephalitis (swelling of the lining of the brain), resulting in brain damage.

As many as three of every 1,000 persons with measles will die in the U.S. In the developing world, the rate is much higher, with death occurring in about one of every 100 persons with measles.

Measles is one of the most infectious diseases in the world and is frequently imported into the U.S. In the period 1997-2000, most cases were associated with international visitors or U.S. residents who were exposed to the measles virus while traveling abroad. More than 90 percent of people who are not immune will get measles if they are exposed to the virus.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 900,000 measles-related deaths occurred among persons in developing countries in 1999. In populations that are not immune to measles, measles spreads rapidly. If vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected.

In the U.S., widespread use of measles vaccine has led to a greater than 99 percent reduction in measles compared with the pre-vaccine era. If we stopped immunization, measles would increase to pre-vaccine levels.

Top of Page
Haemophilus Influenzae Type b (Hib) Meningitis

Before Hib vaccine became available, Hib was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in U.S. infants and children. Before the vaccine was developed, there were approximately 20,000 invasive Hib cases annually. Approximately two-thirds of the 20,000 cases were meningitis, and one-third were other life-threatening invasive Hib diseases such as bacteria in the blood, pneumonia, or inflammation of the epiglottis. About one of every 200 U.S. children under 5 years of age got an invasive Hib disease. Hib meningitis once killed 600 children each year and left many survivors with deafness, seizures, or mental retardation.

Since introduction of conjugate Hib vaccine in December 1987, the incidence of Hib has declined by 98 percent. From 1994-1998, fewer than 10 fatal cases of invasive Hib disease were reported each year.
...

More Here.

[mainer]

40. So the fact you didn't see them "dead on the streets" means they didn't die?

Children died in hospitals or in homes. The fact you didn't see them, in your apartment in NYC, means it didn't happen.

[dionysus]

74. seeing as you deny that smoking is bad and have disdain for health care in general, it's not a

surprise that you are anti-vaccine as well.

just because YOU didn't get polio or any of those other deadly diseases, doesn't mean millions of lives haven't been saved by vaccination.

[progressoid]

16. Right.

"I was stunned by the number of vaccines," said Alina Scott. Scott said she began reading everything she could find on the topic, even before her child was born, and decided that vaccines were not for them.

Too bad she didn't read about the horrors of having the diseases they prevent.

[Warpy]

18. And too bad she doesn't have a clue how the immune system works

Her own kid is being exposed to hundreds of times more pathogens when he picks up something nasty and sticks it into his mouth than the battery of vaccines kids get at regular intervals.

[Cairycat]

20. Do you all really trust multinational corporations that much?

You don't think they'd have any incentive to downplay adverse effects, even serious ones? Or trust the reporting system for problems with vaccinations?

I did have my kids vaccinated, but I always felt I was taking a risk. Just that the risk of the diseases prevented were greater. But I certainly didn't see vaccinations as completely harmless. I delayed a couple vax for my youngest (don't think they need an entire boatload of vax before even leaving the hospital), and none of them had any vax they weren't legally required to get.

They did get whooping cough from an unvaccinated classmate of my daughter's, but recovered quickly with antibiotics. I have friends who don't vaccinate whose kids got whooping cough - they also recovered but much more slowly.

I do not think pharmaceutical corporations are entirely trustworthy. I think there are parents who have legitimate misgivings about vaccinations, and maybe instead of calling them all stupid, and saying it's because they don't want their kids stuck with a needle (... really??), maybe we should go about improving the reporting system, and establishing a saner vaccination schedule where a baby's immune system is not inundated with multiple vax shortly after birth.

[NickB79]

27. We trust the government orgs and medical researchers in charge of public health

And that means not just the US FDA, but also the public health agencies of every developed nation on Earth.

Every developed nation on the planet, from Britain to Canada to Germany to Japan to Australia has embraced widespread vaccinations for disease prevention. Unless you want to argue there's a global conspiracy theory, or that the multinational pharma companies are more powerful than the combined might of all these nation's public health departments, your arguments don't hold water.

[mainer]

29. +1000

I'm tired of people calling everything they don't agree with "a corporate conspiracy"

[mountain grammy]

39. Well said.

[NuclearDem]

32. I trust the medical community, which is not the same thing as Big Pharma.

[GoneFishin]

48. Daytime TV is plastered with commercials pushing the latest cashcow drugs from big pharma,

alternated with ambulance chasing law firm commercials about lawsuits against the drugs or implants that were cashcows from 5 years earlier.

It sounds like you are well reasoned and thoughtfully weighing the benefits against the risks. Big corporations put big profits above public safety all the time. Those who blindly trust the corporate profit mongers to put their children's safety above profit should just light up a tasty Marlboro, pack the kids into the Chevy Cobalt, and drive down to the Gulf Coast for a tasty seafood dinner.

[dembotoz]

24. to bad you can't vax against stupid--i remember getting oral polio vax at school

it was a BIG FUCKING THING

i remember getting nightmares about being put in an iron lung
I do not know where i got the reference from--but i remember the nightmare

to not protect your kids and yourself is beyond me

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

38. I remember the early '50s, before the Salk vaccine,

and how we weren't allowed to go to crowded public swimming beaches and pools in the summer because you were more likely to get polio in places where there were lots of kids. And I remember seeing pictures of kids in iron lungs, which scared me silly. When the vaccine finally became available, my mother (a nurse who had actually worked with kids with polio, and so was particularly aware of how awful it was) couldn't get us vaccinated fast enough. Some years later, in the late '60s, a guy I met in college had polio as a kid and still had a pronounced limp and had to wear a brace on one leg. It was, indeed, a big fucking thing.

[Stargazer09]

25. They make me angry

Stupid, ignorant people.

[cindyperry2010]

26. i wonder is there

something in the water or too much pollution in the air that is turning people in to total fucking morons

[blkmusclmachine]

28. Faux Nooz

[sakabatou]

34. *facepalm*

[JEFF9K]

41. Dr. Fuhrman, a leader in the Vegan Movement, ...

... recommends against flu shots.

[mainer]

42. Of course, that means it MUST be true

Why is it that people who have every advantage (wealth, education, and access to information) are sometimes the dumbest people alive?

[davidn3600]

44. Flu shots are sort of a different debate, I think

First off, flu shots are short duration. You have to get it every year.
Second, they only target specific strains of the flu. If a different strain hits during the season than what you were vaccinated against, you get sick anyway.
Third, there are studies out there that suggest the flu vaccine is sort of hit or miss.

That's different than other vaccines out there like MMR, Pertussis, Polio, etc... that have a long duration and dont have multiple strains to worry about.

[mainer]

45. You haven't seen someone die of complications of the flu.

I have.

[840high]

52. I have - a relative.

[NuclearDem]

47. The medical community has limited resources to deal with influenza.

Epidemiologists do their best to predict how the viruses will mutate and which will survive into the next flu season, but they evolve so rapidly no vaccine will ever be perfect.

Frankly, some protection against some strain of influenza is better than no protection.

[JEFF9K]

50. Good point ...

... Fuhrman addresses only FLU shots.

[NuclearDem]

55. Dr. Fuhrman is a self-help marketer.

And he's also a fucking idiot. He's utterly surprised kids get polio vaccines, since no kids are likely to contract polio these days.

But I guess if we just eat healthy we'll wipe out smallpox. Oh, fuck, wait, that's right...

I'm vegan, and I'm still going to get my shots. Fuhrman should stick to nutrition and shut his fucking mouth about vaccinations.

[HuckleB]

80. So now you know he is a quack.

[gollygee]

43. It doesn't feel like that to me

I had tons of friends who didn't vaccinate their kids when my older one (11) was little, and the fact that she was always fully vaccinated made me the odd one out in a lot of situations. But now with my younger one (5) the vast, vast majority of kids her age I know are vaccinated. Not only that, but the parents are just as opinionated about vaccinating as the parents who didn't vaccinate several years ago were about not vaccinating. And I'm running with the same crowd - LLL, hippie-ish, etc.

[JEFF9K]

49. Dr. Fuhrman says ...

... in "Super Immunity," that all all 15 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices have financial ties to the vaccine industry!

[HuckleB]

81. So, some conspiracy theorist quack is your go to guy?

Seriously?

That guy is ridiculous.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/your-disease-your-fault/

[JEFF9K]

91. He has the PBS Seal of Approval. ...

... and his teachings mesh well with those of Esselstyn and Campbell.

[HuckleB]

96. He's a quack.

[ananda]

51. I guess I'm more or less a vaxxer.

I got the Zostavax to ward off shingles when I was 60.

Last November, I got the tDap, flu, and pneumonia jabs.

I've been vaccinated against smallpox and polio twice.

That's all I remember. I know I got mumps twice, once
on each side; measles once, chicken pox once, and flu
three or four times... and colds too numerous to count.

The last cold I got two plus years ago really helped me.
I came out of it breathing as clear as a bell and no sign
of allergies since. That was nice!

[mississippi62]

53. preventable disease driving up costs for everyone

My newborn grandson was admitted to hospital with bronchial inflammation and nasty cough. The pediatrician treated him as possible whooping cough because of his age (5 weeks). A few years ago, the doctor probably would have sent him home with antibiotic but resurgence of pertussis has made physicians overly cautious. Whooping cough is usually fatal in newborns.

[ibegurpard]

54. flu vaccine should not be equated with the standard vaccines

that are given to children. A flu vaccine is a crapshoot...you don't know whether or not it's going to work against whatever strains may be going around. The vaccines against various other diseases we know are going to work.

[KamaAina]

69. Not only that, it is not recommended for most "working-age adults"

only for those over 50.

[mzmolly]

72. Odd isn't it?

The medical community isn't as concerned with "protecting the vulnerable" from the flu, as they are with other diseases?

[mainer]

93. Because working-age adults aren't as vulnerable to flu complications

The vast majority of otherwise healthy people who come down with the flu recover. The cost-benefit ratio of giving the vaccine to healthy adults doesn't justify the expense.

But for the elderly, those with asthma or other pulmonary issues or immune-suppressed, the flu can be deadly. That's why those groups should get the vaccine. And otherwise healthy adults may safely choose not to.

[KamaAina]

94. But that skews the statistic quoted in the OP way out of proportion

about how zOMFG! Only a tiny percentage of working-age adults are getting the flu vaccine! We're all gonna die!!11!!1!!1

[mainer]

95. Those working-age adults may expose the elderly and infirm to the virus

So there are consequences when healthy working-age people have contact with the elderly. Go to church, go to the supermarket, visit granny and gramps -- many ways to pass along the flu to people who could die of it.

So yes, the healthy adult needn't get a flu vaccine if he only cares about himself.

[3catwoman3]

56. OK - once more with feeling.

(I have typed several "theme and variations" of this message in other vaccination threads and I hate to type, so I am taking a short cut by copying-and-pasting the most recent one&gt .


I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner in a large private practice in a well educated and fairly affluent area of greater Chicago. I am reasonably successful in calming vaccine-reluctant parents who have bought into the "too-many-too-soon-overwhelm-the immune-system" BS when I explain the following:

1. Newborns are exposed to thousands of antigens in the everyday world the moment they are born, and generally handle this just fine.

2. There are more immunizations today - completely true. The total number of all the antigens contained all the immunizations given in the first 6 months is less than the antigens that used to be in a single smallpox vaccination. More protection from fewer antigens. Pretty damn good deal.

3. 100-150 years ago, 16% of children died before they were 5 because of devastating illness we can now protect against.

It was quite interesting, during the first "swine" flu outbreak a few seasons ago, everyone wanted the flu shot - they didn't care if it had a preservative in it, and they were upset when we ran out. The perceived risk was great enough that people didn't obsess over fears not supported by research.

We have one family in our practice whose mom was not vaccine averse (educated as a nurse practitioner but never employed as such), but terribly afraid that either the wrong thing would be administered, or a vaccine would not be prepared properly. She insisted that the immunizations be reconstituted and drawn up in front of her every single time so she could observe every step of the process. Unusual, but we accommodated her request. She was very worried about pretty much anything and everything. Imagine our surprise when, in the middle of the SARS epidemic in China, the family decided to go there so the kids could study Mandarin. Go figure.

An additional thought - if someone tells you they got the flu despite getting the flu shot, ask them which "kind" of flu they mean. Way too many people say the flu when they are talking about vomiting and diarrhea. The so-called "stomach flu" has absolutely NOTHING to do with influenza.

[HockeyMom]

57. The times my husband got the flu shots

He had aches, chills, and a fever with no vomiting or diarrhea. That was the flu.

[TBF]

59. ^ Excellent post -

should be required reading. The ignorance out there regarding vaccines is astounding.

I am just old enough that I had both Chicken Pox and Measles as a child. I see anti-vaxxers saying things like "they aren't so bad". Well, there are many things a body can survive if forced - but why would you want to subject your children to a week of serious illness if you could avoid it? Next they'll be saying "oh, Polio wasn't so bad, people survived it". Well, people did survive it - as my grandmother did but then later in life died from the earlier Polio damage (she was early 70s). We really do not need to bring these diseases back.

[HockeyMom]

62. You are fooling Mother Nature

and altering the course of what she intended. More and more vaccines will need to invented. Humans will not be able to fight off any disease with a medical intervention. I know sounds like science fiction but why couldn't that happen?

Personally, I am too old for all this stuff anyway, except for those flu and shingles vacs. No thanks. I will not take them. If I die, then I die from these things. It is going to happen from something soon anyway. Please don't tell me that I will make somebody else sick. I will not Comply.

[TBF]

64. Mother Nature?

Is she related to the Easter Bunny?

[NuclearDem]

65. We can "fool" Mother Nature.

Smallpox is dead and polio is being shown the door.

Diseases can be destroyed, and natural selection can be fought.

[Liberal Veteran]

78. Or Mother Nature may have given us the ability to create vaccines.

Not taking them would be altering the course of what "she" intended when she gave us the brains to create these wonderful lifesaving vaccines.

[HuckleB]

82. Ding! DING! DING! EXACTLY!

[LeftishBrit]

85. 'altering the course of what Mother Nature intended'?

So by the same token, we should not live in houses; refrigerate or even cook our food; drive or use public transport; use flush toilets; have drainage; etc. etc. because all these things go beyond the original design of 'Mother Nature'?

[HockeyMom]

88. Parents should have the final say concerning their own children

ADULTS also should. As an adult, if it is my choice to not get any of these moronic flu or shingles vacs, or any of the other FREE Wellness tests, it should be MY choice; not other people, or the Health Care Industry, or the Government.

End of story.

[Liberal Veteran]

90. No and yes.

You can decide to forgo any treatment you desire as an adult. If the next 1918 style flu comes around or a particularly deadly form of anything else decides to make it's way into the populace, you get to take your chances as well as live with the possibility that you could have spent days or weeks infecting people who had medical reasons for not getting a vaccination. (Ooops, that first little tell-tale sneeze in the grocery store just happened to be near a kid who had undergone transplant surgery recently or an elderly person allergic to flu vaccine. Oh well, sucks to be them, I guess).

Children? I am not quite as comfortable with just letting whatever wacky ideas that the parent has put a child's life in danger. There are already cases of parents who tried to pray away an illness in their child that could have been treated.

A Pentecostal couple who believes in faith healing has been sentenced to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison for neglecting to take their sick son to the doctor.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible were already on a 10-year probation for the 2009 death of their 2-year-old son, Kent, who died of untreated bacterial pneumonia, when their second son, Brandon, died last year.

But hey! It's okay because the courts brought those kids back to life. Or it was "Mother Nature's" plan for those kids to die.

From my viewpoint, is a parent any more negligent that refuses to take their sick kid to the doctor based on a belief than one who decides to play Russian roulette with a veritable handful of diseases that could maim, cripple, or kill their child (and by default, other children and adults who cannot be immunized) because they have some unique viewpoints about the value of vaccination?

There is an ethical dilemma in that. Given we live in a society rather than isolated pocket units, these decisions to not vaccinate are not necessarily confined to the family unit.

My comfort level with parents being the end-all for their children lessens dramatically when they willfully put their child and others at risk. I am not flat-out saying you are wrong, but it does open up an uncomfortable line of thought when it comes to communicable disease.

[mainer]

92. What if a parent doesn't believe in seatbelts or bike helmets?

Do they have the right to impose those beliefs on their children?

[Silent3]

89. A long, healthy life is one of the least natural things we want

If you want "all natural", "all natural" is average lifespans in the 20s, with a few "elders" around who maybe make it into their 40s and 50s. The idea that "natural" is intrinsically more healthy just doesn't hold up.

[mississippi62]

97. If you have grandchildren then you need to get booster shots

[HockeyMom]

58. Antibodies in Breast milk

There is no vacc for Norovirus (stomach flu) and that is supposedly very contagious too. I had a very bad bout with that before I was married. In 1985 my husband, 5 year old, and 9 month old daughter all caught it. My baby didn't have it quite as bad but she was also still nursing. I was the only one in our house who didn't have it.

My baby's pediatrician said to stop nursing her and give her Pedialyte. She vomited the drink. He said she would dehydrate and have to be hospitalized if she did not keep down the Pedialyte.

Against his advice I let her nurse, and she did not vomit the breast milk. I called a different doctor recommend by LeLeche League. You are not sick? Nope. She is keeping down the breast milk? Yep. He then said to let her nurse as much as she wanted to and that she would not dehydrate if she was nursing. He also said it sounded like I probably had antibodies to this virus and would pass them on to her in my breast milk. Quack doctor? Only Pedialyte would work?

My daughter nursed round the clock for 24 hours. She recovered much faster than my husband and my older daughter. I never came down with that stomach flu at all. Why not?????

To get back to the measles topic. I got measles and chicken pox when under a year old in 1949. My Mom was born in 1920 and obviously had them herself, but did not breastfeed me. I did not receive the benefits of her breast milk antibodies. Only vaccs give you antibodies? Do they give infants vaccinations today? I don't think so. They wait until they are at least a year old.

[lillypaddle]

68. Yes, they give infants vaccinations!

My granddaughter got vaccinated when she was just a week or so old. I am so glad and thankful my son and daughter-in-law are not anti-vaxers.

[3catwoman3]

66. The flu shot is a killed virus vaccine...

...and thus cannot give anyone the actual illness.

Any immunization can, and often does, cause about 48 hours of temperature elevation and achiness. This is the immune system getting it's wakeup call to create antibodies to the antigen(s) that have been injected.

[3catwoman3]

70. If one wishes to look at things from the point of view of...

..."fooling mother nature," or, as it is also often called, "interfering with god's will," you could extend that to everything a health care professional provides, even wearing glasses. I cannot see far away. Without glasses, I would not be allowed to drive. I am fooling mother nature with my corrective lenses.

[mzmolly]

73. Another report about the false "momentum"

of the "anti-vax" movement?

http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/12/childhood-vaccination-rates-good-but-measles-cases-hit-record-high/

"In the latest report card on childhood vaccination rates, the Centers for Disease Control says national immunization rates are close to or above 90% for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio, hepatitis B and chicken pox. Only 0.8% of U.S. children received no vaccines during the survey period, which included youngsters born between 2009 and May 2011."

Great marketing though! And the end result is sure paying off.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/merck-s-vaccine-business-hits-all-time-high-RElDFpA8SAy5vk81yTvn2A.html

[Vashta Nerada]

76. I feel bad for children of incredibly stupid parents.

In fact, parents should get their children away for not vaccinating them. Obviously they're too stupid and neglectful to raise kids.

[lostincalifornia]

77. Anti backers are anti science, and unfortunately it involves both sides of the political

Spectrum, though I like to believe it invokes right wingers more

[HuckleB]

79. I'm so tired of people who read fear-mongering nonsense and then think they know more than others...

The anti-vaccine, anti-science crowd is ludicrous, worse than unethical and downright dangerous.

[dilby]

83. I have never got a flu vaccine.

And I usually get the flu once a year, I have an allergy to egg so that has prevented me from getting the vaccine in the past. They have a new vaccine that is not egg based but I will wait a couple years to see side effects before making the decision on whether to do it or not.