More affluent US parents refusing vaccinations

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*headdesk*

http://www.kolotv.com/healthbytes/headl ... 55962.html

I hope Jenny Bubblebrain will be happy with the epidemics that will soon be ripping apart the nation's elementary schools. Only a complete moron could think that getting measles is better than "risking" autism. Unfortunately, America seems to have an epidemic of people with better internet connectivity than common sense, and soon it will have epidemics of preventable diseases.

Oh dear, this sounds like a nightmare.

I would say that no medical treatment is 100% safe, but one should always take the least bad option. Sometimes it is hard to make the choice, but in this case it is a easy one.

As I understand it no link has been shown to exist between vaccinations such as the MMR and autism & aspergers, while I see a clear link between not getting your child given his shots and him or her getting a life threatening disease.

Good we need a good culling what better place to start

The "link" between the MMR vaccine and autism was initially put forth in a flawed 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield, who has now been found to have manipulated data. From the article: "Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.
"Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease."
Why is autism so feared? We depend on herd immunity, as it is called, and this allows for a few parents to not immunize due to allergies, religious reasons, or what have you, but when large numbers of parents choose not to immunize due to ungrounded fears, the benefits of herd immunity are lost.

Agreed. Let God sort 'em out.

When my daughter was a child, I had reservations about the barrage of vaccinations they gave her, that had nothing to do with autism (I personally know two people with Polio who caught it from the vaccine as children). The state here wouldn't allow her to be enrolled in the public school system until they saw medical records proving that she had been vaccinated.

Makes sense, I mean, better a dead prom queen than someone perfectly healthy who would rather stay at home than go out getting drugged.

/sarcasm

Butbutbut...it's NORMAL to go out and get wasted on booze and pot and pills! Why, I did it ALL THE TIME when *I* was a kid! In fact, I STILL do! I can't IMAGINE having a kid who would want to sit at home and repair computers all day! I mean, that's not NORMAL! Now I need some more pills...

-Neurotypical Middle Class Parent

Stupidity is the only capital crime; the penalty is death. There is no appeal, and the sentence is carried out swiftly and without mercy. -Robert Heinlein

I mean, that is probably the most sane depiction of the insanity of not vaccinating to avoid Autism I have ever read.

some people are complete morons.

The real pisser about Wakefield, one that most anti-vaxxers conveniently "forget", is that his study wasn't done for the sheer academic joy if it. He was paid to conduct the study in support of an anti-MMR lawsuit. He was also in the business of "treating" and "curing" autism; and needed the study to support his treatments.

This kind of thing makes all studies seem suspect to me.

And the anti-vax folks continue to jumble together mercury and MMR- MMR has never contained mercury, and today the only vaccines that do are bulk-packaged flu shots. A guy in my microbiology class (a man who already has a PhD!) even asked the professor what the link between vaccines and autism was. The worst part is, the prof didn't have the balls to get up and say outright that there was no link. Bio profs often refuse to comment on anything that even has the appearance of being controversial.

Besides that, no correlation has been found between autism and vaccination. Autism rates have continued an (apparent) rise even after removing mercury from the vaccines that contained trace amounts of it. There is no evidence whatsoever that points to a legitimate link, and yet many people who should be better-informed still believe that a link exists.

The way to cull is to eliminate the poor, not the affluent.

ruveyn

How Machiavellian! I'm with ruveyn on this one.

The kids shouldn't reap the punishment for their parents' stupidity...
I'm personally amazed that yuppies who distrust their personal doctors, the FDA, the AMA, and the American Academy of Pediatrics are also the most likely to trust the unshaved guy working at Whole Foods to tell them which herbal supplements will cure what ails them. Seems like quite the paradox.