What's new

Vaccine Awareness Week

From the anti vaxers Ive talked to irl (its so awkward when you find out someone is) it seems to mostly stem from a distrust of doctors (like ones who diagnose stuff just because it will make them more money).

That and they are nearly exclusively evangelical
 
I very much encourage you all to review the website @Eenie-Meenie has posted.

I also encourage you to look at the following:

https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/are-vaccines-safe

But also this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24814559

And any number of studies from google scholar:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2018&q=Vaccine+Safety&hl=en&as_sdt=0,45

Don't look at it in a way of vaxxer/anti-vaxxer. That's just gonna feed this insanity. We've already proven vaccines work, and are safe, and certainly do not cause autism. None of the bullet points at the top of Eeenie Meenie's post even bother arguing that, which to me signals an acceptance that safety is no longer arguable.

As it is safe, there's a benefit to the recipient, the parents of the recipient, and a benefit to other kids and parents, why the hell not?
 
We've already proven vaccines work, and are safe, and certainly do not cause autism. None of the bullet points at the top of Eeenie Meenie's post even bother arguing that, which to me signals an acceptance that safety is no longer arguable.

None of that matters to the anti-vaccination crowd. They were against vaccines long before there was a supposed connection to autism, and they still (falsely) refer to their autistic kids as "vaccine-damaged".

By the way, since the top bullet points speak of "to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths", I'm a little unsure how you think they are not arguing against the notion that vaccines are safe. By contrast, they are trying to claim measles are safe, even though measles causes/supports encephalitis, deafness, pneumonia, and other serious conditions.

As it is safe, there's a benefit to the recipient, the parents of the recipient, and a benefit to other kids and parents, why the hell not?

Because these people are not reasonable.
 
By the way, since the top bullet points speak of "to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths", I'm a little unsure how you think they are not arguing against the notion that vaccines are safe. By contrast, they are trying to claim measles are safe, even though measles causes/supports encephalitis, deafness, pneumonia, and other serious conditions.



Because these people are not reasonable.

We should discuss. It's only the very last bullet point that says that.

  • More than 500 vaccine-related bills were introduced in U.S. state legislatures in 2019, many of which proposed to restrict or eliminate vaccine exemptions
  • Only 2% of children attend public or private schools with vaccine exemptions for any reason — medical, religious, philosophical or conscience — in the U.S.
  • Fear mongering about measles outbreaks in the U.S. and around the world resulted in the forced vaccination lobby persuading legislators to eliminate the religious and conscience exemption in Maine and the religious exemption in New York.
  • In Washington state, the conscience exemption for measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was eliminated.
  • In California, the legal right of private doctors to grant a medical exemption to vaccination was essentially eliminated.
  • Harmful vaccine bills restricting or eliminating vaccine choice were stopped in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Vermont, Washington, Oregon and Texas, thanks to thousands of people participating in the vaccine lawmaking process, who personally contacted their state legislators and showed up for public hearings to defend their informed consent rights
  • The online NVIC Advocacy Portal was a major catalyst for that success. Registration is free, and puts you in direct electronic contact with your own state and federal legislators. You also receive action alerts with talking points via email when vaccine bills are moving in your state or in Congress so you can take action. Sign up today and consider making a donation to support NVIC’s important work to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths and protect your informed consent rights

None of the top bullet points mention safety. But the bottom bullet point of the bullet points at the top. Sure. But even then they're not broadcasting safety as a major concern, they're marketing to get people that think they're not safe to sign up.

Further in the page, the "esteemed" Mrs. Fisher(Not a doctor; merely a B.A. from University of Maryland), is quoted in saying:

I know that a lot of people count on NVIC because we've been here for 37 years. We've never wavered in our message. Our message has always been about preventing vaccine injuries and deaths and defending informed consent, and I look forward to another 30 years of working with you.

She's had many public speaking events. But she's a nobody with a sob story about how her child ended up learning disabilities after their fourth DPT shot and got rich/famous for it.
 
I think the vaccine debate is interesting in how polarized it's become that it's rendered an inability for any genuine critique or discussion to take place. Not that those are necessarily going to take place in the public sphere. I wish it weren't all lumped together, as if they're all the same thing. We speak of vaccines in their plurality, and inadvertently end up asking questions as meaningless as "are pharmaceuticals good?" or "are animals dangerous?" without realizing that we're speaking of an amalgam in which there's a lot of missed nuance.

Anyway, I think it's hard for informed consent on things like Gardasil. Every time I've seen it presented, it's billed as preventing cancer (which is true), but the full context isn't really given (that it's preventing cancer associated with HPV but not spontaneously occurring cancer). I would assume if it were better stated that Gardasil prevents cancers that arise secondary to sexually transmitted infections, it would likely reduce the rates of parents consenting to administration, which could be problematic from a public health standpoint, but challenging from a medical ethics standpoint of not giving a true picture for informed consent. My view, at least.
 
Anyway, I think it's hard for informed consent on things like Gardasil. Every time I've seen it presented, it's billed as preventing cancer (which is true), but the full context isn't really given (that it's preventing cancer associated with HPV but not spontaneously occurring cancer). I would assume if it were better stated that Gardasil prevents cancers that arise secondary to sexually transmitted infections, it would likely reduce the rates of parents consenting to administration, which could be problematic from a public health standpoint, but challenging from a medical ethics standpoint of not giving a true picture for informed consent. My view, at least.

Why would the way the cancer is transmitted be relevant in a decision to vaccinate? While measles can be transmitted in a variety of ways, sexual contact would be among them. Is there a similar medical ethics challenge there?
 
Why would the way the cancer is transmitted be relevant in a decision to vaccinate? While measles can be transmitted in a variety of ways, sexual contact would be among them. Is there a similar medical ethics challenge there?
Because it allows you to stratify risk based on exposure. If a 19 year old female isn't sexually active, and doesn't plan to be, I think it's important to inform her of what the vaccine is protecting against, rather than withholding that information in hopes of higher rate of administration. If you're withholding that information under the belief that you're invoking therapeutic privilege (a loophole to allowing patients their autonomy), then I find that problematic because treating people with Gardasil to prevent cancer is something that's happening more on the population level than on the individual level, and you can't really invoke therapeutic privilege when there's much less of a tangible benefit to an individual.

More to the question, how it's transmitted is (in my mind) an important part of informed consent.
 
19 year old not planning on being sexually active?

Whatever the 19 year old can plan what they want, their hormones have other plans.

And the 19 year old is a risk of a sexual assault that could result in HPV exposure and eventually cancer.
 
Back
Top