Measles was considered eliminated at the turn of the millennium. Now it’s back, thanks to the loons to refuse to vaccinate their children.
I had a long, long conversation with a radical leftist libertarian a couple weeks ago about whether forced vaccination was ever rationalizable under say the harm principle and he argued that the self-ownership cost of forcing someone to put a chemical in their body outweighed the potential long term benefit to society of blocking diseases, because it's rare that diseases actually return quickly because of vaccination gaps. He was so wrong.
If he really is not interested in what we had until recently considered a baseline for the social contract (you get vaccinated so that you do not put yourself and others at risk for contagion), then he has chosen to opt out of the social contract. That's fine -- but he has to leave the paved part of the world (or at least of North America). You can't have it both ways. If you're going to accept the benefits of Western civ (jobs, money, pre-made housing, cheap food, roads), then you have to accept the entry tariffs. If you've decided this prerequisite is not suitable to you, then you leave. Population density mandates public health controls. I don't feel so liberal when I put it this way, but science trumps hippies.
I'm really glad we don't know what epidemics are like in the sense that they used to exist before vaccinations. Although, my great-grandmother is reported to have said to people on numerous occasions, "thank God for the epidemics: I don't know how we would have survived!" But then, she had like 15 children so I guess that 5 survived was pretty good. Though, that was like, late 1800's. Just imagine the kind of impact those kinds of epidemics could have in a world that is more urbanized and populated than ever. This is absolutely unacceptable.
Actually, that sort of epidemic is needed in order to maintain any sort of normal population. The ecosystem cant maintain exponential growth forever, and eventually we'll hit a tipping point. Either we control our numbers, through smarter breeding habits and birth control, or nature will do it for us.
Yeah, thus the wisdom of my great-granny. Did you happen to see the Gates Foundation letter that came out recently? It's got some compelling arguments for vaccination and ideas about how education can work in conjunction to help curb overpopulation.
The Gates letter was great. Post: http://hubski.com/pub?id=129849
I talked to some hippie friends that did not vaccinate their children yet. I was wondering why they wouldn't do it. I was surprised that they did not mention autism as a reason but they were concerned about aluminum in vaccines. As they are vegetarians and live very nature-close, they did not like the idea of pumping tiny amounts of aluminum into their children. What do you guys think? Is it toxic? Is there any good research on whether adjuvants like aluminum could have a negative impact on vaccinated children?
Aluminium/Aluminum is used as an adjuvant in the vaccine, I've seen the same concerns with regards to Mercury being used in vaccines. The thing is, it's not like they shave off aluminium and dump into the vaccine as free floating metals or whatever, they're usually in a form like a salt or something like that. All they do is trigger your immune system to provoke a stronger response, and as a result a stronger immunity.
Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust. It is normal to find it in our drinking water, in our soil, and in our food (both naturally occurring and added.) It is a common additive in everything from flour to antiperspirant. Sources:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp22-c2.pdf
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp22-c1-b.pdf It is difficult to do a full, double blinded study due to those outside influences. Numerous studies have been done on patients with reduced renal function who accumulated aluminum as a result of long-term intravenous hemodialysis therapy with aluminum-contaminated dialysis fluid and, in many cases, concurrent administration of high oral doses of aluminum to regulate phosphate levels (i.e., reduce uptake of phosphate by binding it in the gut) and have limited usefulness in predicting toxicity in the general population because the very large aluminum exposure levels and impaired renal function results in aluminum accumulation. Animal studies have shown that doses of greater than 200mg a day for over a long duration can lead to Dialysis encephalopathy. Dialysis encephalopathy is a degenerative neurological syndrome, characterized by the gradual loss of motor, speech, and cognitive functions. The idea that aluminum causes Alzheimer’s disease is incorrect. It has been debunked by numerous peer reviews of the data. Over-all, the miniscule amount of aluminum in a vaccine is completely overshadowed by simply living on the planet.
There are trace metals in a lot of stuff. With vaccines, if it's not one thing it's another. The debate has been raging with various levels of intensity since the discovery that milkmaids didn't get smallpox all that frequently. I think there's a personality type that thinks that diseases are a punishment from god, and that to do away with them is to challenge His authority (or that of 'nature', if that's what you want to call it; it's all the same).
I'm sure those bible thumpers exist in this debate but I think it's more the Whole-Foods, faux natural, hemp necklaced, trustafarians that aren't vaccinating. I don't have a strong science background and I put a degree of faith in the fact that the vast majority of those that do vaccinate their children. -My wife included. It's dangerous for those that have no science background to put the rest of us at risk. People are afraid of "chemicals" and forget that they are comprised themselves of "chemicals". Next thing you know they'll be upset that vaccines contain carbon.
I feel like people who don't understand chemistry/biology have a very weird sense of what a "chemical" is. They hear words like "vaccine" and think, "I would never put CHEMICALS into my kids body." This is why I think proper science education is going to be huge in moving forward as a society. Without it all we have is the blind leading the blind and somehow the blind don't want to listen to those who can actually see what's going on in front of them.People are afraid of "chemicals" and forget that they are comprised themselves of "chemicals".
I'm not talking about classic Bible thumpers. I'm referring to the upper middle class, lefty set as a non-traditional, special form of deity worship. The whole 'chemicals are bad' mentality is one that is based on fear, misunderstanding, and allegiance to a natural order that doesn't exist. I think anyone who sees a grand order in the world is a deist by nature (not that there's anything wrong with that), and that rejection of things that aren't 'natural' is a form of religious belief.
Those are the ones that I usually deal with. Mostly people that I met on "goa" type parties. They have many spiritual experiences, some of them have a hindu or sikh background etc. and they believe that it is not natural to put aluminium inside their children. Additionally, some say that they don't vaccinate because the weak viruses that are used in the vaccine are sometime acquired from animals that were treated with the virus. Which means that they are using "animal products". So vegans/vegetarians are against that. I don't have a problem with them being vegetarian or vegan or whatever. But when their choice starts to affect me or possibly my own children, then its not a choice anymore. Because with their "choice" they are putting other people at risk...