Why Vaccinations Shouldn't be Optional

[Ada Lovelace]

I disagree with this presumption. Studies that I have read about non vaccinating people state that these people overall are highly educated and weathly. I do not believe that they would be careless and enter the community with a communicable disease anymore than anyone else would.



Edit because of using my cell phone.

As I mentioned in the post directly above this one, studies have shown that a person's attitude, worldview, and societal prompts are frequently a stronger indicator as to whether she will vaccinate herself and her children than her education and income. While many parents are dispassionate when making the decision, others are more compelled by their beliefs than fact-based knowledge. A worldview can be held as sacred. It's often built upon cultural attitudes, familial history, and a person's own emotional and instinctive responses. This is why studies have also shown that repeating science and fact-based evidence to someone who has an anti-vaccination attitude is rarely productive, and often counterproductive. Someone who was not vaccinated because of her parents' vaccine skepticism is going to be more likely to become vaccine-adverse herself, in part out of a defense mechanism of that choice.

There are also strong correlations between belief in conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination, regardless of the person's level of education. There are highly-educated people who've propagated thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories. There's also a correlation between believing in young earth creationism and anti-vaccination. That's why one author of creationist textbooks for homeschoolers has been diligent in promoting vaccination and correcting myths and misconceptions, but has said it's been a difficult and oftentimes fruitless endeavor.

Also, being highly educated doesn't mean being highly educated on all subject matters. You can possess expertise on numerous subjects and be deficient in accurate knowledge about others. Professional success doesn't equate to making superior choices in one's personal life.

 

[Liza B.]

There's an important legal and ethical distinction between compulsory vaccination, in which people who refuse are forcibly vaccinated, and mandatory vaccination, in which people who refuse are denied social privileges. In the United States the former has rarely ever occurred. The latter has been upheld by the United States Supreme Court for more than a century (Jacobson v. Massachusetts; Zucht v. King) and laws mandating vaccination predate that landmark ruling by half a century. There has never been a federal law mandating vaccination in America, but since 1981 all fifty states have had mandatory vaccination legislation, and they are not obligated by federal law to permit non-medical exemptions.

In some states in the earlier part of the 19th century when smallpox epidemics had been savage there were laws requiring town authorities to adopt measures for the vaccination of their inhabitants twice a year, and those who refused to have their children vaccinated were fined. It was expensive to enforce, though, and more cost-effective for towns to simply hire physicians to vaccinate all who wished it for themselves and their children. Laws requiring isolation and quarantine of anyone potentially infected with smallpox were strictly enforced, which motivated more people to take advantage of the provided vaccine.

Massachusetts passed the first mandatory school vaccination law in 1855. While it protected older kids, it left children younger than school age vulnerable, and hundreds of victims in an 1859 smallpox epidemic were under the age of five. After that there were more attempts at compulsion, but it was never legally permissible to physically restrain any competent adult and inject them.

In the early 1900s the Boston area was besieged by smallpox, and in an effort to exterminate the disease the health board ordered everyone to be vaccinated. Those who refused were fined $5.00. By 1902 nearly half a million people had been vaccinated, and the epidemic ended in 1903. A Lutheran minister who'd immigrated from Sweden refused to be vaccinated, and refused to pay the fine. He was tried and found guilty, but appealed. Eventually it made its way up to the Supreme Court. In 1905 SCOTUS ruled in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that the right to refuse vaccination wasn't guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice John Marshall Harlan argued that, in the arena of public health, societal good trumped individual freedom. That ruling has never been overturned.

In 1922 officials in San Antonio, Texas expelled a teenager from high school because her parents refused to vaccinate her. Unlike in the previous ruling, the city wasn't ravaged by a smallpox epidemic, and there was not an imminent fear of one. Nevertheless, city officials refused to allow her to remain in their schools without being vaccinated, citing the welfare of the student body. That case also made its way to SCOTUS, and in an unanimous decision it was ruled that the girl's expulsion did not violate her constitutional rights. It was this ruling, Zucht v. King, that gave states the right to enforce vaccination as they deemed necessary.

In the 1960s and 1970s powerful political families determined to eradicate measles joined efforts. School mandates dramatically decreased outbreaks, to the gratitude of most of the public, but a few were furious that unvaccinated children could be barred from school, and sued the states, claiming protection under the First Amendment. It wasn't Zucht v. King that was the most influential on the rulings against those suits, or the others that followed in regards to vaccines, it was actually a suit that on its surface was unrelated to vaccination, Prince v. Massachusetts. The Justice who wrote the majority opinion for that case stated that "the right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death. Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves, but it does not follow that they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children."

To go back to a time when a strong State held sway over individual rights is not a time I want to harken back to. When that early court case was decided, at the turn of the 20th century, black men did not have equal rights and women could not vote. There was not even an FDA. So that's where we were at that time. Of course the Court ruled that a strong state power could vaccinate or fine its citizens.

No thanks in the 21st century.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

To go back to a time when a strong State held sway over individual rights is not a time I want to harken back to. When that early court case was decided, at the turn of the 20th century, black men did not have equal rights and women could not vote. There was not even an FDA. So that's where we were at that time. Of course the Court ruled that a strong state power could vaccinate or fine its citizens.

No thanks in the 21st century.

We're nearly twenty years into the 21st century, and the rulings have never been overturned despite numerous challenges to them. All 50 states have had legislation requiring specified vaccines for students since 1981, and several have made theirs increasingly more stringent in the 21st century. Currently only 18 states allow philosophical exemptions for those who object to immunizations because of personal, moral or other beliefs rather than for documented medical reasons or religious grounds. Though most states do allow for religious exemptions, several have implemented stricter standards for being granted an exemption. The most populated state in the country, California, as well as Mississippi and West Virginia only permit exemptions for documented medical reasons.

This is the legislation enacted between 2015 and 2017 in regards to vaccination:

Enacted Legislation 2017

Indiana House Bill 1069 adds meningitis to the required immunizations a student enrolling in a residential campus of an approved postsecondary educational institution must be immunized against.

Utah House Bill 308 requires the Department of Health to create an online education module regarding certain preventable diseases; amends the grounds for exemptions from required vaccines; requires the renewal of a student's vaccination exemption under certain conditions; create a new vaccination exemption form; allows for the vaccination exemption form to be completed online in conjunction with the education module and discontinues the practice of allowing local health departments to vaccinate students and recover costs.

Enacted Legislation 2016

Delaware House Bill 91 adds language around its existing religious exemption, explaining that in the event that the Division of Public Health declares that there is an outbreak of a vaccine preventable disease, or if in the estimation of the Division of Public Health, an unvaccinated child has had, or is at risk of having an exposure to a vaccine preventable disease, the child shall be temporarily excluded from attendance at the public school. It also gives the Division of Public Health the authority to review medical exemptions signed by a physician.

Minnesota House Bill 2749 applied its statutes related public school immunization requirements and exemption criteria to its free voluntary prekindergarten program.


Enacted Legislation 2015

With the passage of Senate Bill No. 277, California removed exemptions based on personal beliefs, which are defined in that state as also including religious objections.

Connecticut HB 6949 requires an annual, notarized, statement from parents or guardians specifying religious objection to required vaccinations.

Illinois SB1410, awaiting the governors’ action in June 2015, would require each public school district to make exemption data available to the public. It also would require parents or guardians who claim a religious exemption to detail their objections for specific immunizations, obtain a health care provider’s signature, and submit an exemption certificate for each child before kindergarten, sixth and ninth grade. Local school authorities would determine if the exemption request constitutes valid religious objection, as philosophical exemption is not permitted in Illinois.

South Dakota’s new law requires a child’s immunization records to be shared among health care providers, federal and state health agencies, child welfare agencies, and schools, unless the patient or guardian signs a refusal. It requires providers to inform parents or guardians that they have the right to refuse disclosure of records.

With passage of H. 98, Vermont became the first state to repeal its personal belief exemption. (The legislation does not change the existing exemption for parents who wish to opt out for religious reasons.) , Vermont H. 98 also requires schools and child care facilities to provide school immunization rates to parents.
West Virginia Senate Bill No. 286, among other things, requires certification by a licensed physician for medical exemption requests. It also authorizes the commissioner of the Bureau for Public Health to appoint an immunization officer to make determinations about requests for exemptions.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/school-immunization-exemption-state-laws.aspx

 

[Dave-W]

Whats more prevalent is an anti-vaxxer getting the disease and then irresponsibly passing it onto the vulnerable all in the name of an ignorant cause.

Yep. That has led to several outbreaks of various diseases that should not be spreading (like measles) in recent years.

Not good.

 

[Dave-W]

No thanks in the 21st century.

Do you wear a seat belt when you drive? My dad considered that requirement to be "no thanks" issue too, and ended up flying thru the windshield when a car pulled out in front of him. That started a slow downhill slide for him and he finally died in 2011.

 

[dgiharris]

I grew up on the wealthy Westside of Los Angeles where a few years ago before Senate Bill 277 eliminating religious and philosophical exemptions for school immunization requirements went into effect the vaccination rates at some affluent private schools were lower than South Sudan's. To extrapolate from their elite socioeconomic status that parents who didn't vaccinate their children made more knowledgeable, responsible, and carefully deliberated decisions about it is fallacious.

thanks for the anecdotal correction. I can easily see liberal hippie dippie rich lefties or the other end of the spectrum, Super Right Wing Christian types falling into the anti-vaxxer crowd

Studies have shown that a person's attitude, worldview, and societal prompts are frequently a stronger indicator as to whether she will vaccinate herself and her children than her education and income.

Not sure about this statement. I worked/lived in the "scientific and Tech" community for decades surrounded by scientists and engineers and technical academics of all stripes: computers, physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biology, psychology.... and not one of them or any of their social circles opted out of Vaccinations. In fact, living in this bubble skewed my view of the anti-vaxxers because I really didn't think anti-vaxxers existed. I thought they were a myth.

Then I move from the "tech" world to the "entertainment" world and man, what a difference. My first argument with an antivaxxer reminded me of arguing with a guy who thought Aliens built the pyramids and that the moon landings were fake... At first I thought they were just playing with me, trying to rile me up, that I was on Candid Camera or Punk'd. . But nope... they were serious.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

There are plenty of reasonable people who feel forced into vaccinating their children. Have you been following how upset parents are in California? I do not see this going away anytime soon as long as mandates are being forced on people.

As a resident of California I can attest to the multitude of citizens who rejoiced at the enactment of SB-277 eliminating all non-medical exemptions to immunization requirements for school attendance and its companion bill SB-792 prohibiting a person from being employed or volunteering at a day care center or a family day care home if he or she has not been immunized against influenza, pertussis, and measles, because it benefits the health of children and society as a whole. It's primarily a matter of public health, but since outbreaks have cost the state millions of taxpayer dollars vaccination also entails fiduciary responsibility. Public schools receive funding based on the attendance of each its pupils, so when an unvaccinated or immunocompromised child is exposed to a communicable illness and must be prohibited from attending school, it's an expense that drains the budget used for everyone. When a parent must miss work to stay home with an infected or quarantined child, the loss of work time is an impact not just on that family, but the company as a whole.

As I explained in this post the majority of the students at public schools, parochial schools, and more traditional private schools already were vaccinated prior to the bill. As this article explains, a study by researchers at Stanford revealed that even a small decline in MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccination rates - a mere 5% drop - could result in a threefold increase in outbreaks and cost the public sector millions of dollars. The attempted rebuttal of that by vaccines skeptics is typically along the lines of "if the vaccines worked so well, my choice to not use them should have no impact on those who do," but that fallacy been overwhelmingly refuted by the evidence.

The state senator who authored SB 277, Ben Allen, was our neighbor when we lived in Santa Monica, and his friendship with my family dates back to when he and my stepmom were in grad school at Berkeley together (he was in law school, she was in medical school). Yes, some are angry at him for the bill, but far more have thanked him for it, giving their gratitude for his endeavor to protect children and better the welfare of our state. Parents of children who are patients of my stepmom's have expressed their relief and diminished anxiety about their babies too young to be vaccinated yet are far now less likely to be afflicted with the tortures of diseases such as whooping cough, which had been epidemic in our state. The bills do not canvas the state with protection but definitely provides us with more of it. There are also state-sponsored campaigns and companies offering employee incentives to boost adult immunization.

You've disproportionally focused on the affront a small minority of people have expressed because they feel their liberty to make an independent choice in regards to vaccination for themselves and their children has been infringed upon, rather than the majority who does not want the ramifications of those choices by the minority imposed on them.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

I was 16 when I had shingles, and it makes no difference where I had them. Shingles are not contagious unless someone comes in direct contact with the fluid from the rash blisters. Believe me, you definitely know you have shingles when you get them. Once the rash occurs, you are certainly able to take precautions that no one comes in contact with it.

I'm a personal testament to the fact that not all people afflicted with shingles immediately realize they have them and need to take proper precautions while contagious. Since my parents are divorced and remarried, I have four of them instead of just two, and they are all attentive and overly protective, and yet none of them were aware I had shingles until three weeks into suffering from it, and did not find out until the second day of blister eruptions. I'm not an unintelligent person, but I was a misinformed one about shingles. A widely held myth is that only senior citizens can get shingles, so it never entered my mind that as a high school student I could be tormented by them. It's a confusing affliction for many. For me it began with this bizarre, mild pain deep under the surface of the skin on my back that intensified every day. It reminded me of the volume being gradually turned up on a stereo - at first so low you can barely hear it, to it becoming ear-piercingly loud. It started on my back, then snuck around under my arm to a palm-sized area on the right side of my chest. I'm a competitive dancer, and this coincided with training 20 hours a week for YAGP, the most prestigious youth dance competition. I thought the intensive amount of dancing had caused a muscle pull. Then itchiness insidiously began to accompany the pain, and for an entire school week there was no visible explanation for it. I took my top off in the bathroom at school for a friend to inspect my back, and inform me nothing was there. I was baffled. I first thought that it was due to new fabric softener and washed all my leotards with new detergent. When that didn't resolve the issue, I then questioned if it was due to heat. That was a reasonable explanation, and the rash that emerged right where my leotard got the sweatiest seemed to confirm it.

The blisters emerged on a Saturday during a seven hour dance practice with my dance partner. We and our choreographer all thought it was a prickly heat rash. If you look up pictures of this, as we did, you'll see how closely it resembles the shingles rash. My leotard left much of my rash exposed, and my dance partner was bare chested, so had he not received the varicella vaccine, I most definitely would have put him at a high risk of contracting chickenpox from me since much of the dance had us chest-to-chest. When we practiced the next day, I did wear a shirt. We cut the practice very short because it was no longer just a matter of being in pain, or the debilitating tiredness I'd misattributed to the extra dance practice, my eyes were so sensitive to the light in the studio it felt like they were throbbing, I had a brutal headache, and I started to vomit. The day before I'd just have a few blisters that were emerging and erupting, but I then had an entire army of them attacking me. In the agonizing days that followed, the blisters exponentially grew in numbers and the pain became excruciating, with literally hundreds of blisters emerging and exploding on my back and chest. When my dad came and picked me up from the dance studio that Sunday, he instantly knew it was shingles. I'd been wearing a sweatshirt when I left the house, so he hadn't seen them. As soon as he saw them, he knew. But he's a doctor, not a clueless teen. He took me directly from the dance studio to CHLA because I was at a high risk of complications due to having Addison's disease. He was angry with me that I hadn't told any of them about the pain, or the itchiness or the rash, but I defended myself by explaining that I had no idea it was anything serious, and I was worried about them pulling me back from dance training. I was laser focused on the competition, but ended up having to miss it due to problems that arose from shingles causing hospitalization.

One month later, a friend just a smidgen older began to complain to me about this mysterious pain. From her description of the pain and her recent activities, we both thought it was probably a muscle strain caused from her assisting at a book fair. I suggested using a heating pad. When a tormenting rash developed, I thought it was prickly heat. Despite just experiencing shingles, it didn't dawn on me that her symptoms were identical to mine. As someone who's been immunocompromised since birth, I was used to being an oddity, to dealing with health issues most other kids my age didn't. I'd never known anyone to have chickenpox because vaccination for it has always been required by every school I've attended, and I just assumed she'd never had them either. She showed the rash to her mom, who also thought it was probably caused from prolonged use of the heating pad. Eventually the dots were connected and it was realized that she had shingles. Unlike my rashes on exposed areas, hers were confined to an area that was always fully clothed, so that was a grace. When I told my stepmom about the friend having shingles she thought they were in an exposed area, and was worried because the girl had an infant and toddler sister she often picked up and would cuddle with. She'd just that month had a parent accidentally expose his toddler to chickenpox. The dad slept just in boxers and picked up his crying daughter in the middle of the night, when he was too drowsy from sleep to think anything of it. His natural instinct was to pick her up and soothe her against his chest. Fortunately, his daughter had already received the first varicella vaccine dose, and it protected her.

The CDC provides a letter to notify parents of childcare workers when there's been a reporting of shingles at daycare centers, urging that if their children haven't been vaccinated yet to get them vaccinated. I'm not the first person to be confused by shingles and misidentify them at first. Others, especially those under the age of 50, have thought it was prickly heat, due to ant bites, poison ivy, or a really evil acne outbreak, and not taken the necessary precautions simply because they didn't realize they needed to be taken. It's much harder to keep the shingles fully covered while you're contagious if they're on your face than if they're on a clothed area such as your lower back. Small children in particular are far more likely to directly touch a rash than an adult would, and those afflicted by shingles in an area they can reach are far more likely to touch and scratch the area, sometimes mindlessly, and then immediately return to a task.

The area where you have shingles most definitely makes a difference, in regards not only to chances of infecting others, but its level of risk, and the impact it has for work, school, and social engagements. Shingles on your face poses a risk of infecting the eye and damaging vision. It's much more difficult to cover up. And it's far more psychologically distressing since they are so visible and can leave scars. I still have scars on my back from shingles. I'm just grateful they are hidden most of the time.


Edit to add some PSAs:
. A new shingles vaccine with an extremely high efficacy rate is now available:
A New Shingles Vaccine Is Now Available Nationwide

. If you're under the age of 50 and you get shingles, but aren't immunocompromised and have not experienced abnormally high levels of stress recently, you may want to get your vitamin D levels checked because a deficiency has been linked to higher shingles risk.

. Shingles increases your risk of a heart attack or stroke at a young age, so it's definitely wise to see your doctor and have a checkup.

 

[Go Braves]

thanks for the anecdotal correction. I can easily see liberal hippie dippie rich lefties or the other end of the spectrum, Super Right Wing Christian types falling into the anti-vaxxer crowd

I haven't ever had a reason to talk about this IRL but I can't see too many folks in my field, engineering, falling for the anti-vaxxer stuff.

I can see more super right wing folks buying into it, but I still don't think many would. I lived for a while on Georgia-Alabama line, rural peanut farming community. They definitely bought into other conspiracy theories, a ton of folks believed the Obama birther thing. I can't see too many of them being anti-vaxxer. They didn't buy into the big non-GMO fad.

I already take back what I just said. Haven't even hit post yet, lol. I think younger right wing folks may be into the anti-vaxxer thing, on account of reading it on Facebook, what have you. I can't see too many older folks who can remember measles, polio, all that, tolerating it.

 

[dgiharris]

.....I already take back what I just said. Haven't even hit post yet, lol. I think younger right wing folks may be into the anti-vaxxer thing, on account of reading it on Facebook, what have you. I can't see too many older folks who can remember measles, polio, all that, tolerating it.

The "anti-vaxxer" movement does seem to be a big hit with a certain segment of people under 40 (i.e. those who are multiple generations removed from people decimated by polio).

IN particular, I've noticed a high percentage of smart self educated people with no formal education tend to be susceptible to anti-vaxxer propaganda. It's like a way to rebel against traditional learning and the traditional educational establishment.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

Do you wear a seat belt when you drive? My dad considered that requirement to be "no thanks" issue too, and ended up flying thru the windshield when a car pulled out in front of him. That started a slow downhill slide for him and he finally died in 2011.

That's really unfortunate. I'm sorry about your dad.

Mandatory seat belt laws were exactly what I was thinking about when I read the post I'm quoting below. I've made the comparison between mandatory seat belt laws and mandatory vaccine laws before, to scoffing that they're incomparable, but in actuality, there's parallelism. In my lifetime, wearing a seatbelt is a conditioned response. It's not a decision deliberated on, or that evokes any resentment at the government for enforcing a law pertaining to how I protect my body. I actually hadn't even thought about it until someone here wrote a thread a couple of years ago quite indignant about seat belt laws, characterizing them as the government imposing upon the bodily autonomy of adults.

I took an Anthropology course studying the history and development of vaccines that included discussions of evolving societal attitudes about them, and critical issues such as personal choice v. public health. It was interesting learning about the 1980s. With measles epidemics that besieged schools in the 1970s still within sight in the rearview mirror, there was far more cooperation with immunization laws for school. There wasn't an absence of controversy or hesitancy towards vaccines, with a few notable incidents spiking it momentarily, but for the most part it was considered more fringe. But there was public anger about the mandatory seat belt laws that were widely enacted by states and countries in that time. It's like reactions to the two laws then and now were inverted to a degree, with it now being only the few are anti-seat-belters.

Well said. I think this is the whole debate in a nutshell.

I would never agree that people should give up bodily autonomy because the government feels it needs to mandate vaccines for the betterment of society.

You probably already have agreed, though subconsciously.

When countries around the world enacted seat-belt legislation for the betterment of society many citizens of those societies felt affronted and vehemently objected, characterizing it as an imposition on their bodily autonomy.

This letter pulsating with fury about it was published by The New York Times in 1986:
Seat-Belt Laws Violate Your Civil Rights

Some excerpts:

To satisfy American juridical principles, its proponents have come up with fantastic explanations why one person not wearing a seat belt is somehow a threat to others, including the ''human missile'' argument, wherein it is alleged that in a car collision an unbelted occupant becomes a projectile threatening harm to others inside the car, thereby violating their rights.

As with mandatory vaccine laws, mandatory seat belt laws and the enforcement of them results in demonstrable substantial benefits to individuals and society. An analysis by the CDC found that in 2010 that non-fatal injuries to motor vehicle occupants cost the United States $48 billion in medical expenses and lost work. Outbreaks of communicable diseases are also extremely expensive. Even with a multitude of incidents documenting the damage sustained by others from someone else not wearing a seat belt, people were dismissive.

Just as with anti-vaxxers, there are also people who wrote books about seat belts and car seats being unnecessary and detrimental.

This cheap, guilt-inducing act of moral intimidation is being offered to cover up the ugly reality that a mandatory-seat-belt law violates the right to bodily privacy and self-control of every front-seat occupant in every motor vehicle driving on the roads of New York State. Once they treat adults in this coercive, demeaning manner, how dare the advocates of such a law talk about ''responsibility''?

Seat belts have never, and most likely never will be infallible. They have caused harm to wearers, but it's typically temporary, in the form of bruises and neck pain from whiplash. Car seats have also caused injuries, and provoked parental outcry when laws were first implemented mandating the use of them.
Vaccines can have side effects, but very, very rarely are they serious or permanent. In extraordinary cases seatbelts and car seats have caused catastrophic damage, such as neck injuries that have lead to paralyzation. Even though there is a potential for risk, the probability of it is so minuscule few parents would agonize over the decision to use seat belts or strap their children in car seats.

 

[Dave-W]

That's really unfortunate. I'm sorry about your dad.

Thanks.

Mandatory seat belt laws were exactly what I was thinking about when I read the post I'm quoting below. I've made the comparison between mandatory seat belt laws and mandatory vaccine laws before, to scoffing that they're incomparable, but in actuality, there's parallelism.

A lot of parallelism. And both suffer from the rule of unintended consequence. Both save a LOT of lives every year, but both can also be killers.

The Mandatory seat belt use law went into effect in Michigan in the late 1980s. Before that, usually I wore it; but not always. The morning of August 17 1984, 6.45 am. A morning I did NOT wear my seat belt and that fact is what allows me to sit here at my desk this morning typing this post.

I got "T-boned" on my way to work (only a block from there). My 1970 Cutlass Supreme (2 door) had retro-fitted seat belts bolted thru the floor to the undercarriage frame. That was the common practice in those days. So they were separate from the seats. When hit, the driver door was smashed to about the centerline of the steering column, and the seat was moved sideways an equal amount. But the frame remained intact. Had I been wearing the belt, it would have cut me in half.

After surgery, a local police officer asked me a bunch of questions about the accident; most of which I was too groggy to answer. One of them was whether I wore a seat belt or not. I told him I did not remember, so he replied: "You lived. I will put down that you were wearing it." It was only afterward when I actually saw the specifics of the damage I realized I could NOT have been wearing it.

But the problem with anecdotes like that is they are taken as the norm rather than an exceptional situation and circumstance. Seat belts save many more lives than they take, and vaccines are the same. Yes, some have bad reactions to some part of their content; but those cases are a very small minority.

 

[Go Braves]

The "anti-vaxxer" movement does seem to be a big hit with a certain segment of people under 40 (i.e. those who are multiple generations removed from people decimated by polio).

For sure, age has got a heck of a lot to do with it. Not saying that older folks haven't just believed some nonsense they've read on Facebook, they surely have. Older folks remember measles, polio. On account of that, I think not nearly as many are going to fall for the anti-vaxxer nonsense. I know for fact that some were stunned there was any controversy about vaccines at all. They just could not believe that.

Now @Stanfordella talked about her & a pal having shingles in HS but like she said that's rare, most folks with that are older. In our church bulletin we have prayer requests, this year alone there's been at half a dozen for folks with shingles. They're all seniors. One lady I was talking to about it a while back, hadn't known there'd been a chickenpox vaccine since the 90s, on account of how her kids were already grown, grandkids already teens by then. She'd had 4 kids who'd had them all at the same time, while the family was living in a glorified RV waiting for their house that'd been damaged by a fire to be fixed. She's battle scarred on account of that, lol. She asked me how old I was when I had chickenpox. I've never had them. She marveled about the vaccine, saying oh the things they can do nowadays. She just thought that was terrific. She hadn't known there was a vaccine for shingles either, was mad that nobody had told her about it.

IN particular, I've noticed a high percentage of smart self educated people with no formal education tend to be susceptible to anti-vaxxer propaganda. It's like a way to rebel against traditional learning and the traditional educational establishment.

It's why I asked @Saricharity if she'd been homeschooled. Well that & on account of how if you'd been to school, you'd have had to turn in your records on your vaccines. I'm not sure when the personal belief exemption became a thing. Georgia's never had that AFAIK. I'm honestly not insulting homeschoolers by that, it's just that they're going to use the internet more as part of their education than kids who've gone to school. I can't see too many folks who've taken chemistry, biology, from teachers thinking that it's a good idea to learn about vaccines from the site that's got the driver of the Vaxxed tour bus on their board but not a single doctor.

 

[Zoii]

If God is with you; why would you need a vaccine?

I'm so glad that I live in a country founded on protecting my unalienable God given right to be secure in my person.

Because thats not a protection to infection. In fact IMO its a slap in the face of God. Your view would be to walk into a Cholera outbreak and say God will save me - Well Id argue God would think you foolish in the extreme since hes already granted you the opportunity to be protected and you rejected it.

 

[Saricharity]

its a slap in the face of God

Not to open a whole other can of worms but I do not think God would be super pleased with mankind using legally aborted human fetuses. I highly doubt God would see it as a slap in His face if people choose not to vaccinate since Abortion is killing a life that God began.
Some childhood vaccines, including the one against rubella, are cultured in 'WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts'. Other common vaccines, including those for chicken pox, hepatitis and rabies, are also propagated in cells originating from legally aborted human fetuses, according to the FDA.
Paul Offit is quoted as saying, "to remove human fibroblast cells entirely from vaccines is out of the question."

 

[Saricharity]

Well that & on account of how if you'd been to school, you'd have had to turn in your records on your vaccines. I'm not sure when the personal belief exemption became a thing.

I attended high school and my parents filed an exemption with the local health unit.

I believe the personal exemptions have been allowed since 1984 in Canada. It was an amendment to the act as a result of a committee of parents fighting against the mandatory immunization Legislation that passed in 1982.
You can read more about it here:
History - Vaccine Choice Canada

 

[Dave-W]

Your view would be to walk into a Cholera outbreak and say God will save me - Well Id argue God would think you foolish in the extreme since hes already granted you the opportunity to be protected and you rejected it.

My pastor at a former church did a short term mission trip to Haiti without taking the Malaria vax. He was certain God would protect him.

I had to fill in for him preaching sunday mornings for about 2 months while he recovered from Malaria.

 

[Saricharity]

Vaccines can have side effects, but very, very rarely are they serious or permanent.

Rare, but it still happens.
In fact, 3.1 billion dollars has been paid out by the U.S. Government for vaccine injury.
Sadly, Canada does not have such compensation available. (except in Quebec)

 

[PsychoSarah]

im not sure why anyone should trust what the gov't has to say.....

Lol, I gave a simple logical reason why most governing bodies do not view vaccines as dangerous; vaccination is enforced for military personnel

Only mathematics can be proven?

In considering the academic meaning of the terms "proof" and "proven", yes. The common use of the word has no standard for evidence, etc., to meet it. For example, if I had a degree in Ornithology, held an animal I perceived to be a duck, and had the genome of that animal sequenced and lo and behold it matched sequences from a duck, I could colloquially say I "proved" that I held a duck, but since regardless of the evidence supporting that conclusion I can never be 100% certain of that, I didn't prove that I held a duck in an academic sense.

It's useless to use the colloquial meaning of "proof" in debates because that's just based on personal perspective. Some people would accept that I held a duck just if I presented a picture of myself holding an animal that looked like a duck to them, while others could be more skeptical and demand video, least I was merely holding a convincing stuffed animal. And people could push it further still, and others would be so stubborn that I could never demonstrate to them that I held a duck in a way that satisfies them. The personal perspectives of all of these people are entirely irrelevant to whether or not it is reasonable to conclude I held a duck; it is the amount of evidence that exists for it that does, and that's quantifiable to some extent. Whether or not a conclusion is reasonable from a scientific perspective thus is based on how much evidence and the quality thereof that the conclusion is true versus any evidence that supports the contrary.

So when you procure information it is evidence, and when someone that opposes your views procures information it is ignorance?

Quality and quantity of evidence for a position matters. Plus, I have to consider frequency of relevance as well. For example, I do not deny that viral shedding from a vaccinated person can possibly make other people sick. However, evidence supports it being such a rare event that it hardly makes it reasonable to avoid getting vaccinated because of it.

thats an interesting statement

It's simply the truth. It is equally true that we can't demonstrate with 100% certainty that anything is dangerous. It just comes to the point that to conclude anything else is to almost certainly be betting on the losing "team", so to speak. Science is like one of those mathematical curves that can approach but never quite reaches a given number; more evidence for a conclusion can pile up such that the conclusion is a 99.99999999% chance of representing reality accurately, but further evidence is just going to add more 9s after the decimal, not make it reach 100%.

 

[Saricharity]

You probably already have agreed, though subconsciously.

Hmm, perhaps not, especially when it comes to medical procedures, and vaccination is considered a medical procedure. They are pharmaceutical drugs with known side effects listed on the insert, just like any other.