Vaccines: Overwhelming Benefits, Few Risks

[Dale]

several of the people (I will not call out names though) who are in this thread arguing that this is a decision to be taken on a government level are generally people who otherwise tend to argue for minimal government interference

I am ok with my name being called out. I don’t join very many of the political discussions, but my political views are generally libertarian.

So, why is a libertarian comfortable with government mandated immunizations? Libertarianism is not anarchy where people are free to do whatever they feel like with no interference. In a libertarian philosophy you do not have the right to harm others, and that includes through negligence.

The government has the right to intervene to prevent or punish people who wish to harm others, either deliberately or negligently. The desire to not be immunized for dangerous communicable diseases is a desire to engage in negligent behavior wherein you knowingly put others at risk. Therefore, it is a legitimate role of government to require immunizations.

One alternative that I would consider acceptable would be to allow anti-vax people to live in permanent quarantine. This would allow them to refuse the vaccine without being negligent. Without vaccination anything less than full permanent quarantine is negligent.

 

[Orodruin]

I am ok with my name being called out.

If you want to disclose it that is fine, but I do not think it is my place to do so.

 

[member 342489]

Then it isn't a reasonable approach and it is a very good thing the government is forcing this decision on you.

When you brought up death stats (even in a hand waving way), you made it sound like you wanted to make a rational choice and argue that you were worthy of making the choice yourself. Nope. You want the freedom/power without the associated responsibility. This is precisely why you aren't being allowed it.

Perhaps you are right, and perhaps I am cherry picking, and unfit for this debate.
My point with the stats were to say, that in some, perhaps very few cases, the vaccine seems to cause harm.
Not to compare stats.
Perhaps you are willing to risk your kids health, after you experience severe complications simultaneous with the vaccine, I would not.
I will not arguee further, but wish you all a good day and a good health :-)

 

[PAllen]

Perhaps you are right, and perhaps I am cherry picking, and unfit for this debate.
My point with the stats were to say, that in some, perhaps very few cases, the vaccine seems to cause harm.
Not to compare stats.
Perhaps you are willing to risk your kids health, after you experience severe complications simultaneous with the vaccine, I would not.
I will not arguee further, but wish you all a good day and a good health :-)

Seat belts and airbags each have rare scenarios where they add to the risk, rather than decrease it. So, if you suffer a broken wrist from an airbag, you would choose never to buy a car with one again (this actually happened to an acquaintance; they correctly determined the alternative was death). On top of this, choosing not to use these only affects you (well, actually, it has a financial cost to others due to injury treatment, but let’s put that aside), while not vaccinating puts others at risk.

 

[Dale]

My point with the stats were to say, that in some, perhaps very few cases, the vaccine seems to cause harm.
Not to compare stats.
Perhaps you are willing to risk your kids health, after you experience severe complications simultaneous with the vaccine, I would not.

Again, considering only the risks and not the benefits is not valid reasoning.

Frankly, you are not being a protective parent with this bad reasoning. You are putting your kids at significant risk as well as endangering (negligently IMO) those around your child. To avoid a brief small chance of a high fever you are giving them a permanent high chance of a high fever plus a small chance of death plus a small chance of harming others.

This is the direct result of deliberately using invalid reasoning, reasoning which I am certain you know is unsound and which you do not use in the rest of your decisions.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

Some excerpts from MedlinePlus:

“Finding better ways of educating the world is the best vaccine out there.”
[excerpt}

4 Spring 2008 NIH MedlinePlus

Vaccines Stop Illness To prevent the spread of disease, it is more important than ever to vaccinate your child.
Vaccine Safety In light of recent questions about vaccine safety, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has offered the following information for parents: “Vaccines are held to the highest standard of safety. The United States currently has the safest, most effective vaccine supply in history. Law requires years of testing before a vaccine can be licensed. Once in use, vaccines are continually monitored for safety and efficacy. Immunizations, like any medication, can cause side effects. However, a decision not to immunize a child also involves risk. It is a decision to put the child and others who come into contact with him or her at risk of contracting a disease that could be dangerous or deadly. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continually work to make already safe vaccines even safer.” In the rare event that a vaccine injures a child, he or she may be compensated through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP); call 1-800-338-2382.”
https://magazine.medlineplus.gov/pdf/spring2008.pdf

I hope all children stay healthy!

 

[member 342489]

Seat belts and airbags each have rare scenarios where they add to the risk, rather than decrease it. So, if you suffer a broken wrist from an airbag, you would choose never to buy a car with one again (this actually happened to an acquaintance; they correctly determined the alternative was death). On top of this, choosing not to use these only affects you (well, actually, it has a financial cost to others due to injury treatment, but let’s put that aside), while not vaccinating puts others at risk.

I don't totally disagree to this.
If I was a carowner, and had an accident, like the one you describe, I probably still would prefer airbags over seatbelts
I imagine your reply to this, would be, but then why not choose to protect from beeing sick as well. In both scenarios, the thing that can save you, can also create harm, just on a lower level.
I am glad you use this example.
Why don't we stop driving cars. There is great concern, that all this CO2-exhalers will make human life on this planet, very hard, or perhaps even impossible.
Science agrees, that this is one of the greates threaths to the human survival.
A much greater threath than measels.
But still it is optional to save the world and stop risking our own, and future generations lives.
I want to save the climate, I hope you will too.

 

[Orodruin]

Why don't we stop driving cars. There is great concern, that all this CO2-exhalers will make human life on this planet, very hard, or perhaps even impossible.
Science agrees, that this is one of the greates threaths to the human survival.
A much greater threath than measels.
But still it is optional to save the world and stop risking our own, and future generations lives.
I want to save the climate, I hope you will too.

A perfect example of what-about-ism that has nothing to do with the issue being discussed.

If I was a carowner, and had an accident, like the one you describe, I probably still would prefer airbags over seatbelts

It is not an either-or. You should be wearing your seatbelt and have an airbag installed.

I imagine your reply to this, would be, but then why not choose to protect from beeing sick as well.

Again, it is not a matter of only protecting yourself. I could not care less whether you choose to have an airbag or not. I do care if you let potential pathogen carriers run around freely potentially causing harm to others. This is a decision that should not be left to the individual as it is an issue of the health of the population.

 

[Dale]

Why don't we stop driving cars.

Again, because people consider both risk and benefit in making decisions. We consider the benefit of our kid participating in soccer to be worth the risk of them dying in a fatal collision along the way. That is the only valid way to make decisions, and the reason why your “risk only” argument fails from the outset.

 

[pinball1970]

I don't totally disagree to this.
If I was a carowner, and had an accident, like the one you describe, I probably still would prefer airbags over seatbelts
I imagine your reply to this, would be, but then why not choose to protect from beeing sick as well. In both scenarios, the thing that can save you, can also create harm, just on a lower level.
I am glad you use this example.
Why don't we stop driving cars. There is great concern, that all this CO2-exhalers will make human life on this planet, very hard, or perhaps even impossible.
Science agrees, that this is one of the greates threaths to the human survival.
A much greater threath than measels.
But still it is optional to save the world and stop risking our own, and future generations lives.
I want to save the climate, I hope you will too.

Deciding not use air bags is one way of avoiding injury whilst increasing risk of death.Deciding to not use breaks in your car (for whatever reason) provides a risk of death to you and your child in the passenger seat and anyone else who is near you when you crash.

I think this is a closer analogy to choosing not to vaccinate (edit) against MMR

 

[Orodruin]

I think this is a closer analogy to choosing not to vaccinate.

Well, as has already been mentioned, this depends on the illness and the vaccine, so I think we should be particular about it. For the MMR vaccine, I agree.

 

[atyy]

I think it is also worth pointing out that I know that several of the people (I will not call out names though) who are in this thread arguing that this is a decision to be taken on a government level are generally people who otherwise tend to argue for minimal government interference in most aspects of politics and regulation. This should tell you something about how important it is to have a collective responsibility in this question and not allow a free choice.

Is this really the debate? As I understand, in the U.S., the anti-vax sentiment is largely because of the perceived risk of autism. Unfortunately, this was caused in part by a Andrew Wakefield's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield paper in the Lancet, an extremely prestigious medical forum - this paper was only retracted many years after its publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_and_autism. So I'm not sure it is between free choice and collective responsibility - I think it is more between truth and ignorance.

 

[pinball1970]

Is this really the debate? As I understand, in the U.S., the anti-vax sentiment is largely because of the perceived risk of autism. Unfortunately, this was caused in part by a Andrew Wakefield's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield paper in the Lancet, an extremely prestigious medical forum - this paper was only retracted many years after its publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_and_autism. So I'm not sure it is between free choice and collective responsibility - I think it is more between truth and ignorance.

I think there is more to it than that, there are religious objections, “natural vs synthetic” objections, big pharma just trying to sell vaccines to the NHS/government type of objections.

I agree that ignorance is a big factor as is confirmation bias.

 

[pinball1970]

Well, as has already been mentioned, this depends on the illness and the vaccine, so I think we should be particular about it. For the MMR vaccine, I agree.

Noted, I have specified MMR

 

[member 342489]

"A perfect example of what-about-ism that has nothing to do with the issue being discussed."

I try to adress the hypocrisy I see, but yes you are right, 2 wrongs don't make a right. My cherry-picking again, huh ;-) "It is not an either-or. You should be wearing your seatbelt and have an airbag installed."

Yes that is true, but you don't expect these to harm you if nothing bad happens."Again, it is not a matter of only protecting yourself. I could not care less whether you choose to have an airbag or not. I do care if you let potential pathogen carriers run around freely potentially causing harm to others. This is a decision that should not be left to the individual as it is an issue of the health of the population."

Yes I understand
Anyway, I still believe, that people who starts the program, and then experience ekstraordinary side-effects have the right to be scared, and have the right to choose not to continue.

 

[member 342489]

"Again, because people consider both risk and benefit in making decisions. We consider the benefit of our kid participating in soccer to be worth the risk of them dying in a fatal collision along the way. That is the only valid way to make decisions, and the reason why your “risk only” argument fails from the outset."

Yes I fully agree.
It was more the pollution factor i was referring to, not only cars.

 

[jbriggs444]

Yes I understand
Anyway, I still believe, that people who starts the program, and then experience ekstraordinary side-effects have the right to be scared, and have the right to choose not to continue.

Right to be scared, sure. We are not the emotion police. But you do not have the right plead special circumstances because you are especially scared.

If you have good reason to be especially scared, that's different. But you'll need a doctor's note at the very least.

 

[Dale]

Anyway, I still believe, that people who starts the program, and then experience ekstraordinary side-effects have the right to be scared, and have the right to choose not to continue.

Those individuals with adverse reactions to vaccines do have the right to cease vaccination, and general medical practice is to not continue the course for such individuals. However, their friends and family do not have the right to abstain. In fact, it is substantially more important for the friends and family of such a person to be properly vaccinated than for individuals in the general population. Else they risk causing the negligent death of their own loved one.

The non vaccinated person is immune-compromised and is vulnerable to the disease. The only thing that can protect that person is herd immunity. If the herd immunity is compromised then that individual is the most vulnerable segment of the population. The most critical part of herd immunity is the immunity of the immediate family and friends.

Such individuals are also known to have poorer prognosis from the disease. If you have a kid like that in your family then you better make sure that everyone else around them is vaccinated. Using that child’s experience as a general justification to avoid vaccination is just plain backwards. It should be the opposite.

 

[member 342489]

Right to be scared, sure. We are not the emotion police. But you do not have the right plead special circumstances because you are especially scared.

If you have good reason to be especially scared, that's different. But you'll need a doctor's note at the very least.

That would be fine, as long as the decision is not entirely up to the doctor.
The situation I have based my opinion upon, are if the vaccination-process have begun, and things did not go as expected.

 

[member 342489]

Those individuals do have the right to cease vaccination, and general medical practice is to not continue the course for such individuals. However, their friends and family do not have the right to abstain. In fact, it is substantially more important for the friends and family of such a person to be properly vaccinated than for individuals in the general population. Else they risk causing the negligent death of their own loved one.

The non vaccinated person is immune-compromised and is vulnerable to the disease. The only thing that can protect that person is herd immunity. If the herd immunity is compromised then that individual is the most vulnerable segment of the population. The most critical part of herd immunity is the immunity of the immediate family and friends.

Such individuals are also known to have poorer prognosis from the disease. If you have a kid like that in your family then you better make sure that everyone else around them is vaccinated. Using that child’s experience as a general justification to avoid vaccination is just plain backwards. It should be the opposite.

I fully agree :-)
Thanks a lot for this debate ( to all )

 

[Dale]

Yes I fully agree.

I am not sure how you can claim to fully agree based on what you have written. As yet you have failed to consider the benefit and continue to invalidly consider only the risk.

 

[Orodruin]

I do not think anybody has ever argued that persons with adverse reactions to a vaccine or others (such as people with autoimune diseases) that have valid medical reasons should be forced to undergo vaccination. However, you should not be allowed to reject your own vaccination (or your child’s) on the basis of another individual not being able to undergo vaccination without adverse effect (for example, some people may be allergic to components of the vaccine - questions about these things are standard in a pre-vaccination health declaration). As Dale said, it is even more important that people around such individuals are immunized.

 

[member 342489]

I am not sure how you can claim to fully agree based on what you have written when you as yet have failed to consider the benefit and continue to invalidly consider only the risk.

Because, I feel that you have begun understanding, that I am not a anti-wax person.

I have not claimed anywhere in this debate, that vaccines are a bad thing, only that it should not be forced upon people.
My example have from the beginning been, that a person who experience serious side-effects, can choose not to continue, without beeing punished in some way, like beeing isolated from society.

I am perhaps not the best to formulate things, but I have had a feeling, that you, and others, have misjudged my reason to this debate from the beginning. All my arguments have been based on a person who starts the program.

So if want you are saying, that there exist legetimate reasons to not continue vaccination already begun, then we agree.

 

[phinds]

My example have from the beginning been, that a person who experience serious side-effects, can choose not to continue, without beeing punished in some way, like beeing isolated from society.

So you are fine with someone who is not vaccinated just wandering around potentially infecting others? I'm not and I think the point of most of the posts in this thread is that neither is anyone else here except you. I don't care WHY someone is not vaccinated, I don't want them wandering around compromising our herd immunity.

 

[Dale]

Because, I feel that you have begun understanding, that I am not a anti-wax person.

My principle objection is to your invalid reasoning, not to you as a person. Unfortunately, your invalid reasoning, which you have not corrected, is a common fallacious argument used by the anti-vaccination movement.

 

[Orodruin]

Then you are fighting a strawman argument. Nobody has suggested to vaccinate in cases where there are legitimate reasons not to. You have also repeatedly argued for an individual choice. This to me is incompatible with claiming that you have a person who suffers from allergy to the vaccine or similar. That person does not have a choice either!

So you are fine with someone who is not vaccinated just wandering around potentially infecting others? I'm not and I think the point of most of the posts in this thread is that neither is anyone else here except you. I don't care WHY someone is not vaccinated, I don't want them wandering around compromising our herd immunity.

This is a silly argument. It is because of the people who do not have the medical option to vaccinate themselves that we need herd immunity in the first place.

 

[member 342489]

I do not think anybody has ever argued that persons with adverse reactions to a vaccine or others (such as people with autoimune diseases) that have valid medical reasons should be forced to undergo vaccination. However, you should not be allowed to reject your own vaccination (or your child’s) on the basis of another individual not being able to undergo vaccination without adverse effect (for example, some people may be allergic to components of the vaccine - questions about these things are standard in a pre-vaccination health declaration). As Dale said, it is even more important that people around such individuals are immunized.

Since so many misunderstand, its problaby my ability to formulate myself clearly that is the problem.

I am pro a society can have norms, rules and medical programs.

I am pro vaccination.

All my inputs have been based on the right to deny to continue an already started vaccination program.

 

[Dale]

You have also repeatedly argued for an individual choice. This to me is incompatible with claiming that you have a person who suffers from allergy to the vaccine or similar. That person does not have a choice either!

Well said. This cannot be a matter of individual choice. Eradication of diseases has already been delayed or compromised by this insanity.

 

[member 342489]

So you are fine with someone who is not vaccinated just wandering around potentially infecting others? I'm not and I think the point of most of the posts in this thread is that neither is anyone else here except you. I don't care WHY someone is not vaccinated, I don't want them wandering around compromising our herd immunity.

Yes I am fine with that, until the person gets sick, and when a doctor declares them well, they shoul be allowed back in society again.

 

[russ_watters]

Perhaps you are willing to risk your kids health, after you experience severe complications simultaneous with the vaccine, I would not.

Well, I will say that people who have been on the wrong side of extremely bad luck are among a rare few who are allowed to be irrational on the subject of that bad luck. But that does not mean governments should allow them to act irrationally, particularly when it comes to endangering the health of others, especially children. I sympathize, but also wish to help protect you and others from further negative consequences from that experience.

 

[pinball1970]

Yes I am fine with that, until the person gets sick, and when a doctor declares them well, they shoul be allowed back in society again.

By the time they are Ill they are walking round infecting people, possibly your child who has an underlying condition.
If you are immunised the virus is attacked as soon as it enters the body and does not get a chance to complete it's life cycle to be passed on to the next host.

 

[BWV]

Stick a fork in this one, arguing with anti-vaxxers is as much use as arguing with creationists or holocaust deniers. A lot of great responses that appear lost on Mr E there

 

[phinds]

Stick a fork in this one, arguing with anti-vaxxers is as much use as arguing with creationists or holocaust deniers. A lot of great responses that appear lost on Mr E there

Yeah, it's pretty amazing that this thread has gone on for this long. It's clearly WAY past the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Mary Conrads Sanburn]

Centers of Disease Control and Prevention:

People of all ages need tetanus vaccines!
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/58994
Some excerpts from MedlinePlus:

“Finding better ways of educating the world is the best vaccine out there.”
[excerpt}

4 Spring 2008 NIH MedlinePlus

Vaccines Stop Illness To prevent the spread of disease, it is more important than ever to vaccinate your child.
Vaccine Safety In light of recent questions about vaccine safety, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has offered the following information for parents: “Vaccines are held to the highest standard of safety. The United States currently has the safest, most effective vaccine supply in history. Law requires years of testing before a vaccine can be licensed. Once in use, vaccines are continually monitored for safety and efficacy. Immunizations, like any medication, can cause side effects. However, a decision not to immunize a child also involves risk. It is a decision to put the child and others who come into contact with him or her at risk of contracting a disease that could be dangerous or deadly. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continually work to make already safe vaccines even safer.” In the rare event that a vaccine injures a child, he or she may be compensated through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP); call 1-800-338-2382.”
https://magazine.medlineplus.gov/pdf/spring2008.pdf

It has been a rough day for me. I need a cup of hot tea! I'm tired too much drama.

 

[BillTre]

More data:
This NY Times article on the HPV (Herpes Papilliloma Virus) vaccine discusses a Lancet article involving studies in several countries. It shows the rates of infections, genital and anal warts, and precancerous lesions in young women and girls.
The decreases among the immunized varied between about 1/3 and 2/3 depending on the group of people and the result being looked at.
Herd immunity aspects are also discussed.