Italy bans unvaccinated children from school • Hacker News Board

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#101

Post by choko » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

jedmeyers wrote: post #81

purpleidea wrote: post #40

I'm a physiologist, and definitely NOT an anti-vaxxer. Two points: 1) What is the specific list of immunizations that are being mandated? 2) If immunizations are to be mandated, great, however the companies that produce them must also be mandated to be transparent in their research and development. For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. T…

I agree. There are currently a lot of problems with vaccine development transparency and the chain of custody in handling of the vaccines is non existent. Yet someone is paying for this major social media propaganda push that anti-vaxxers are all low IQ deplorables who kill their own children. In parallel the fact that everyone should be forced to be vaccinated regardless of any other concerns is pushed as a sane rhe…

The "push" to show anti-vaxers as idiots is probably not a coordinated effort. Standard human behavior explains the wave of anti anti-vax (and anti-flat earth) memes, news stories, and social media posts already. These are both unpopular outgroups that people can make fun of with little to no social repercussion. Many people use the "bullying" (for lack of a better word) of outgroups as a way to make themselves feel superior and to fit in with the larger in-group. If someone is paying for the effort, they are wasting their money.

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#102

Post by lolc » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

zug_zug wrote: post #45

I find it interesting and also confusing how invested random people on the internet are about the outcome of vaccination (which could theoretically cause an issue for a small percentage of the population), as opposed to say climate-denial (which will undisputably cause a much bigger issue for the entire population)

Preventing climate change or even fighting its effects goes against a way of life people can't imagine giving up. It's a much harder sell. And people hope for solutions where they don't have to change their ways. So while vaccination has a known, cheap, and widely accepted solution, there is no such thing for climate change. There is no easy fix. It will cost us dearly, one way or another.

The thing with vaccination is that it's a small thing that really improved our lives. It's what brings down child mortality a good notch with little effort. We can't allow misinforemd people to take this away from us. The parents that don't vaccinate their children not only endanger their children but other people as well. As long as we haven't eradicated a disease, we have to spend ressources on the vaccination.

Success story: Polio 2 is eradicated. And there's only two countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) where Polio is still endemic. Once these contries are clear, we'll be able to sunset Polio vaccination worldwide.

So while I may deplore inactivity regarding climate change, I'm really happy we're eradicating diseases. And I'm happy people care about it.

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#103

Post by bzbarsky » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #77

purpleidea wrote: post #40

I'm a physiologist, and definitely NOT an anti-vaxxer. Two points: 1) What is the specific list of immunizations that are being mandated? 2) If immunizations are to be mandated, great, however the companies that produce them must also be mandated to be transparent in their research and development. For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. T…

>For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. That's currently not required, they're allowed to cherry-pick results! Why? The alternatives in pretty much all cases are death. Which side effect is better than your child being dead? Or mine for that matter because the collective you (not you personally) decided that risking polio was better than…

> The alternatives in pretty much all cases are death.

Is this a serious claim about currently-required vaccines? Including the one for varicella, say?

Vaccines have a _lot_ of benefits; my kids are certainly vaccinated for all sorts of things (including varicella, though that was a bit of a tough call for me). But overselling those benefits with blanket claims like "the alternative to being vaccinated is death" is not a good way to get the "everyone should be vaccinated" position to be taken seriously.

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#104

Post by alexozer » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #99

It seems that some of the same arguments for mandatory vaccination of people also apply to mandatory upgrades for Windows. E.g. if an exploit is rarely open it would be more rarely attacked, thus giving the herd of Windows computers a kind of immunity, somewhat protecting computers that for whatever reason, can't be upgraded. Is it therefore reasonable to legally mandate updates or anti virus software for popular ope…

Preventing unnecessary deaths of children is not exactly in the same class of severity as preventing a computer from running malicious code in my opinion.

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#105

Post by WA » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

RandomTisk wrote: post #67

purpleidea wrote: post #40

I'm a physiologist, and definitely NOT an anti-vaxxer. Two points: 1) What is the specific list of immunizations that are being mandated? 2) If immunizations are to be mandated, great, however the companies that produce them must also be mandated to be transparent in their research and development. For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. T…

Me either, but I've always wondered: 3) What danger do un-vaccinated children pose to vaccinated ones?

Who the fuck is downvoting the siblings here for no apparent reason? All of them are entirely correct. Have the anti-vaxxers invaded HN?

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#106

Post by dang » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #105

RandomTisk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me either, but I've always wondered: 3) What danger do un-vaccinated children pose to vaccinated ones?

Who the fuck is downvoting the siblings here for no apparent reason? All of them are entirely correct. Have the anti-vaxxers invaded HN?

This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review and follow them here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#107

Post by dang » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #48

jarmitage wrote: post #13

I would be interested to know if any Italians (or otherwise knowledgable people) are here who can comment on this anecdote: I once stayed with some Italians near Pisa, who were home schooling their children. They said that corrupt and ignorant politicians have added unnecessary vaccines to the list of requirements, due to lobbying/collusion with pharma companies and as a way to influence elections. As a result, some…

Italian here: your friends are dumb.

Please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#108

Post by leftyted » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #77

purpleidea wrote: post #40

I'm a physiologist, and definitely NOT an anti-vaxxer. Two points: 1) What is the specific list of immunizations that are being mandated? 2) If immunizations are to be mandated, great, however the companies that produce them must also be mandated to be transparent in their research and development. For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. T…

>For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. That's currently not required, they're allowed to cherry-pick results! Why? The alternatives in pretty much all cases are death. Which side effect is better than your child being dead? Or mine for that matter because the collective you (not you personally) decided that risking polio was better than…

> Why? The alternatives in pretty much all cases are death.

This seems like a huge exaggeration to me. There's a chickenpox vaccine nowadays which wasn't widely available when I was a kid. As a result, my siblings and I all contracted chickenpox at one point or another. Chickenpox is only very rarely a serious illness for children.

Even with regard to more serious illnesses that have been made rare by vaccination (measles and mumps), death is quite rare (less than 1% according to wikipedia).

Overall, I find your tone a bit disturbing. I'm very pro-vaccine, but I sometimes wonder if a kinder, gentler approach wouldn't be more effective. When you yell at people, they are much less likely to listen to you. When you use dishonest arguments like you've done here you just provide anti-vaxxers with ammunition.

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#109

Post by RobertRoberts » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

jedmeyers wrote: post #81

purpleidea wrote: post #40

I'm a physiologist, and definitely NOT an anti-vaxxer. Two points: 1) What is the specific list of immunizations that are being mandated? 2) If immunizations are to be mandated, great, however the companies that produce them must also be mandated to be transparent in their research and development. For example, they must be required by law to publish all studies on drug safety-- both positive, and negative results. T…

I agree. There are currently a lot of problems with vaccine development transparency and the chain of custody in handling of the vaccines is non existent. Yet someone is paying for this major social media propaganda push that anti-vaxxers are all low IQ deplorables who kill their own children. In parallel the fact that everyone should be forced to be vaccinated regardless of any other concerns is pushed as a sane rhe…

I don't know why you are getting voted down for this comment, but it seems that anything that questions vaccine safety, even if completely rational and reasonable is being shut down on social media.

Re: Italy bans unvaccinated children from school

#110

Post by geddy » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

Heck, I need to bring paperwork before I drop my dog off at doggy daycare proving he's up to date on his shots, makes sense for kids as well as fur-babies.