31–40 of 119 posts
Every year, I take the vaccine against the seasonal flu, if possible. This is not primarily for myself, but for the people around me. The goal is herd immunity, that's how we win.
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WHO provides information about which strains to use based on recent data about which flu variants are circulating.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm
https://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations...
I'll sound like a conspiracy theorist here but hear me out. The anti-vaxx movement is a successful underground propaganda attack by the Russians to weaken the population. They are also behind the election of unfit leaders and anti-European (read: anti-unity) sentiments, or more broadly speaking, making people argue about internal affairs so they're no longer a strong front against the outside world. Where's the state…
You could make the exact same argument about the ecological movements opposing nuclear power generation. Not sure if that goes along, or perhaps across, the point you are making.
And here I am with a sister who thinks that vaccination for a newborn should be "weighed against the risk". The reason we don't know measles as a deadly disease anymore is because vaccination works so well!
It IS a prisoner’s dilemma of sort. If everyone around you is vaccinated, you mostly enjoy herd immunity, so the benefit is much smaller. The risks are small, and most definitely worth it from society’s point of view, and likely from a personal point of view - They are, however, harder to assess from a personal point of view. I am somewhat familiar with a case where a serious underlying autoimmune condition was appar…
Confronting public idiocy saves lives, literally. I'm intolerant to idiocy, and will shoo away any loonie I come upon, sometimes physically.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This mostly comes down to the irrationality regarding risks when you're having kids. Out of my own experience, and given the worst cases scenarios you hear from it's difficult not to fear for your loved ones (and I mean you literally feel it in your loins) especially when YOUR decision can have even the slightest chance of ruining their lives. -- Edit: Please don't get me wrong, I have kids, and their vaccines are up…
It’s not difficult. There’s ample statistical evidence available, and super high quality resources online such as CDC if one wanted to educate themselves. It’s people being lazy and wanting to subject the world to their ego of “I’m so smart because I believe in something contrary to the mainstream or against the establishment”. There’s clear proof of fraud by the idiot that started the nonsense rumors of vaccine harm…
GP's post is excellent because it highlights where the irrationality comes from. If you want to convince parents with antivaxx tendencies of anything, don't begin by calling them lazy or having ego issues.
Address their fears, explain how the risk of not vaccinating 1000x higher than any perceived risk vaccination can have.
I'm a parent and my kids go to a hippie school (hippie by Dutch standards, i.e. not very). The school is great but one downside is there's a disproportionate amount of antivaxxers among the parents. They very deeply believe in it, not unlike deeply religious people. I've seen it happen, calling them idiots is only going to light their fire. But reminding people why this entire vaccination thing got started in the first place can truly help sway people who are on the fence. Most young-ish people who grew up in the west have no perception about how terrible these diseases are because nobody around them gets them anymore.
And here I am with a sister who thinks that vaccination for a newborn should be "weighed against the risk". The reason we don't know measles as a deadly disease anymore is because vaccination works so well!
risk of something really bad happening after a measles vaccine is something like 1:40 000. risk of going deaf after measles is 1:1000. she's absolutely right, that's why she should be begging for the vaccine.
Having said that, when people hear the risk of a bad reaction is 1:40000, I believe that what they think is "my kid's chances of getting this disease are lower than that, so I am making the smart choice by picking the lower risk and avoiding the vaccine risk".
And here I am with a sister who thinks that vaccination for a newborn should be "weighed against the risk". The reason we don't know measles as a deadly disease anymore is because vaccination works so well!
Every year, I take the vaccine against the seasonal flu, if possible. This is not primarily for myself, but for the people around me. The goal is herd immunity, that's how we win.
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Flu vaccines are based upon predictions/models built from data. They tend to target a handful of viruses but even without targeting, it provides protection against other types of flu.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
She's not wrong about the need to weigh against the risk. She's just wrong about assessing the risk.
The people that talk about vaccines and risks aren’t equipped to assess risks in the first place as they don’t understand basic probability and statistics.
However, it's also the case that "experts" are occasinally completely in left field, and when challenged by non-experts, have exactly the same "You're not equipped to make this decision" attitude. Doctors who prescribe drug after drug to elderly people, until they have functional dementia due to drugs and nothing to do with any underlying health issue.
And the same thing can happen for entire fields, when one strong-minded "expert" manages to make one particular way of doing things or looking at things the "orthodox" way, and the field as a whole rejects any doubters as heretics. (There was recently an article on HN about how most educational researchers think whole-word reading is a terrible way of learning, but how most educators think that's the best way.)
Diversification of decisions is one of the best defenses we have against that.
Or to put it differently: There is a risk if we allow parents to make this sort of decision on behalf of their kids: that a number of parents will be fooled by charlatans into making decisions that harm their kids. But there's also a risk of not allowing parents to make this sort of decision on behalf of their kids: That a single well-placed wrong individual can make a decision which harms untold millions of children.
There is certainly a time and a place for overriding parent's decisions about their children; but it should be made in circumstances where the costs of doing so are crystal clear.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It IS a prisoner’s dilemma of sort. If everyone around you is vaccinated, you mostly enjoy herd immunity, so the benefit is much smaller. The risks are small, and most definitely worth it from society’s point of view, and likely from a personal point of view - They are, however, harder to assess from a personal point of view. I am somewhat familiar with a case where a serious underlying autoimmune condition was appar…
It is not a prisoner's dilemma, it's an idiot's dilemma. Confronting public idiocy saves lives, literally. I'm intolerant to idiocy, and will shoo away any loonie I come upon, sometimes physically.
And here I am with a sister who thinks that vaccination for a newborn should be "weighed against the risk". The reason we don't know measles as a deadly disease anymore is because vaccination works so well!
She also is not wrong because not even the CDC recommends the measles vaccine until 12 months of age. Hepatitis B is the only vaccine recommend for newborns. The rest are staged out over time, starting at 2 months.