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How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

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Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#11

Post by larsiusprime »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #9
k-mcgrady wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say they were less of a danger. My point was that there mistake can be excused easier due to lack of information. People who are informed about the vaccine and make the decision not to use it however cannot be excused at all as there behaviour is reckless. Attempting to point the blame at the Amish instead of the latter group doesn't seem right to me.

Aren't the Amish deliberately not vaccinated as they deliberately don't have access to the information? How is that different from someone who has access to the information but deliberately chooses to ignore it or disbelieve it?

Put it in perspective before you lash out. We "informed" people know car accidents are a leading cause of preventable death, and yet we kill more people with car accidents than unvaccinated non-car-driving Amish people (who are apparently swiftly adjusting their behavior re: vaccinations, which is a good thing).

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#13

Post by Delmania »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #9
k-mcgrady wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say they were less of a danger. My point was that there mistake can be excused easier due to lack of information. People who are informed about the vaccine and make the decision not to use it however cannot be excused at all as there behaviour is reckless. Attempting to point the blame at the Amish instead of the latter group doesn't seem right to me.

Aren't the Amish deliberately not vaccinated as they deliberately don't have access to the information? How is that different from someone who has access to the information but deliberately chooses to ignore it or disbelieve it?

The difference is the Amish are willing to change their stance on a technology if it proves to be beneficial to their lifestyle.

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#14

Post by dmckeon »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #4

Trying to pin the blame on the Amish doesn't seem right. Sure they weren't vaccinated but they are also less educated and have much, much less access to information on health than us. The 'informed' members of society who choose not to vaccinate are the real problem, otherwise the disease would have been contained to a small community of people. These informed individuals have no excuse. Take the latest outbreak for…

For most people, trying to find "patient zero" is doomed to be hard and fruitless - like the employees of a medium-sized company trying to figure out who brought a computer virus to work - too many possible vectors and not enough time and exposure information for amateurs to find, follow, and cross-check clues and stay ahead of prejudicial guesswork. For the Ohio outbreak, the professional epidemiologists could track it:

> Fletcher describes it as a "perfect storm:" an unimmunized traveler going to a place with an outbreak and bringing an infectious disease back to an unprotected community.

Going forward, here's an article that points to some ways that states could change their laws, rules, and procedures to get to higher immunization rates:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/29...

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#15

Post by larsiusprime »

[deleted] wrote: post #10
k-mcgrady wrote: post #4

Trying to pin the blame on the Amish doesn't seem right. Sure they weren't vaccinated but they are also less educated and have much, much less access to information on health than us. The 'informed' members of society who choose not to vaccinate are the real problem, otherwise the disease would have been contained to a small community of people. These informed individuals have no excuse. Take the latest outbreak for…

[deleted]

The article explicitly says they were not refusing on religious grounds, and at the end also explicitly says they changed their minds about the importance of vaccinations.

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#16

Post by confluence »

palmer_eldritch wrote: post #2

At least it ends on a hopeful note: "We all took the vaccine after that. I had one shot, and I still took the other one and we had all our kids vaccinated, too. After people saw how sick people got, they changed their minds."

People used to line up for vaccines back when we first had massive distribution. The horrors of the diseases they prevented were so great the lines would go on for blocks.

People are insulated from those times. When those diseases don't seem so scary anymore, people start to worry about what they're getting injected with. Teaching people about how vaccines work seems to be one solution, but another one is a horrifying outbreak that shocks people.

The growing anti-vax movement is a danger to everyone, and they're a powder keg ready to explode.

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#17

Post by stelonix »

skynetv2 wrote: post #3

it breaks my heart to see so many "adults" making "informed decisions" about NOT vaccinating their children. They should really go live in undeveloped countries where vaccines are scarce and unavailable to experience first hand what lack of vaccinations actually means, what the implications are for the general population. I grew up, fortunately with out any problems, seeing so many kids suffering from polio, handicap…

While I agree I'd do anything to help my child, I also realize it's not up to me or most importantly, the government to dictate how other parents should raise their children. The right to raise your child the way you see fit, obviously without any major abuse is an universal right any parent has and it's above any social construct.

Abuse, in this context, should be real abuse, which means physical or psychological violence. Abuse does not mean disagreeing with the ways a secular capitalist democracy is heading. As much as some people want to enlist "religious indoctrination", lack of vaccination, circumcision and other forms of non-western-conforming customs as "abuse", it is of my opinion that we should refrain from that and respect the inalienable right to have different customs from the globalized state.

Governments are not supposed to be our parents and pass diktakts telling people what's the "correct way" to raise children.

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#18

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #10
k-mcgrady wrote: post #4

Trying to pin the blame on the Amish doesn't seem right. Sure they weren't vaccinated but they are also less educated and have much, much less access to information on health than us. The 'informed' members of society who choose not to vaccinate are the real problem, otherwise the disease would have been contained to a small community of people. These informed individuals have no excuse. Take the latest outbreak for…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#19

Post by k-mcgrady »

[deleted] wrote: post #10
k-mcgrady wrote: post #4

Trying to pin the blame on the Amish doesn't seem right. Sure they weren't vaccinated but they are also less educated and have much, much less access to information on health than us. The 'informed' members of society who choose not to vaccinate are the real problem, otherwise the disease would have been contained to a small community of people. These informed individuals have no excuse. Take the latest outbreak for…

[deleted]

>> If they are refusing vaccinations on religious grounds

Read the article. They aren't and have now started taking vaccines.

Re: How an Amish missionary caused 2014's massive measles outbreak

#20

Post by hobs »

larsiusprime wrote: post #11
richardwhiuk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't the Amish deliberately not vaccinated as they deliberately don't have access to the information? How is that different from someone who has access to the information but deliberately chooses to ignore it or disbelieve it?

Put it in perspective before you lash out. We "informed" people know car accidents are a leading cause of preventable death, and yet we kill more people with car accidents than unvaccinated non-car-driving Amish people (who are apparently swiftly adjusting their behavior re: vaccinations, which is a good thing).

I can see why being rude to a people can seem harsh, but both of these child comments (at the moment) seem to be off the mark to me.

> The difference is the Amish are willing to change their stance on a technology if it proves to be beneficial to their lifestyle. So are most people, they just have a belief that vaccinations somehow cause more harm them they prevent. Almost like another communities clearly less educated decisions on various topics based on their belief.

>The difference is the Amish are willing to change their stance on a technology if it proves to be beneficial to their lifestyle.

People are not making choices because they know its the wrong choice to make. Anti-vaxers are dead wrong, but they dont make said choice to spite you, they think its beneficial.

I would say that ignorance because of belief or personal choice are basically the same excuse for choosing something that is harming people, and can be easily remedied.

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