Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade • Hacker News Board

Re: Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade

#21

Post by showerst » Thu, Jan 15, 2009, 6:39 AM UTC

blurry wrote: post #19

showerst wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem with respect to applying this to vaccinations is that vaccines have a low but non-zero chance of failure. If everyone gets vaccinated, and 1% fail (that's just an arbitrary number), it's no big deal because there isn't enough of a population to carry an outbreak. But if 1% of vaccinated patients are vulnerable, and 5% of people choose not to get vaccinated, then now there's a potential for outbrea…

I don't understand how this affects the system. If the vaccine fails and you need urgent care, you are covered because you did get vaccinated, right? What am I missing?

You're still covered, but you're paying a cost (missing work, being sick) and so is the insurance provider/govt, that you wouldn't otherwise have paid, and it's the non-vaccinator's fault, and they aren't paying for that damage under your system.

Not really a flaw in your system as much as just something interesting to think about.

Re: Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade

#22

Post by anamax » Thu, Jan 15, 2009, 6:56 AM UTC

blurry wrote: post #15

Scriptor wrote: post #6

This got me thinking. I am otherwise normally in favor of health care for everybody, but that would also mean health care for those who chose not to get vaccinated because of their own or their parents' beliefs. That would mean that when they get sick it's the public that has the further burden of supporting them.

There is an interesting proposal out there related to organ donation which could be adopted for this type of situation. The proposal is to separate people into two groups: those who agree to donate their organs, and those who decline. Later on, when people happen to need organ transplants, they receive them according to their group priority, i.e. if you decline to donate, you turn comes up only after everyone in the…

> I think that is a fair system, and could be applied in this case also. If you choose to vaccinate, you are covered, and if you do not, you pay out of pocket.

Hold it. If you're going to deny them govt-paid healthcare, how do you justify taxing them to pay for govt-paid healthcare?

Re: Book Is Rallying Resistance to the Antivaccine Crusade

#23

Post by arockwell » Thu, Jan 15, 2009, 10:44 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #17

arockwell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it more or less has been settled. I have not heard of a reputable study showing that vaccines cause autism. The problem is that if you try hard enough you can stretch/fake/politicize scientific results to show just about anything. There is at least some causal link between giving the vaccines and autism (there has been a large rise in autism cases that coincide with the usage of certain vaccines). Since no one c…

What is a sensible person to do, get hold of some of the actual studies by oneself? Without prior knowledge of the problem, I feel inclined to believe the "no causation" camp. But I can also imagine that it is easy to select the proper studies to prove just about anything. For the book in question, how can I be sure that the author didn't chose to only quote the "no causation" studies, and not other ones that might c…

I think this is one of the problems with so called "un-biased" reporting in the media. They tend to give equal time to competing theories as if they were equals. Vaccinations causing autism in the media has been really hyped up in the media because its an extremely interesting, link-bait type story.

The vaccination story gets so much media attention I'm sure there are many people who believe that its true simply because its in the news so frequently.