“Not vaccinating for non-medical reasons is also foolish even from a purely selfish point of view. A selfish point of view would be “I want to be more resistant to various dangerous contagious diseases, so I will get applicable vaccines for myself.” (and the same for any kids that the person has)”
That’s why and how you know the anti-vaxxers are completely stupid and don’t understand herd immunity. Because no anti-vaxxer with any brains whatsoever would promote and go around telling others not to vax as well. If they were smart, they’d shut up and ride the herd immunity.
I posted the FB / Onion article that EPTR had linked to on my FB, and I almost, but not quite, said along with it: “If you don’t believe in vaccinations / don’t vax your kids, just please unfriend me now.”
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Kelsey felt the application for thalidomide contained incomplete and insufficient data on its safety and effectiveness. Among her concerns was the lack of data indicating whether the drug could cross the placenta, which provides nourishment to a developing fetus.
She was also concerned that there were not yet any results available from U.S. clinical trials of the drug. Even if these data where available, however, they may not have been entirely reliable. At the time, clinical trials did not require FDA approval, nor were they subject to oversight. The “clinical trials” of thalidomide involved distributing more than two and a half million tablets of thalidomide to approximately 20,000 patients across the nation—approximately 3,760 women of childbearing age, at least 207 of whom were pregnant. More than one thousand physicians participated in these trials, but few tracked their patients after dispensing the drug."
Yes, but this is not “making to market” It was the standard protocol for “clinical trials” at that time. Such “trial” is impossible to do nowadays. From what I’ve read, there have been no reports of babies born with deformities from this cohort of patients. It is not like every child whose mother took thalidomide was born without limbs.
I think every single anti-vaxxer should be forced to give x amount of service in a place where vaccines are still scarce and mothers routinely lose their children before the age of 5 due to completely preventable diseases. Maybe enough infant funerals will be a wake-up call.
Or maybe not but at least some good might come from their ignorance.
Why can’t an insurance company refuse to pay for the hospitalization of any child who develops a disease that he/she could have been vaccinated for. Of course, a child with medical issues that would preclude them from receiving the vaccine would not be subjected to it.
I can’t speak to the legality of that, silverlady, but I can speak to ethics: we should not punish the child for the ignorance of the parents. These parents are clearly already critical of the medical establishment and I, personally, would not like any additional barriers between these children and health.
Slippery slope. People do a lot of dumb things that land them in the hospital. A 300 pound woman has a heart attack. Nope. Not paying. A former smoker with cancer. Sorry. The doc said this and you disagreed and did that? Good bye.
The flu vaccine is different because it is not highly effective and it needs to be reformulated each year, based on guesswork as to which flu strains are prevalent. (By “highly effective” I mean a rate of at least 90% or better - I think even in good years the flu shot is only about 65% effective). In other words, getting a flu shot is no guarantee that you won’t catch the flu, and it is not nearly effective enough to convey a significant herd immunity effect. So it becomes more of a personal choice --you get a flu shot because you want to lower the odds of getting the flu yourself – or of your kids catching the flu that year - but as a public health issue, no one is saying during a flu outbreak that the problem is not enough people getting flu shots. Even to the extent that the flu shot confers some level of immunity, it’s short term.
The difference is that vaccinations for measles, polio, etc. are extremely effective and confer either lifetime or very long term immunity – so the vaccines really are effective, and the disease themselves are quite serious. (I was born in the early 50’s, so I suffered through measles, mumps, & chickenpox as a child. I don’t remember the measles because I was only 3 – but I do know that our parents deliberately exposed us to other children with mumps & chickenpox under the rationale that it was better to get those diseases when young. )
My own daughter did not get the pertussis series as an infant because of a bad reaction to the first DPT shot – in those days there was a pertussis vaccination formulation that did seem to cause severe side effects in some children, but they now use a different type of vaccine.
So there will always be good reasons why some individuals cannot be vaccinated, and not all vaccinations have strong public health implications. For example, it’s also a very good idea to stay current on tetanus vaccinations – but tetanus itself is not contagious, so if your neighbor is an anti-vaxxer and their kid gets tetanus, it won’t put yours at risk.
EK, all insurances now are required to cover vaccines without copay.
If your insurance for whatever reason doesn’t cover vaccines (I’m not sure if there are still grandfathered plans for this), then the VFC program will cover the shots for children.
CalMom, I understand that the flu vaccine is different; was just trying to make the point that my kids and others who can’t tolerate the flu vaccine have to hope that herd immunity will help protect them. I really can find no words for the ignorance that keeps people that should know better from vaccinating their kids and encouraging others not to vaccinate as well.
Why even bring up practices from 50+ years ago? Every respectable scientific regulatory agency out there adapts when science tells them otherwise. Everything is NOT all about the almighty dollar.
Insurance should pay for vaccines – without co-pays. However, if an insurance company gave the anti-vaxxers a form to sign stating that they understand that any and all hospital costs associated with a preventable disease would be born by the parents. I am not saying that the hospital refuse to treat the child, I am just saying that it would be on the parent’s nickel. A 300 lb. woman would be hurting her health, but she couldn’t cause the people around her at Disneyland (or elsewhere) to come down with her affliction.
And the pessimist in me thinks it would be more beneficial for the big pharma companies to treat rather than prevent (I have no stats off hand to back this up).
Well, to conspire to do either if it weren’t solid science would require unethical conduct on such a level that it couldn’t be pulled off. Really. I’ve just watched H go through a multi-year process to get a new drug approved for a very serious disease, and it’s about impossible to cook the books.
Someone I know, who has three children, posted this on her FB page. It’s about a doctor who says children should not be vaccinated and should be allowed to get those diseases. It’s good for them. The person who posted this has been getting crazier and crazier. She’s educated and affluent. I just can’t believe she can be this dumb.
I wonder how kids of the current generation to whom the chicken pox vaccine was available will feel about their non-vaccine. parents when they develop shingles as adults. I know a Harvard prof. who missed 3 weeks of work when he developed shingles sores in his mouth and on his eyeballs. He was in excruciating pain. https://www.aad.org/dermatology-a-to-z/diseases-and-treatments/q—t/shingles/diagnosis-treatment
