Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Thrive on Amazon (cnn.com) 324
Amid a growing measles outbreak in the United States, the role of powerful tech companies like YouTube and Facebook in spreading vaccine misinformation is under heavy scrutiny. But there is another massive platform offering spurious anti-vaccination content to people seeking information: Amazon, the world's largest online marketplace.
CNN Business: And, asked about it, an Amazon spokesperson only pointed CNN Business to the company's content guidelines page, which says the following: "As a bookseller, we provide our customers with access to a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable. That said, we reserve the right not to sell certain content, such as pornography or other inappropriate content." A recent search for "vaccine" on Amazon yielded a search page dominated by anti-vaccination content. Of the 18 books and movies listed on the search page, 15 contained anti-vaccination content. The first listing was a sponsored post -- that is, an ad for which Amazon was paid -- for the book "Vaccines on Trial: Truth and Consequences of Mandatory Shots" by Pierre St. Clair, which Amazon was also offering for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.
However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."
UPDATE (3/2/2019): Amazon "has apparently started removing anti-vaccine documentaries from its Amazon Prime Video streaming service," CNN reports.
However, "a number of anti-vaccine books were still available for purchase on Amazon.com when CNN Business reviewed search results on Friday afternoon, and some were still being offered for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers."
The right to be wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
There's hardly a freedom more important than the right to be wrong. The right to hold, discuss, and publish ideas that more people think are downright stupid and dangerous is the core right in a free society. After all, saying and doing what everyone in society thinks is correct needs little protection.
If people want to separate fools from their money on Amazon, that's their clear right. The nice thing is: if a clear bestseller emerges, education can then be focused on debunking that specific work, and have a very broad reach compared to a million stupid misconceptions across the internet.
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The freedom to recklessly swing one's fists about ends at another's nose.
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And we are free to show our disdain for Amazon, and the people making money, and the fuckers who shill for them with spurious arguments. And we are free to apply pressure to Amazon to try to dissuade it from allowing those books on its store. And it's free to choose to stock or not stock as it sees fit, taking into account the ethics of promoting lies, providing an open marketplace, the money it will make or lose by its choices, and the risk of regulation if it fails to take action.
So what's your point? Are
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Agreed. Anti-vaxers are wrong, but book burning isn't the answer.
Burn the books, burn the books!!! (Score:2)
You are absolutely correct. I think there are two semi-conflicting powers at play here. One is opinion and the other is education. An author writes a book/blog/article and offers his/her opinion and attempts to share their beliefs.
But the other (and maybe I've miscategorized it) is teaching the unwashed masses. It's one thing to show up to a rally and listen to the voices of people sharing. In this world though an Algorithm starts sharing content with you - possibly misrepresenting the level of trut
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lgw is absolutely correct here, and your "save the children" rationale doesn't work.
The free marketplace of ideas is what makes the US a "somewhat" free society.
The more people like you chip away the ability to share and discuss ideas, the closer we get to an autocratic/authoritarian state.
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If the "marketplace of ideas" ends up at "teach the controversy" where people demand that bullshit is taught at schools as if it had scientific merit, I guess it's time to flip some tables in that marketplace.
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I don't think it's simpler at all. Would you ban books on safe cracking? What if it's a slightly-fictionalized account. What about OJ's book? Obviously, you'd have to give the government to power to decide what speech is legal. How much freedom do you surrender to the government in order to not be confronted with something disturbing?
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They're all fundamentally arguments that test the freedoms of a parent concerning the health and welfare of their child and the extent to which a state can interfere in those decisions. I think the interesting part is that you'll have people who have contradictory answers: e.g., it's morally wrong to abort, circumcision should be up to the
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Can you distinguish between alking about a thing and doing a thing? Try hard.
Re: The right to be wrong (Score:2)
That's a very simple argument. One anybody should be able to understand. Until they start to think about the limitations we've already put on free speech. You cannot for instance claim that your drug cure something that it has not been able to prove it cures. You are not allowed to pretend you are a doctor and offer up medical advice for someone under those auspices. I acknowledge the loopholes for herbal medicine which frankly should not exist, but I think it is evident that the issue is not quite so cut
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Does that freedom include being able to genitally mutilate your daughter
No. But it does include the freedom to talk, write, and read about the subject.
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No, but you're free to genitally mutilate YOURSELF, if that makes you happy.
Note the key difference: doing unto others starts to infringe on THEIR Rights. Doing unto yourself is noone's business but your's....
Re:The right to be wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason why some people are against vaccines.
Yes. They are idiots. You don't mention the people that died from the disease this vaccine protected against, you don't mention that a very low percentage of those vaccinated were diagnosed with narcolepsy.
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Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.
Would they be better off if they were dead?
Re:The right to be wrong (Score:5, Informative)
The health of children is at stake.
355 children in Sweden who got the H1N1 vaccine (Pandemrix), have since been diagnosed with narcolepsy. (the number may be higher now) This has been judged to be a direct result of the vaccine. Those 355 individuals can now never have a driver's license, or a normal job.
Sweden had to formulate a special law to give each up to 10 million SEK (1.1 million USD or so) in restitution.
There's a reason why some people are against vaccines.
The US has had the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) since 1988. So far, out of 3,454,305,356 vaccinations, there have been 4,153. That's 1.2 per 1 million vaccinations. Surprisingly, tetanus vaccines have the highest incidence rate of compensation. To win compensation, the claimant must present a biological theory of harm, demonstrate a logical sequence of events connecting the vaccine to the injury, and establish an appropriate time frame in which injury occurred.
Re:The right to be wrong (Score:4, Informative)
That same year in Europe, there were around 500,000 confirmed H1N1 infections, and about 2,900 deaths, or 0.6% of those infected. Two orders of magnitude higher than the rate of vaccine induced narcolepsy.
So yes, incidence like this will happen, it's unfortunate and everything that can be done should be done to prevent it. However, medicine is never going to be an exact science, things will go wrong along the way. People need to weigh the relative risks though.
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Your analysis has a flaw. You forgot about herd immunity.
All those people who did get vaccinated reduced the number of infections in the unvaccinated, which then reduced the total number of people who died from infection.
You'd need to calculate how many would have died if no one got the vaccine in order to remove herd immunity. And the result of that is going to be extremely close to the mortality rate of those who were actually infected.
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So you actually found a case where a vaccine triggered an autoimmune reaction. Well, provided that at the same time that the antibodies exist in the body there's also a severe infection going on that makes the blood-brain barrier permeable for the antibodies, of course. This might also explain the fairly low number of people affected compared to the number vaccinated.
Vaccines are no silver bullets. Yes, they can have side effects. Which is the reason why I decided against a vaccination against H1N1. It's a
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The use of the weasel passive voice is typical, and damning. "Judged" by whom?
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Here is what I found about this incident : https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesaf... [cdc.gov] , also the EU-wide analysis https://ecdc.europa.eu/sites/p... [europa.eu]
I could not find clear conclusions.
Also the fact that Sweden settled with 10M SEK per individual is a terrible idea since it makes people think they admit the vaccine is at fault, where in fact they just don't want to waste their time battling a PR disaster.
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Ah, I see. So you've somehow managed to 'evolve' the ability to have your completely natural biological brain connect to the Internet without a computer, from your lean-to shelter out in the woods somewhere, to post your comment? I'd say 'you should write a book about that' but books are unnatural so you won't do that will you?
Also you're likely not much older than, say, 20, because without any immunizations or medical intervention of any kind, even the simplest of illnesses would have
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Additionally, does the evidence exist that vaccine is completely safe and carry no underlying problem?
You're not familiar with how science works, are you? Or medicine. Or, indeed, life, which offers us no risk-free choices.
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There is nothing risk-free that you can put into your body that could remotely be considered medicine. You could develop a rash from the topical cream you apply. There are also different vaccines with different histories and hence different levels of risk. In general, you will run a higher risk of side effects, especially unknown side effects, if you use a vaccine that has only been developed recently, which is the case with flu vaccines since they have to be redone annually. The influenza virus mutates at
So what.. let them spout their ignorace. (Score:2)
When their kids start dying, maybe they'll get a Clue. "buh buh buh you TOLD me vax are bad! You TOLD me my precious would develop immunities towards all these diseases!"
If not, then their genes are retired from the pool. Win.
Sounds cruel and cold, but this is natural selection. Weed out the crackpot conspiracists.
The scary part is their walking timebomb offspring will affect others. That's what truly makes the antivaxxers dangerous.
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Sure. Let's shred our civil liberties "for the children".
This whole narrative is shameless spin demonizing tools that allow individuals freedom to exercise free will.
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Sure. Let's shred our civil liberties "for the children".
Re-read what I said. I'm advocating for them not to be slienced.
They will silence themselves when their offspring starts dying from preventable, avoidable diseases.
Clear this time?
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Rest assured that they will suddenly start demanding that you save their little precious. If they'd just die quietly, I wouldn't complain so much.
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When their kids start dying, maybe they'll get a Clue.
And when your kid that can't be vaccinated dies, you'll just shrug your shoulders and hope they got a Clue?
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And when your kid that can't be vaccinated dies, you'll just shrug your shoulders and hope they got a Clue?
Wait, you're putting a hypothetical that I have a child that can't be vaccinated against X, and the kid dies from X, would that make me shrug my shoulders and hope they (the antivaxxers) got a Clue?
I may actually do a bit more than just shrug my shoulders, I would be distraught, angry, I imagine. Really pissed off. I would want them (the antivaxxers) to wake the fuck up and realize that their retardation is killing others (which is the argument I'm making, in case it escaped your notice)
Would I go after
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If they could only off their own spawn that way, I'd say let them.
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Anti-vaccination propaganda kills people. People who would have lived are dead because people reject science.
And that, right there, will do what book-bannings will never do - pit the majority of the world against a relatively smaller number of crackpots -- and the thieves who take their money.
It's about the money, not about the kids. Antivaxxer authors and the stores that sell them want to make money, and will do anything to that end -- same as any other business.
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Dead kids can't fuck.
Free Market (Score:2)
Anti-vax sells! (Score:5, Interesting)
How many people love to write a conspiracy-laden book about evil corporations and doctors, and promise enlightenment by not following that path?
My guess is the latter.
Is that really Amazon's fault that there are more Anti-Vax books than Pro-Vax? My guess is any brick-and-mortar book store would contain the same.
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How many people write and buy pro-vaccination books? How many people love to write a conspiracy-laden book about evil corporations and doctors, and promise enlightenment by not following that path?
My guess is the latter.
Is that really Amazon's fault that there are more Anti-Vax books than Pro-Vax? My guess is any brick-and-mortar book store would contain the same.
This is true about a lot of things.
Anti-anti-depressants sells, for example. How many people write pro-anti-depressant (popular) books? It's much more exciting to think there's a grand conspiracy.
Do you have right to charge for False Information? (Score:2)
While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children, I have a problem from people deliberately being paid for distributing false information to push a viewpoint.
If people believe so vehemently that vaccination is wrong and want to express their viewpoint fine, but unless they have verifiable, peer-reviewed, replicated information, then they should not be allowed to profit financially from it.
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While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children
Like to bring back ancient Greek man-boy love? Or to sell off their daughters at tween ages?
Let us not pretend that parents always have their children's best interests in mind.
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While I believe that parents should have the right to choose what is right for their children,
Like genital mutilation ?
Not Theories! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some people believe that corporations have infiltrated CDC and the AAP to create guaranteed demand for vaccines which would otherwise be unprofitable. Some people believe that any public health benefit is beside the point, and profit is the only thing that matters to the CDC and AAP. Even if there are elements of truth to that, it still represents a conspiracy theory, does it not? It is not all just about autism, you know. There are even more elaborate conspiracy theories, surrounding vaccines. But I don't
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1) A coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity.
2) A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
3) Mathematics . a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory.
If conspiracies want to be promoted to theories, they need fulfill the the definition of theory. A theory is not something pulled of the air, and asserted without fact or evidence, which is how it's used when it's appended to conspiracy. If a conspiracy get promoted to theory, it isn't a conspiracy, so you can't even have a conspiracy theory, it's nonsensical statement.
Hardly Thriving (Score:2)
There's 15 results for anti-vaccination when you search for vaccination. While it's the majority of the search results I don't think one could call 15 results out of the millions of books Amazon carries to be thriving.
The only thing that I might object to is if Amazon lets sponsored posts link to objectionable content such as anti-vaccination books.
If you don't like it go write your own book (Score:2)
If you don't like what you read in a book, then go write your own book, or create an organization to promulgate your correct thinking point of view. Sometimes I think people want to give up a thousand years of hard-won individual freedoms just because they are more worried about social justice or correct thinking about vaccines than they are about basic individual freedom.
this will end badly (Score:2)
All this censorship is not a good way to go.
Yes, with the vaccination stuff, I think the goal is good. That's not the point. Free speech protection isn't needed for the viewpoints that all the "right" people think are good.
The day will come when the ascendant viewpoint is not something that you think is right or good. And it will be you who isn't going to be allowed to say anything against it. But by then, it will be too late.
Wrong headline (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a more accurate headline would have been "Anti-Vaccination Conspiracy Theories Remain Popular and Lucrative - Amazon Marketplace Reflects This". And, for that matter, it's not limited to anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. Societies have always had problems with people who are all too willing to believe what they want to believe regardless of evidence to the contrary, and others willing to exploit those people for money.
When your mirror shows you something that upsets you, the correct solution is not to try to bend the mirror.
Extremely scary (Score:2)
Notice how the implication in these things is that these companies must *police truth*. This is a book store that has made itself a huge force in the bookselling market- so much so that it moved on to pretty much any other physical object you may wish to buy.
And now it is being called on to ascertain that certain political movements are banned? I'm sure they'll start with the wrong ones, but you'd be a fool to think they'll end there too.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually smoking is a really good comparison because failure to vaccinate harms not just the individual who doesn't have a vaccine but people around them. Here immunity is important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity [wikipedia.org].
You meant "herd" immunity
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Under ideal circumstances a vaccine makes you immune. More commonly it gives your immune system a boost, a head start against a disease which can protect you from severe symptoms that leave you mutilated or dead. By extension vaccination reduces the chance that disease spreads by minimizing the time frame in which a carrier is also a vector.
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Everything I've read and heard, the concern is that babies who can't be vaccinated and folks who have compromised immune systems are the ones being impacted by the anti-vaxxers. The most recent articles are the teenagers and young adults who have not been vaccinated are going behind their parents backs to get vaccinated. I've not read about any vaccinated people getting diseases from the non-vaccinated. Even a quick google search shows the same results. It's the folks who aren't vaccinated or who can't get
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Everything I've read and heard, the concern is that babies who can't be vaccinated and folks who have compromised immune systems are the ones being impacted by the anti-vaxxers. The most recent articles are the teenagers and young adults who have not been vaccinated are going behind their parents backs to get vaccinated. I've not read about any vaccinated people getting diseases from the non-vaccinated. Even a quick google search shows the same results. It's the folks who aren't vaccinated or who can't get vaccinated who are being impacted by the anti-vaxxers.
[John]
I guess that explains why it's such a topic for Hollywood
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No, herd immunity is not just unvaccinated people getting protected, although it includes that category. And unvaccinated people are not just adults who have chosen not to vaccinate themselves despite being able to be vaccinated. People are unvaccinated because they are newborn babies, are immunocompromised eg are being treated for childhood cancers, are elderly, etc etc.
Did you really think your argument was even vaguely compelling? You sound like someone claiming a plane couldn't possibly fly because it w
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The category of "unvaccinated people" includes people with unusual medical conditions who can't be vaccinated or can't be vaccinated on the usual vaccination schedules, and people who have literally been vaccinated but for whom the vaccine didn't work for whatever the reason.
Herd immunity is meant to protect them.
IMHO, most of the anti-vaxxers fall into the category of people who think they're gaining some advantage by not vaccinating while also simultaneously believing their risk is close to zero because e
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2. No, not everyone who doesn't get a vaccine did it by choice. Some people with certain allergies can't have certain vaccines.
That's were herd immunity comes in, we are trying to protect THOSE people. By electing to not inoculate your children, you lower the effectiveness of herd immunity by skewing the coverage group in the wrong direction. Unfortunately though, your "choice" can endanger the
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
As for vaccines not working, when was the last time you heard about polio epidemics in western countries? Measles was all but eliminated in the US before the anti-vax movement. It's still early days but we are also already seeing positive results from HPV vaccination campaigns as well. Going back to my first statistic, around 80% of the deaths in healthy children from the flu each year is in non-vaccinated kids. 4 out of every 5.
It's a bold face lie to say vaccines do not work.
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Annually, about 20% of flu deaths in otherwise healthy children (so kids without other conditions that would make them particularly vulnerable) in the US are children who were properly vaccinated.
This isn't quite the same issue. The more common reason that people get influenza after being vaccinated is that there is no single influenza virus. Each year, the flu shot includes the strains that medical professionals predict to be the most common, and it's very difficult to get that prediction correct.
So you have to also include the question of how many of those 20% died from an influenza strain that was part of the vaccine that year. It's almost certainly greater than zero since, as you said, no vac
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Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Physician here. Arguably, no intervention is health care is 100% effective.
It is maddening that anti-vaxxers say vaccines are not 100% effective so they are ineffective. It is flawed logic. Effective means it makes a difference when studied in a large group of people. Not effective means it has no effect on a large study group.
Many interventions in health care have numbers needed to treat (NNT) in the 10 or even 100 range to create one positive outcome. These are effective interventions. Vaccines are highly effective compared to most other interventions done in healthcare. Finding effective interventions in health care is hard.
On the other hand, antivaxxers and the like often push vitamins, herbs, adjustments, accupuncture and all sorts of other interventions that have no proven efficacy or even have been proven to have no efficacy (NNT is infinity!). There logic is literally backwards.
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On the other hand, antivaxxers and the like often push vitamins, herbs, adjustments, accupuncture and all sorts of other interventions that have no proven efficacy or even have been proven to have no efficacy (NNT is infinity!). There logic is literally backwards.
This always gets me. They argue on the one had about the mulitbillion dollar pharma industry can't be trusted because they put profits above health, then suck up the completely unproven BS from the multibillion dollar supplement industry.
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Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.
Wrong. There are babies who are too young to be vaccinated yet, and there are babies who for some reason such as having compromised immune systems can't be vaccinated.
These are the people at risk.
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Vaccines are 95ish percent effective (varies by vaccine). And no, that isn't some big new discovery. We have always known that vaccines don't always work. Herd immunity protects the 5%ish where the vaccine just doesn't work.
As well as the immunocompromised and those too young to get the vaccine.
So no, antivaxxers are not just harming themselves....in fact they are usually vaccinated themselves so they're actually harming their children. In addition, there's a lot of other people put at risk when antivax
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
THIS!
I've argued with the Anti-Vaxx militants, they are seriously long on opinion and very short on knowledge and caring about anybody including their own children.
Measles is a SERIOUS illness for babies not yet born or to young to be vaccinated. It may not be as serious as it used to be, when it killed 1 in 10K or so, but it can still kill. It still causes serious illness, high fevers, and sends kids to the hospital with frightening frequency. It is VERY easy to transmit and extremely hard to avoid exposure for the unvaccinated.
The problem here is that the Anti-Vaxx lobby have a whole host of "The MMR vaccine causes X" statements which are absolute hogwash. I've heard it causes autism, SIDS and all sorts of childhood illnesses. NONE of these theories are borne out in the scientific studies, none. Yet they keep pushing them, scaring the young impressionable parent who think they are doing right by their kids by refusing the vaccines in their religious like fervor.
The MMR vaccine is highly effective if administered as directed. It is also safe, compared to the alternative.
What's missing here is that most parents don't have any experience with any of these nasty childhood illnesses. The vaccines have been so very effective that nobody remembers what polio was or how unpleasant Measles really is for children. They have no idea what they are avoiding, so the minimal risks associated with the vaccine look huge in comparison.
I wonder if the whole anti-vaxx thing would die on the vine if some illness like Measles was running rampant, kids where routinely getting seriously ill, some where hospitalized and even a few died? I think it would and quick. The Anti-Vaxx Zealots would be relegated to the tin-foil hat conspiracy level and laughed at like the flat earth folks, because THAT's exactly what they really are.
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Measles still has a mortality of 1 in 10k, with 1 in 1k suffering permanent severe effects. And unfortunately I'm not old enough to get vaccinated back when I was a kid, so I went through the whole MMR routine. I survived, as you can see. But I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. Even if there wasn't a fairly high chance of lasting effects, it's something you should protect your kids from if you can.
Do anti-vaxxers hate their kids that much that they want them to get sick?
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Measles still has a mortality of 1 in 10k, with 1 in 1k suffering permanent severe effects. And unfortunately I'm not old enough to get vaccinated back when I was a kid, so I went through the whole MMR routine. I survived, as you can see. But I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. Even if there wasn't a fairly high chance of lasting effects, it's something you should protect your kids from if you can.
Do anti-vaxxers hate their kids that much that they want them to get sick?
Well.... I'm going to be fair and say they are motivated to keep their kids from harm, but the Anti Vaxxers are woefully informed about the *actual* risks and are falling prey to the religious zealot like cult of anti-vaccines.
Most are woefully informed even about their own arguments and are caught up in the emotional content of all the sob story anecdotal evidence (both real and just imagined) about how some kid got the MMR vaccine and then got diagnosed with Autism or dies from SIDS. Where the stories ma
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Well, a dead kid sure is less work than an autistic kid, I can see their motivation...
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Herd Immunity is un-vaccinated people being protected by vaccinated people. The idea is that if there are enough immune people around that the virus can't exist. So, how does that explain vaccinated people getting sick? Because that is what anti-vax people are getting blamed for.
If vaccines work as advertised, the only people anti-vaxers are POTENTIALLY hurting is themselves. The truth is that vaccines don't work, and they need a scapegoat.
Do you have any evidence that vaccinated people catching the diseases for which they were vaccinated is widespread? I doubt it, but it would be good to see it if you have it.
I believe with one of the latest measles outbreaks there were something like 50-150 people sickened, 2 of whom had been vaccinated while the rest were unvaccinated.
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If innocent children suffer or die because medical advice was not followed, the problem did not solve itself
Adults can decline care for themselves all they want, fine.
But withholding proven preventative care from children should be deemed reckless and punished accordingly.
Just like we punish parents who malnourish their children to death because of their (parents') crazy vegan beliefs.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
When my youngest son was two weeks old he developed whooping cough while on a trip to visit my parents. I remember him going from slight cough to blue lips in about an hour. I will never forget the desperate trip to the local hospital, the ambulance to the slightly larger regional hospital, and the air ambulance trip to the major center. We were lucky, my son is still with us and healthy today. But it was touch and go.
There is some question of how he contracted it, but still the most likely vector is from someone who was unvaccinated. The church I attended at the time was quite conservative and vaccination conspiracy theories were pretty popular then.
If vaccination conspiracy nuts only hurt themselves, I would tend to agree. But there are many diseases that you can't vaccinate for right away. Plus, remember, it's not the conspiracy nut who is the one hurt in any case. It's the conspiracy nut's innocent children. They don't deserve deadly diseases, or the knowledge that they passed on a lethal disease to an infant.
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Actually the problem will not solve itself.
They are people people who are not vaccinated for legitimate health concerns from the vaccines, they can get sick from the normal healthy person who gets sick, because they were stupid.
Also with almost every health problem, we need to pay for other people getting ill, even in a Multi-payer health system.
Your insurance rates are high, because the insurance company needs to pay for the sick people (often from preventable illnesses). Those without Insurances, will of
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Who cares? The problem will solve itself, like smoking, or obesity or basically anything else along those lines.
I care, Anonymous Coward, for two reasons -
1) Vaccinations don't work 100% - For them to work you need "herd immunity." While it's true my kids are fully vaccinated, it's possible that for whatever biochemical reason a particular vaccine they got didn't work. By having everyone around them also vaccinated, it means they're also protected. Ironically, this "herd immunity" is why up to rece
Godwin wins again [Re:A great leader once ban...] (Score:2)
You managed to Godwin the discussion by post number two. Chill a little, dude.
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Hitler didn't invent book burnings. He just made a spectacle out of it.
Religions all over the world have done so far, far longer than any nationalism existed.
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His name was Hitler and he knew what was right and what was wrong.
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He was a Johnny-come-lately imitator to book banning politicians. That list starts in the mid 1500's about a year after moveable type was invented.
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Re:Ignorance is strength (Score:5, Interesting)
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery. Welcome to our brave new world where it is 'common sense' to ban everything that doesn't fall in the 'consensus'.
The word "ban" is nowhere in the article.
Your argument seems to be that any discussion whatsoever of what is sold by Amazon can have no purpose other than resulting in a call for banning books. Therefore, even if banning books is not mentioned at all, you will react as if it was a proposal to ban books.
By attempting to shut down discussion of something that you think might lead maybe to somebody expressing an opinion you don't like... you are the example of what you criticize.
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Should a Christian book store be forced to carry Christopher Hitchens or Salman Rushdie books?
Amazon is free to stock and promote what Amazon wants to stock and promote -- the same as any other business. The first amendment protects against government interference in speech -- and it's what Orwell warned us about -- not the ability of a sovereign merchant to choose the products they sell.
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Ignorance is strength ...
Is it me or is it highly ironic to read this statement here? From someone defending idiots digging themselves deeper into their "but I wanna believe this bullshit" bubble.
Re:Ignorance is strength (Score:4, Insightful)
Assumption... is wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
...Also, I will certainly never get a vaccine shot with aluminium or mercury in it.
They stopped using Thimerosal in pediatric vaccines in 2000.
If you want to avoid mercury exposure, don't eat fish.
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Check again.
Thiomersal was used in Pandemrix.
Also, I don't eat fish.
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Author of TFA assumes all vaccinations are 100% safe.
Exciting claim! Just do us all a little favour and quote any specific sentence you care to from TFA that backs up your contention, if you don't mind. Because it would be quite disingenuous, wouldn't it, to make a claim that the author believed something spurious and absurd like "100% safe" without having some actual specific evidence to show that was the case. It would, in fact, be a risible strawman, wouldn't it?
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No medication is 100% safe. Nothing that changes anything can be 100% safe. If you want safe go for homeopathy which if properly prepared is 100% safe - but it of course doesn't do shit.
You get more mercury from food in a week than from a vaccine injection. I guess you'll stop eating too?
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we measured the total mercury concentration in vegetables and grain crops collected from farms located near two coal-fired power plants. We found that 79% of vegetable samples and 67% of grain samples exceeded the PTWI’s food safety standards
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Arsenic in rice is also very common.
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You just proved you are an idiot. Yes the body can produce antibodies to the REAL virus however with a much weaker response, the vaccine allow the immune system to learn how to identify the REAL virus before being infected. This is something you should have learned in school however I guess you are home-schooled?
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Say, did people also have polio? Or smallpox?
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Yeah these outbreaks have nothing to do with the massive unchecked immigration from the 3rd world.
Exactly. Finally an AC that isn't a shit-slinging moron! /s
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Really? People fled TO the Ukraine [sciencemag.org].
Where did they come from? Elbonia?
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For example if a new parent starts buying baby things, and looking for books on child health, do these books get suggested?
Its entirely possible. If it doesn't happen today, then it could happen tomorrow.
Perhaps one way people can have their say is that pro-vaccers could borrow the content from another source, such as a library,
or borrow or buy a used copy from someone who already owns the book
(To avoid purchasing on Amazon and contributing to boosting sales of product), and then write Helpful 1-sta
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Sadly, skepticism has turned into "The (insert random boogeyman here) say A, so I rather believe B without reason because it MUST be true!"
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The USA is based on the freedom to be as stupid as you want to be, then sue someone for your own stupidity and hope that you find 12 dimwits too stupid to weasel out of jury duty to think "that could have been me!"
That's the new American dream, people!
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When nearly every single doctor on the planet says that vaccines help more than harm, by orders of magnitude, then the opinions of a vocal minority should not hold nearly the weight of that given by the people whose job it is to know such things. Sure, research both sides, but don't expect a mom's 15 minute search on the internet to be "equal and fair" to what is being presented by a licensed medical professional.