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I will thank you for posting this. Too many are very ignorant of acquired natural immunity, not to mention the cause of "Downs". Yes, pregnant women were tested for Rubella antibodies, but not for other diseases like measles. I cannot speak for all of our parents back in those days, but my parents certainly told me what diseases I had in childhood, most likely because I was too young to remember them myself.
Pregnant women were (and are) tested for rubella because of the significant risk during pregnancy. It does not matter whether their immunity is from having had the disease or because they were vaccinated, and most women who are now of childbearing age are immune because of the vaccine, not because they have had rubella. Rubella was declared eliminated in the US in 2005 and from all the Americas a few years later. We still vaccinate for it because of the risk of importation from countries where the virus does still circulate.
In addition, screening for chickenpox immunity is also advised, because it can cause significant risk for a pregnant woman herself as well as infection for her fetus or newborn, depending on when she catches it.
Ideally a woman planning a pregnancy would be tested for rubella and chickenpox prior to getting pregnant and take the vaccine before conception if not already immune.
I'll go with the vaccines. Measles is not something you don't have to fear. Long ago, I was living in a third world country during the first few years of my daughter's life. The government of that country had banned Measles vaccines and the stories of what can happen to the children who have it are absolutely chilling. My DD was exposed to Measles (it's highly contagious...just being in the same building as a child who was sick caused her to catch it) and I lived in fear until she recovered. She was lucky! Other children over there were not. We returned to the USA as soon as we could get out. CDC - Measles Fact Sheet for Parents - Vaccines
The question we should also ask, should the makers of vaccines be held liable when their product fails? Should they be held liable when the efficacy of the product is not as great as claimed? Should they be held liable when people fall prey to serious side effects including death? As of now it's extremely difficult, if not impossible to hold these companies responsible in these types of events.
There is a federal law which protects the vaccine manufacturers of course.
If they had to set aside money to defend themselves in regards to those claims, the price of the shots would be much higher and fewer new shots would be developed as they would have to engage in a lot more testing of the product. Flu shots would become totally unavailable, due to the fact that a new one has to be formulated each year.
The government has decided that inexpensive and available vaccines are worth inconveniencing or even killing a small minority of customers.
I'll go with the vaccines. Measles is not something you don't have to fear.
I had both the 3 day (German) and 14 day measles when I was a kid, and I didn't have any fear of it. Just rested up, took a week or so off from school and was none the worse for wear.
It has not been looked at as thoroughly as you pretend. People have real concerns and they don't need to justify those concerns to you or anyone else for that matter. People have the right to refuse getting injected with vaccines.
The government does mandate vaccines for school children. What more do you want? It seems you won't be satisfied unless there is 100% compliance among all children, public, private homeschooled, etc. I'd bet you'd support mandatory vaccines for all adults as well. What consequence would you like to impose in adults? How far would you like to go with this?
The vaccine autism connection has been studied well past the point that scientists who are knowledgeable about immunology and vaccines are convinced there is no connection. You can believe stories on the internet from parents who have bought the anti-vax propaganda if you wish. I choose to believe the experts. I would be ecstatic if we could get near 100% compliance with childhood vaccinations. We will never get 100% because there are people with valid contraindications to being vaccinated.
Yes, adults need to be vaccinated, too. I am fully vaccinated, including the shingles, pneumonia, and Dtap vaccines. The risk that I would have a significant reaction to any of those is tiny, much less than the risks of the diseases themselves. Refusal of vaccines (for adults and children) for healthy people is based on ignorance and an inability to evaluate the risk to benefit equation. The anti-vaccination gurus have to protect their income stream from their books, lectures, CDs, and supplements. Many of them have children with autism, and accepting that the cause is genetic, not vaccines, would undermine their entire anti-vax empire.
Vaccination should be mandatory for anyone who works with children and anyone who works in health care. You can decide whether your job or refusal of the vaccine is more important to you.
Employers should be able to require vaccinations, too, since illness affects productivity and the bottom line of the business. Again, you decide if you want to keep your job or refuse the vaccine.
Vaccination for measles should be required for entry into the US, for both citizens and visitors. If you are a citizen, you can decide whether foreign travel or refusal of the vaccine is more important to you.
Finally, I support the option to sue for damages if you are unvaccinated and I get severely ill because you gave me a preventable illness. If you are vaccinated, I would presume you had done what you could to prevent yourself from getting sick. Anyone, vaccinated or not, who knowingly exposes others when he knows he is sick should be liable for any damage he causes. If you bring your kid with chickenpox to the grocery store or the park or even to the doctor's office without arranging for your child to bypass the waiting room, there should be consequences.
Mark has a good post up thread about the criteria that would be needed to successfully sue someone. Certainly you need to be able to demonstrate that the person you are suing is indeed the one who gave it to you. These days there are ways to do that.
Finally, I support the option to sue for damages if you are unvaccinated and I get severely ill because you gave me a preventable illness. If you are vaccinated, I would presume you had done what you could to prevent yourself from getting sick. Anyone, vaccinated or not, who knowingly exposes others when he knows he is sick should be liable for any damage he causes. If you bring your kid with chickenpox to the grocery store or the park or even to the doctor's office without arranging for your child to bypass the waiting room, there should be consequences.
How would you prove that the vaccine would have worked for the person if they had gotten it? No vaccine is 100%. Are you saying that I can sue the people who knowingly exposed my kids to strep and norovirus?
How would you prove that the vaccine would have worked for the person if they had gotten it? No vaccine is 100%. Are you saying that I can sue the people who knowingly exposed my kids to strep and norovirus?
I already said that if a person who is vaccinated gets sick, he has done what he could to protect himself and others.
There are no vaccines for strep and norovirus. If someone (vaccinated or not) knows he has one of those diseases and knowingly exposes you to it and you become seriously ill (think hospitalized), yes I think you should be able to sue them. If you knowingly expose your child with chickenpox to another child and your kid gets well but the one you exposed ends up in the hospital and perhaps dies, how are you no less liable than if you drove drunk and killed someone's child in an automobile wreck?
There are already lawsuits about norovirus.
If you do not vaccinate your child, you need to know the signs and symptoms of every vaccine preventable disease and you have a duty to keep your child at home if he is sick.
I already said that if a person who is vaccinated gets sick, he has done what he could to protect himself and others.
What else can people do to protect themselves? Have they done everything they possibly can to avoid getting sick and suffering serious complications? Should they have stayed home during flu season? Did they eat enough fruit and vegetables? Did they avoid sugar and other unhealthy foods? Did they get enough sleep? Did they manage stress well enough?
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There are no vaccines for strep and norovirus. If someone (vaccinated or not) knows he has one of those diseases and knowingly exposes you to it and you become seriously ill (think hospitalized), yes I think you should be able to sue them. If you knowingly expose your child with chickenpox to another child and your kid gets well but the one you exposed ends up in the hospital and perhaps dies, how are you no less liable than if you drove drunk and killed someone's child in an automobile wreck?
In your post so you said, vaccinated or not so that is why I used the examples of strep and norovirus. I disagree about being able to sue for getting sick. It's very different then a drunk driving accident. It's basically a healthcare choice and people do have the right to say no when it comes to injecting things into their body.
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There are already lawsuits about norovirus.
What kind of lawsuits?
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If you do not vaccinate your child, you need to know the signs and symptoms of every vaccine preventable disease and you have a duty to keep your child at home if he is sick.
Everyone should know the symptoms of all preventable disease and make a concerted effort to not expose others. No matter what though, people will still get sick. There is no escaping illness unless you lock yourself up into a bubble and even then, it's questionable.
Of course they are liable. But first they are victims of other anti-vaxers!
Related anecdote: almost 20 years ago I asked my bio teacher "are you sure your body can handle putting all of those vitamins [in a multi-vitamin] at once? She looked at me like I was cray cray, but it seemed like common sense to me.
Turns out I recently got diagnosed with severe iron definiency. Funny thing is- calcium impairs iron absorbing. We also know now that too much copper may throw off your zinc. You need vitamin D to absorb the calcium you take, etc.
My best semi-educated guess on this is that common sense tells us that putting up to 30 dead viruses in a kid at a time is not the smartest thing to do. Some, even a very few, might get sick from this and apparently most do not. Some smokers will get lung cancer, some wont, and even some nonsmokers will. Few are allergic to penicillin, most are not, etc.
In a perfect world we would space the vaxxes out "just in case."
I mean seriously, what is stopping big pharma from doing studies with a control group of "current Vax schedule" vs a few experimental groups to see what happens when some are given in different combos and intervals.
We may also wanna reconsider if *all* of the current vaxxes are nessesary. Hep B? Chicken pox? And dozens more yet my insurance won't pay for Gardisil because I'm over 27 and they "assume" I've already been exposed to HPV even if I'm a virgin.
A lot of stuff in the Vax world make no sense on the surface so it does make you wonder what the real motive in this for- profit industry is.
Further thinking.... much of mental illness (ie, neurological disorders with a misleading category name) is now thought to be due to INFLAMMATION. Some studies also show a correlation between inflammation and autism.
I'm assuming vaccines cause inflammation in the body for a short time. This is why people feel sometimes like they have the flu after a flu shot.
If it hasn't already been done, I would like to *at least* see a correlational data set including the following:
Current autism symptoms (if any)
Time between each Vax
Blood type
Season of vaccine
HLA typing (a stretch but would be nice)
First degree relative reactions
Etc
I'm sure parents and nurses could make a better list.
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