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Wow! That is so nice- I bet the parents of autistic children here just loved this
Not everyone is cut out to have a defective kid. Personally if I were pregnant and found out my kid was going to have Downs or something, I'd abort. I don't have the temperament to deal with an impaired kid for the rest of my life.
Not everyone is cut out to have a defective kid. Personally if I were pregnant and found out my kid was going to have Downs or something, I'd abort. I don't have the temperament to deal with an impaired kid for the rest of my life.
Then you dont have the temperament to deal with having kids at all.
Defective is also a very offensive word. No kid is "defective". My television is defective not my neice or nephew.
Last edited by cheerbaby112; 09-15-2010 at 12:31 PM..
Risk is a combination of many factors. While a disease's virulence and communicability may be agnostic, other factors may lower any person's probability of being exposed and contracting the disease and the severity with which they suffer from it if they do contract it.
I am not sure what you mean by a disease being "agnostic". Sure, there are variations in risk of exposure and individuals' resistance, but these are unpredictable. there is no way to predict who will get a mild case of chickenpox and who will get pneumonia.
Many people in the us do not get a malaria vaccine. Why? Because malaria is not considered a significant risk here. Unless they travel overseas to an "at risk" country, they usually don't bother even though contracting malaria *can* cause extreme suffering up to and including death.
Well, there is no malaria vaccine widely available yet. There is a vaccine in Phase III trials, however. Most travelers take prophylactic antimalarial medication, not a vaccine.
The same factor would hold true for families, like mine, who live remotely enough that we are bio-isolated for the most part through distance and limited exposure to large groups of potentially infected people. Some diseases are just not even a significant threat due to our climate... the transmission vectors simply do not survive or survive long enough for vaccination to be anywhere near a reasonable risk.
Maybe true if you never leave your homestead, never get on an airplane, never send your children to school where they are exposed to other children who are not as isolated.
Also, having contracted and survived other infections and diseases that could have provided you a natural resistance/immunity to one or more of the diseases in the vaccine. If you have already had chicken pox, or measles, or pertussis, or cow pox what purpose does taking a vaccine serve? None. You already have the immunity.
The whole purpose of giving the vaccine is to prevent the natural infection. Obviously, if you have had the natural infection, the vaccine is redundant, except in the case of chickenpox, in which the adult vaccine reduces the risk of shingles.
Certain medical conditions, to include nutrition-related issues, can predispose patients to an increased risk of having a more severe form of the illness than others. If you do not fall into those categories, than your risk is often lower then the "average" statistics.
Say what? Risks apply to groups, not individuals, but you cannot say that just because you have no underlying disease that your risk is "less than average". It could also be average or greater than average.
It's all about individual risk assessment on a case-by-case basis. If you weigh the risks, and determine that vaccination is the best course then do so. If you weigh the risks and determine that vaccination is not the best course then don't. It's perfectly acceptable to take some and not others, especially if you have discussed this with your healthcare provider. There is no legal, moral, or ethical mandate that forces you take each and every vaccine that is made available regardless of whether it is appropriate.
The bottom line is that for the diseases for which vaccines are available, unvaccinated folks are at risk. By not vaccinating, you are accepting the risk, but you are also requiring that those who do vaccinate accept the burden of reducing your risk, and you put other unvaccinated folks at risk if you do get sick and expose them. Perhaps you do not vaccinate your otherwise healthy child against chickenpox, your child gets it and infects a child with cancer, who could not be vaccinated because of his illness. The child with the cancer dies because of the chickenpox. How would you feel then? So, I believe there are ethical issues in not vaccinating because you feel the natural illness is no big deal.By the way, my son had shingles while he was on chemo for his leukemia. Treating it was a big deal.
Would you give your child some other medication that you and your healthcare professional didn't think was necessary -- not that there was a medical reason NOT TO, but that there was no medical reason TO -- just because everyone else was giving it to their kids?
I believe this is an apples to oranges comparison not germane to the discussion.
Agnostic -- the disease is not sentient, it occurs randomly without bias.
I never said, and certainly do not believe, that contracting these illnesses is 'no big deal'. For those that contract them and present with the severe/severest forms of the illness I know it most certainly is a big deal. However, for many of these diseases the chances that you will contract the illness and have it permanently maim you or kill you is normally very low in a reasonably hygenic environment... even when you aren't vaccinated. (*many - not all*)
Take polio for instance - CDC reports that 90-95% of (unvaccinated) people exposed to poliovirus experience no symptoms, 4-5% experience flu-like symptoms, 1-2% suffer aseptic meningitis, and 0.1-0.5% experience poliomyelitis which can disfigure and/or kill.
I'm not saying not to get a polio vaccine. I'm not saying that polio isn't a terrible disease. I'm not saying that polio can't maim or kill you. I'm only saying, that given the data, your chances of contracting polio, especially in it's worst forms, are fairly low.
The herd immunity theory, and erradicating the disease entirely through vaccination, goes completely out the window when, like polio, the disease can be carried and transmitted by animals.
Agnostic -- the disease is not sentient, it occurs randomly without bias.
I never said, and certainly do not believe, that contracting these illnesses is 'no big deal'. For those that contract them and present with the severe/severest forms of the illness I know it most certainly is a big deal. However, for many of these diseases the chances that you will contract the illness and have it permanently maim you or kill you is normally very low in a reasonably hygenic environment... even when you aren't vaccinated. (*many - not all*)
Take polio for instance - CDC reports that 90-95% of (unvaccinated) people exposed to poliovirus experience no symptoms, 4-5% experience flu-like symptoms, 1-2% suffer aseptic meningitis, and 0.1-0.5% experience poliomyelitis which can disfigure and/or kill.
I'm not saying not to get a polio vaccine. I'm not saying that polio isn't a terrible disease. I'm not saying that polio can't maim or kill you. I'm only saying, that given the data, your chances of contracting polio, especially in it's worst forms, are fairly low.
The herd immunity theory, and erradicating the disease entirely through vaccination, goes completely out the window when, like polio, the disease can be carried and transmitted by animals.
Where exactly are you getting your info??
Polio is NOT transmitted or carried by animals....it is human to human transmission only...it can be transmitted by contaminated water but only if comtaminated with human feces of an infected individual. There aren't animal reservoirs...at least not that risk human exposure.
Herd immunity would have nothing to do with animal reservoirs even if they did exist...
Polio IS close to being fully eradicated due to vaccine programs...
Also, your data about the "risks" of contracting polio is misleading...or wrong actually
Those CDC figures don't refer to one's risk of contracting polio if exposed....those figures refer to the likely course of the disease in someone who IS INFECTED....not potential for infection.
And its about 1% of those who contract the disease that develop flaccid paralysis....NOT an insignificant number if there were an outbreak.
The link between thimerosal and autism has been looked into but there are other factors and theories that have yet to be looked into.
Yes, including the "Cherry Koolaid" one. In this case "Cherry Koolaid" is representing countless other factors that may be contributing to autism. People are viciously hanging onto the vaccine link even though studies say otherwise. I think they are hoping vaccines are found to be a cause becasue "Cheery Koolaid" is far too vast to worry about. It's easier to say no to vac's than have to face "Cherry Koolaid".
My childhood neighbor contracted poliovirus from his rabbits -- the health inspectors came and did the whole investigation. Turned out the pet store had sold him previous lab animals. But outside humans, polio does not naturally infect other species, not even other higher primates... but with all the testing we do, there is a reservoir in our lab animals. If we don't destroy every one of them once we're done testing on them, it can and does become a disease vector.
The data cited for poliomyelitis came from: Atkinson W, Hamborsky J, McIntyre L, Wolfe S (eds.) (2007). Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (The Pink Book) (10th ed.). Washington DC: Public Health Foundation. pp. 101–14.
The numbers given were outcomes for exposed persons. Since poliovirus is/was a naturally occuring pathogen... one could reasonably assume there is/was a good chance of 100% exposure rate.
Trying to find some GOOD information on the statistics of countries that don't do as many vaccinations as we do & the autism rates, but can't find any reliable links. I am not 100% convinced by the studies done so far that "prove" vaccinations don't cause autism. Are we to assume that ALL of the parents who claim they took their children in for shots and afterwards the children were totally different are LYING? That seems kind of far fetched to me.
(For the record, all my 4 kids are vaccinated, no autism in the family that we know of. )
Another thing I am having a hard time finding ( & I refuse to use Info wars or Whale as a reliable source) is that there is a unusually low rate of Autism in the Amish community. Is this true?
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