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Nope. 40 years ago stepped on a nail in a cemetery. Pulled it out myself and put peroxide on it. 30 years ago my kids ripped off my toenail opening screen door. Never went to a doctor who I am sure would have wanted me to get Tetanus (TD or Tdap today) shot for both of those.
Oh, forget countless times over decades cutting myself on cans and kitchen knives. What LUCK! I cannot believe you people.
Edit: Frostnip, my 70 year old husband last week when to a doctor for an overgrown, infected toenail. He was told he needed a "new better" Tetanus shot for that. Doctor said he would write it up in such a way that insurance would pay for it. Why the need for that???? Because an overgrown, infected toenail does not need a Tetanus shot. That doctor was not disclosing the real reason for that vaccination. He wanted to increase Tdap (pertussis) rates but did not disclose the real reason to his patient, or Medicare. Apart from everything else, wouldn't that be Insurance Fraud? Tdap is not covered under Medicare Part B unless for a medical necessity.
My house has never started on fire, either. I still have smoke alarms, because I'm not dumb enough to think that the fact that I haven't had a housefire yet indicates that housefires can't and won't happen to me. I also pay my yearly due to the volunteer fire department rather than ranting about how the VFD is a money-grubbing trick and they're probably the one's starting the fires you hear about in the colluding media.
My house has never started on fire, either. I still have smoke alarms, because I'm not dumb enough to think that the fact that I haven't had a housefire yet indicates that housefires can't and won't happen to me. I also pay my yearly due to the volunteer fire department rather than ranting about how the VFD is a money-grubbing trick and they're probably the one's starting the fires you hear about in the colluding media.
What in the world does fires have to do with anything? When you go to a doctor and he gives you some shot or medication, you do not have the right to know what it is for? You blindly just accept whatever he tells you to do? Why did this doctor have to write it up "specially" so insurance would pay for it? Because it was UNNECESSARY to the condition he had. You need a medical degree to know that an overgrown infected toenail doesn't require a Tetanus vaccination? Geesch.
What in the world does fires have to do with anything? When you go to a doctor and he gives you some shot or medication, you do not have the right to know what it is for? You blindly just accept whatever he tells you to do? Why did this doctor have to write it up "specially" so insurance would pay for it? Because it was UNNECESSARY to the condition he had. You need a medical degree to know that an overgrown infected toenail doesn't require a Tetanus vaccination? Geesch.
My biggest fear is that polio will make a comeback.
I'm going to jump in here.
Polio seems to be the vaccine preventable disease Americans fear the most. On some other vaccine forums where I post, there are people from other countries who think it is because a former president had polio that we fear it so much. Certainly, FDR did a lot to publicize polio.
Here are some statistics:
Up to 72% of polio cases in children are asymptomatic, that is no symptoms are present. (A blood test may show antibodies later.)
About 24% of kids with polio will have a nonspecific illness with flu-like symptoms that last about a week. Then: "Nonparalytic aseptic meningitis (symptoms of stiffness of the neck, back, and/or legs), usually following several days after a prodrome similar to that of minor illness, occurs in 1%–5% of polio infections in children. Increased or abnormal sensations can also occur. Typically these symptoms will last from 2 to 10 days, followed by complete recovery."
Fewer than 1% of all polio infections in children result in flaccid paralysis and some kids recover from that, too. Death occurs in 2%-5% of kids with paralytic polio. (Higher death rates for adults) https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pi...oads/polio.pdf
In addition, polio is not universal, like some childhood diseases. In 1952 there were 20,000 reported paralytic cases, meaning about 2,000,000 cases total, and that includes adults.
Of course, that's still a lot of paralysis, and that's why we vaccinate. That's what the vaccine opponents get wrong when they think there's no need to vaccinate. A small % can translate into large numbers in a population the size of the US, especially when the disease is epidemic.
The oral polio vaccine (OPV) is one of the few vaccines that really does "shed". It's given by mouth, and it sheds in the stool. The vaccine viruses in rare cases revert back to full strength, and can cause infection if someone handles the person's infected stool. This is often a parent who changes the diaper. There were about 7-8 cases per year of Vaccine Associated Paralytic Polio in the US per year when we used OPV. When the number of "wild" (natural) polio cases dropped to zero over a period of 20 years, the US switched to the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) which cannot cause polio disease because the risks of the OPV outweighed the benefits.
The only wild polio in the world currently is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One must give proof of polio vaccination to leave Pakistan, they do not want to be a polio-exporting country. Neither of these countries is a big tourist destination, so few Americans are going there.
What has happened in some countries that still use OPV and have low vaccine uptake is that vaccine shedding has caused outbreaks in unvaccinated kids. My concern is that a kid could come to the US shedding virus and cause such an outbreak here among the unvaccinated, especially if rates drop. That would be a nightmare.
But the diseases we should fear the most here in the US are the ones that cause the most deaths and disability. The #1 disease to contract, be hospitalized for and die from in the US in kids and adults is flu. Measles is rare, but can cause much disability and sometimes deaths. We are fortunate here in the US that the last death was in 2015. Europe had 72 deaths among its 80,000 cases last year, about 1 in 1000 cases, which doesn't sound like a lot, but epidemiologically, is. Pertussis causes deaths particularly in young infants. Hib disease is rare, but deadly.
IMO, all the diseases we vaccinate against are important to vaccinate for.
I was watching a show where they discovered a body under a Queens parking lot. The woman's body had these strange lesions all over her. After testing they found that the corpse, almost perfectly preserved, had smallpox and was around 150 years old. Was she still contagious?
This got me thinking. It seems the diseases which causes outbreaks on the skin are which terrify people the most. Think about all those commercials on TV. "Look at me". "I am not contagious to you". Psoriasis. Lupus. So why do they need medications for clear skin when it is not contagious to others? People will fear and shun them. Are people as afraid to be around someone with Hep. B, HIV, or HPV? They will not be able to see just by looking at them that they have those diseases.
I do not know the medical term for it, but I had a friend growing who had Michael Jackson's condition. She was covered all over with light and dark blotches on her skin. Kids, and adults, shunned her because they thought she had some contagious disease, and looked different from them. Very sad. Maybe we should all walk around in a bubble or hazmat suits for protection from other people?
I'm not talking about psoriasis and other immune deficient conditions. Nor am I talking about blood born viruses. Smallpox was easily spread. Those of us of a certain age carry the scar of the vaccine and it has been eradicated.
Nope. 40 years ago stepped on a nail in a cemetery. Pulled it out myself and put peroxide on it. 30 years ago my kids ripped off my toenail opening screen door. Never went to a doctor who I am sure would have wanted me to get Tetanus (TD or Tdap today) shot for both of those.
Oh, forget countless times over decades cutting myself on cans and kitchen knives. What LUCK! I cannot believe you people.
That proves nothing. I hear people say the same thing about distracted or even drunk driving, "I have done it many times and not crashed", with the implied clause of "therefore, it must be safe".
Statistics definitely are not intuitive for everyone, but we should all understand the fact that some activities have a risk level associated with them which may be quite high but that doesn't mean everyone who takes the risk will get ill or injured.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jo48
Edit: Frostnip, my 70 year old husband last week when to a doctor for an overgrown, infected toenail. He was told he needed a "new better" Tetanus shot for that. Doctor said he would write it up in such a way that insurance would pay for it. Why the need for that???? Because an overgrown, infected toenail does not need a Tetanus shot. That doctor was not disclosing the real reason for that vaccination. He wanted to increase Tdap (pertussis) rates but did not disclose the real reason to his patient, or Medicare. Apart from everything else, wouldn't that be Insurance Fraud? Tdap is not covered under Medicare Part B unless for a medical necessity.
Unable to comment without knowing exactly what the doctor claimed. Not really our business anyway.
Quite a gish-gallop, but here's the conclusion of the first one: "In 1999-2006, child mortality was higher in children who had not received measles vaccine than in those who had." (Emphasis mine)
A provaccine RN invokes gish-gallop at a post citing nothing but Peter Aaby studies? Are you sure about that?
Yes. Aaby’s work consistently finds the Measles vaccine as an important factor in lowering child mortality. His work is impeccable & I have no reason to question it. What exactly do you take issue with? What’s wrong with me advocating his work?
A provaccine RN invokes gish-gallop at a post citing nothing but Peter Aaby studies? Are you sure about that?
Yes. Aaby’s work consistently finds the Measles vaccine as an important factor in lowering child mortality. His work is impeccable & I have no reason to question it. What exactly do you take issue with? What’s wrong with me advocating his work?
Do you know what a "Gish-gallop" is? "The Gish Gallop (also known as proof by verbosity[1]) is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. The Gish Gallop is a belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop. The Gish Gallop is named after creationist Duane Gish, who often abused it.
Although it takes a trivial amount of effort on the Galloper's part to make each individual point before skipping on to the next (especially if they cite from a pre-concocted list of Gallop arguments), a refutation of the same Gallop may likely take much longer and require significantly more effort (per the basic principle that it's always easier to make a mess than to clean it back up again)." https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
Now I don't know if these links you posted are individually weak or not, because who has time to look up 11 citations in order to respond, which is the point. It's a poor debating tactic. And before you say, "But Katarina YOU posted one too", mine were all the same story, just to show how wide-spread this so-called (by another poster) "fake news" was being dissemintated.
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