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Measles hits 20 year high in US, 'driven by unvaccinated people'

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eso76

Member
Guys i don't know.

I personally know the father of a kid who started regressing to being an autistic after vaccines and another person in a similar situation.

His 18 months old kid felt bad the very same night, and the day after that, and the night after that etc, and things got progressively worse.
He progressively stopped smiling, talking and responding to people calling his name.
He would just cry and scream all the time.
He was able to use a spoon to eat before, and in a few weeks he couldn't even find his own mouth.
Mind you, starting THAT day's night.
Not in that period, in the following weeks or months or 'around the same time'
It started that very same night. Coincidence, maybe. Maybe not.
This is not something i heard of, this is something I saw with my eyes.

Now, i understand that a lot of these stories sound like they were made up or exaggerated by conspiracy nutjobs, but i've read and spoken with a lot of people (this includes doctors) and heard too many stories from sources i consider reliable to rule out things can be related. Doctors themselves can't.

It's easy to call fools those parents who refuse to have their kids vaccinated but have you seen a kid regress from lively and happy to someone who is not able to communicate anymore and just cries and screams in pain all the time, with doctors you've spoken to admitting they don't know much about autism and can't rule out the vaccine might have been the cause for sure ?

What would you do with your own kids, knowing and having witnessed that ?

Stop calling those parents fools.
They probably happened to see or hear stories that made them afraid and made it very hard to take a decision in either direction.
 
Guys i don't know.

I personally know the father of a kid who started regressing to being an autistic after vaccines and another person in a similar situation.

His 18 months old kid felt bad the very same night, and the day after that, and the night after that etc, and things got progressively worse.
He progressively stopped smiling, talking and responding to people calling his name.
He would just cry and scream all the time.
He was able to use a spoon to eat before, and in a few weeks he couldn't even find his own mouth.
Mind you, starting THAT day's night.
Not in that period, in the following weeks or months or 'around the same time'
It started that very same night. Coincidence, maybe. Maybe not.
This is not something i heard of, this is something I saw with my eyes.

Now, i understand that a lot of these stories sound like they were made up or exaggerated by conspiracy nutjobs, but i've read and spoken with a lot of people (this includes doctors) and heard too many stories from sources i consider reliable to rule out things can be related. Doctors themselves can't.

It's easy to call fools those parents who refuse to have their kids vaccinated but have you seen a kid regress from lively and happy to someone who is not able to communicate anymore and just cries and screams in pain all the time, with doctors you've spoken to admitting they don't know much about autism and can't rule out the vaccine might have been the cause for sure ?

What would you do with your own kids, knowing and having witnessed that ?

Stop calling those parents fools.
They probably happened to see or hear stories that made them afraid and made it very hard to take a decision in either direction.

Like any other type of medicine/drugs, there are side affects that affect a small number of people. Nothing is 100% effective, and nothing is 100% safe. But you shouldn't go through life based on these minor probabilities and ignore all medicine and medical procedures as a result. You have a higher chance getting into a car accident than you do having a negative result from side effects. Would you stop driving?
 

Dougald

Member
Like any other type of medicine/drugs, there are side affects that affect a small number of people. Nothing is 100% effective, and nothing is 100% safe. But you shouldn't go through life based on these minor probabilities and ignore all medicine and medical procedures as a result. You have a higher chance getting into a car accident than you do having a negative result from side effects. Would you stop driving?


It's not even a side effect, there is no legitimate evidence that there is any link to vaccines and autism, beyond some random anecdotes. But the negative (and potentially fatal) side effects of measles, mumps and rubella are proven
 

GiJoccin

Member
Like any other type of medicine/drugs, there are side affects that affect a small number of people. Nothing is 100% effective, and nothing is 100% safe. But you shouldn't go through life based on these minor probabilities and ignore all medicine and medical procedures as a result. You have a higher chance getting into a car accident than you do having a negative result from side effects. Would you stop driving?

There are side effects to vaccines, autism is just not a side effect. That has been shown to be the case definitively.
 

Ahasverus

Member
See why all that "freedom" nonsense is overplayed? Less developed countries have OBLIGATORY vaccine programs, but no, America has to kill themselves for their "freedom". SMH.
 
Guys i don't know.

I personally know the father of a kid who started regressing to being an autistic after vaccines and another person in a similar situation.

His 18 months old kid felt bad the very same night, and the day after that, and the night after that etc, and things got progressively worse.
He progressively stopped smiling, talking and responding to people calling his name.
He would just cry and scream all the time.
He was able to use a spoon to eat before, and in a few weeks he couldn't even find his own mouth.
Mind you, starting THAT day's night.
Not in that period, in the following weeks or months or 'around the same time'
It started that very same night. Coincidence, maybe. Maybe not.
This is not something i heard of, this is something I saw with my eyes.

Now, i understand that a lot of these stories sound like they were made up or exaggerated by conspiracy nutjobs, but i've read and spoken with a lot of people (this includes doctors) and heard too many stories from sources i consider reliable to rule out things can be related. Doctors themselves can't.

It's easy to call fools those parents who refuse to have their kids vaccinated but have you seen a kid regress from lively and happy to someone who is not able to communicate anymore and just cries and screams in pain all the time, with doctors you've spoken to admitting they don't know much about autism and can't rule out the vaccine might have been the cause for sure ?

What would you do with your own kids, knowing and having witnessed that ?

Stop calling those parents fools.
They probably happened to see or hear stories that made them afraid and made it very hard to take a decision in either direction.

If the vaccine possibly made them autistic then by that same logic if they ever encountered those diseases in the wild then they probably would've become autistic from exposure to them, too.
 
It's not even a side effect, there is no legitimate evidence that there is any link to vaccines and autism, beyond some random anecdotes. But the negative (and potentially fatal) side effects of measles, mumps and rubella are proven

There are side effects to vaccines, autism is just not a side effect. That has been shown to be the case definitively.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply vaccines caused autism because so far everything shows otherwise.

I was just jumping on the notion that, well this happened to someone I know, therefore, they don't seem safe, is something that needs to be squashed. There is always a risk to taking anything, and that needs to be understood rather than being told there is a risk and that's a reason not to do it when there is a risk to everything.
 

muu

Member
Guys i don't know.

I personally know the father of a kid who started regressing to being an autistic after vaccines and another person in a similar situation.

His 18 months old kid felt bad the very same night, and the day after that, and the night after that etc, and things got progressively worse.
He progressively stopped smiling, talking and responding to people calling his name.
He would just cry and scream all the time.
He was able to use a spoon to eat before, and in a few weeks he couldn't even find his own mouth.
Mind you, starting THAT day's night.
Not in that period, in the following weeks or months or 'around the same time'
It started that very same night. Coincidence, maybe. Maybe not.
This is not something i heard of, this is something I saw with my eyes.

Now, i understand that a lot of these stories sound like they were made up or exaggerated by conspiracy nutjobs, but i've read and spoken with a lot of people (this includes doctors) and heard too many stories from sources i consider reliable to rule out things can be related. Doctors themselves can't.

It's easy to call fools those parents who refuse to have their kids vaccinated but have you seen a kid regress from lively and happy to someone who is not able to communicate anymore and just cries and screams in pain all the time, with doctors you've spoken to admitting they don't know much about autism and can't rule out the vaccine might have been the cause for sure ?

What would you do with your own kids, knowing and having witnessed that ?

Stop calling those parents fools.
They probably happened to see or hear stories that made them afraid and made it very hard to take a decision in either direction.

If the kid was 18mo it could not have been the first time he's taken immunization shots. My daughter's had hers at 2mos, and we're getting more next week for her 4month shots. And so on. Sorry that your kids turned autistic, it has nothing to do with the shots and you're not doing anyone favors by pretending it did, or supporting an interest group that has monetary interests in telling people that's what happened. Anecdotes like the one you described are powerful motivators for people that ultimately make bad decisions, they need to see through these outliers and make informed decisions after doing proper research.
 

Dougald

Member
Sorry, didn't mean to imply vaccines caused autism because so far everything shows otherwise.

I was just jumping on the notion that, well this happened to someone I know, therefore, they don't seem safe, is something that needs to be squashed. There is always a risk to taking anything, and that needs to be understood rather than being told there is a risk and that's a reason not to do it when there is a risk to everything.

You are correct. Especially when the risk of not vaccinating is there and proven
 

eso76

Member
Like any other type of medicine/drugs, there are side affects that affect a small number of people. Nothing is 100% effective, and nothing is 100% safe. But you shouldn't go through life based on these minor probabilities and ignore all medicine and medical procedures as a result.

This is a position that can be discussed and i respect.

What you say is true, but having witnessed that case myself, it has made taking a decision in either direction very difficult and i assume this is the case for many other parents.
Chances might be thin (thinner than getting permanent damage from measles complications ? i don't know about that) like 1 in 10.000.000 thin, but it's still hard when it's your kids we're talking about.

1) If the kid was 18mo it could not have been the first time he's taken immunization shots. My daughter's had hers at 2mos, and we're getting more next week for her 4month shots. And so on. 2) Sorry that your kids turned autistic, 3) it has nothing to do with the shots and you're not doing anyone favors by pretending it did, or supporting an interest group that has 4) monetary interests in telling people that's what happened.

1) not the first, but measles vaccine contains the highest quantity of toxic elements and is generally the one thought to be responsible for the worst side effects.
2) not mine. A close friend's.
3) NO ONE, no doctor i spoke to was willing to confirm what happened had nothing to do with the shots. They wouldn't confirm or deny either way.
4) what monetary interest ? honest question.

If the vaccine possibly made them autistic then by that same logic if they ever encountered those diseases in the wild then they probably would've become autistic from exposure to them, too.

No, it's not the virus that supposedly made them. It's the amount of mercury and other toxic elements in vaccines.
Of course, they could have gotten other permanent damage from measles complications.

It's not even a side effect, there is no legitimate evidence that there is any link to vaccines and autism, beyond some random anecdotes. But the negative (and potentially fatal) side effects of measles, mumps and rubella are proven

there's no evidence because there's no research either way.
But there's coincidences , there are cases of infant mortality rates dropping in countries after certain vaccines were made non obligatory etc.

Like i said, my doctor didn't tell me "that's all bullcrap". She told me "frankly, we don't know for sure. I still strongly advise getting kids vaccinated -especially because i've seen kids die from measles- but i understand that parents who heard those stories would be terrified".

I'm just telling you guys shouldn't be too quick to call those idiots or fools or criminals, because it's probably just people who, unfortunately, were willingly or unwillingly exposed to terrifying stories.
 

Dai101

Banned
I definitely remember getting hugged in chicken pox groups at a young age. The vaccine wasn't available in the US back then, so there you go. I'm sure the shingles will suck ass later in life, but severe pain can be overcome, hopefully. Adult chicken pox, however, is no joke. Serious business, that.

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK? How is that possible?

See why all that "freedom" nonsense is overplayed? Less developed countries have OBLIGATORY vaccine programs, but no, America has to kill themselves for their "freedom". SMH.

Aqp2K0F.jpg


God bless my awful, crime ridden shithole of a country. I'll never badmouth the IMSS again.
 
I definitely remember getting hugged in chicken pox groups at a young age. The vaccine wasn't available in the US back then, so there you go. I'm sure the shingles will suck ass later in life, but severe pain can be overcome, hopefully. Adult chicken pox, however, is no joke. Serious business, that.

shingles are awful, I can tell you that from experience. I had them under my arms and to this day it's one of those memories that never goes away. It was one of those traumatic experiences that stays with you forever.
 
Anti-vaccination nutjobs really make me rage. It's not that long when people still died to many diseases that are nowadays almost completely eraticated from the world. For example two of my grandfathers siblings died of diphtheria when they were small kids. Nowadays diphtheria has been mostly eradicated from the developed world trough vaccination.
 
there's no evidence because there's no research either way.


But there's coincidences , there are cases of infant mortality rates dropping in countries after certain vaccines were made non obligatory etc.

This seems to imply that there had definitely been research on the matter.

And the last thing you want to is attempt to postulate that coincidence has any scientific merit.

Here's the study in question

Problems with the study:

Noting that in 2009 the U.S. ranked 34th in infant mortality, they looked up the infant mortality rates from the U.S. and all the nations that have lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. and then compared them to the number of vaccine doses each nation require. They then graphed the infant mortality rate as a function of vaccine dose.

This is known as attempting to find spurious causation.

Next

I also note that the authors here seem to have pulled the same trick that J.B. Handley and crew like to pull when trying to convince people that U.S. infants are “overvaccinated” by artificially pumping up the apparent number of vaccine doses by counting multivalent vaccines as more than one. For instance, the MMR and DTaP are counted as three each because each vaccine is trivalent; i.e., containing vaccines against three different diseases.

The study then misrepresents how many vaccines low IMR countries receive. When counted correctly, a country such as Germany would be put into the top bracket of vaccinations like the US, but are counted wrong.

Then we have:

Having used dubious and error-ridden methods for counting the required vaccines and correlated those numbers to infant mortality rates, the authors then move on. After pointing out that the U.S. has a poor infant mortality rate (IMR) relative to its wealth and what it spends on health care, the authors state:

There are many factors that affect the IMR of any given country. For example, premature births in the United States have increased by more than 20% between 1990 and 2006. Preterm babies have a higher risk of complications that could lead to death within the first year of life.6 However, this does not fully explain why the United States has seen little improvement in its IMR since 2000.7

Nations differ in their immunization requirements for infants aged less than 1 year. In 2009, five of the 34 nations with the best IMRs required 12 vaccine doses, the least amount, while the United States required 26 vaccine doses, the most of any nation. To explore the correlation between vaccine doses that nations routinely give to their infants and their infant mortality rates, a linear regression analysis was performed.

This is known as starting with a reasonable observation and then switching to a hypothesis with little or no scientific justification, in essence pulling it out of thin air. The second question I would have is: Why a linear relationship? No justification is given for performing a linear regression analysis. My third question would be: Why this data set?

Actually, this third question is probably the most interesting of all. Miller and Goldman only looked at one year’s data. There are many years worth of data available; if such a relationship between IMR and vaccine doses is real, it will be robust, showing up in multiple analyses from multiple years’ data. Moreover, the authors took great pains to look at only the United States and the 33 nations with better infant mortality rates than the U.S. There is no statistical rationale for doing this, nor is there a scientific rationale. Again, if this is a true correlation, it will be robust enough to show up in comparisons of more nations than just the U.S. and nations with more favorable infant mortality rates. Basically, the choice of data analyzed leaves a strong suspicion of cherry picking. Were I reviewing this paper, I would insist on the use of one or two other data sets. For example, I would ask for different years and/or perhaps the use of the rankings by the United Nations Population Division, which can be found in the Wikipedia entry containing the list of countries by infant mortality rate. And I would insist on doing the analysis so that it includes several nations with worse IMRs than the U.S. Indeed, since the focal point of the analysis seems to be the U.S., which, according to Miller and Goldman, requires more vaccine doses than any other nation, then it would make sense to look at the 33 nations with worse IMRs than the U.S.

Then there's this.

Be that as it may, I looked at the data myself and played around with it One thing I noticed immediately is that the authors removed four nations, Andorra, Liechenstein, Monaco, and San Marino, the justification being that because they are all so small, each nation only recorded less than five infant deaths. Coincidentally, or not, when all the data are used, the r2=.426, whereas when those four nations are excluded, r2 increases to 0.494, meaning that the goodness of fit improved. Even so, it’s not that fantastic, certainly not enough to be particularly convincing as a linear relationship. More dubiously, for some reason the authors, not content with an weak and not particularly convincing linear relationship in the raw data, decided to do a little creative data manipulation and divide the nations into five groups based on number of vaccine doses, take the means of each of these groups, and then regraph the data. Not surprisingly, the data look a lot cleaner, which was no doubt why this was done, as it was a completely extraneous analysis. As a rule of thumb, this sort of analysis will almost always produce a much nicer-looking linear graph, as opposed to the “star chart” in Figure 1. Usually, this sort of data massaging is done when a raw scatterplot doesn’t produce the desired relationship.

And this

Finally, it’s important to remember that IMRs are very difficult to compare across nations. In fact, the source I most like to cite to illustrate this is, believe it or not, an article by Bernadine Healy, the former director of the NIH who has over the last three or four years flirted with the anti-vaccine movement:

First, it’s shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don’t reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country.

Infant mortality in developed countries is not about healthy babies dying of treatable conditions as in the past. Most of the infants we lose today are born critically ill, and 40 percent die within the first day of life. The major causes are low birth weight and prematurity, and congenital malformations. As Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, points out, Norway, which has one of the lowest infant mortality rates, shows no better infant survival than the United States when you factor in weight at birth.

Essentially, many in the scientific community have found the widely used study attempting to correlate IMR and vaccine use to be flimsy at best. And if we're not blaming infant deaths on vaccines, it's autism, or the next thing.

Link
 
1) not the first, but measles vaccine contains the highest quantity of toxic elements and is generally the one thought to be responsible for the worst side effects.
3) NO ONE, no doctor i spoke to was willing to confirm what happened had nothing to do with the shots. They wouldn't confirm or deny either way.

Here is a doctor right here you can speak to:

There are side effects to vaccines, autism is just not a side effect. That has been shown to be the case definitively.

Also, like most times people only state "toxic" or "toxins", its a bunch of bullshit. Here is a good rundown about all the "toxins" you are worried about: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic-myths-about-vaccines/

there's no evidence because there's no research either way.
But there's coincidences , there are cases of infant mortality rates dropping in countries after certain vaccines were made non obligatory etc.

No, there is no evidence of vaccines causing autism. You can't just say "there is no evidence either way". No study has shown any link whatsoever. That means all evidence points to no link.

As far as infant mortality, I would like to see that study, and then rip it apart for probably dealing with wealthy countries that don't typically have to worry about preventable diseases...except when these asshats reintroduce it because of lack of vaccines. EDIT: Nevermind, guy ahead of me ripped apart before me.
 

muu

Member
1) not the first, but measles vaccine contains the highest quantity of toxic elements and is generally the one thought to be responsible for the worst side effects.
2) not mine. A close friend's.
3) NO ONE, no doctor i spoke to was willing to confirm what happened had nothing to do with the shots. They wouldn't confirm or deny either way.
4) what monetary interest ? honest question.

Are you serious about #4? The original, thoroughly disproven 'vaccine causes autism' study was done by a doctor who was compensated in the order of ~$1 million (or quids or whatnot) to make the case for some lawsuit that wanted this to be fact.

And let's look at the people at the forefront of the movement today. Homeopathic remedy industry seems to love these people. After all, why take vaccines you can boost your bioresistivity using hyperoxygenated fish oil pills with revitalizing yeast? Jenny Mccartney seems pretty buddy-buddy with this stuff as well. Special interest groups funded by industries that can benefit from swaying people's opinions one way or another is nothing new.

If you think about it, it's pretty amusing that these people worry so much about government and pharma conspiracies, all the while throwing their wallet at what's become a very successful advertising campaign for bullshit healing pills. I'd laugh more if their terrible decisions weren't putting my kid's life in danger.
 
Stop calling those parents fools.

No.

My missus was almost blinded by her MMR jabs. Took rounds of surgeries as a child to salvage her eyesight and she still needs jamjars to see.

That was a known, proven side effect.

Our nippers have still all been vaccinated.

Why? Because we're not fools.

Are you serious about #4? The original, thoroughly disproven 'vaccine causes autism' study was done by a doctor who was compensated in the order of ~$1 million (or quids or whatnot) to make the case for some lawsuit that wanted this to be fact.

You're referring to Mr. Andrew Wakefield. The man is absolute scum. I had the opportunity last weekend at the London NHS hackday to take a look at the data various public bodies hold on the impact of his deviancy.

How that weasel of a man has never been prosecuted for manslaughter is beyond me. We could directly attribute multiple deaths even here in the UK to his work; given a bit more time we could have even put together a powerful graphic illustrating the geographic spread of reporting of his falsified results, public sentiment against vaccination and the resulting deaths and disabilities. I'm hoping we get another chance to do so - we couldn't take the data with us.
 

GiJoccin

Member
there's no evidence because there's no research either way.
But there's coincidences , there are cases of infant mortality rates dropping in countries after certain vaccines were made non obligatory etc.

there's actually been a positive MOUNTAIN of research showing just how safe each and every vaccine is, and how there is a complete lack of a link between autism and vaccines

it's there if you care to look for it

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25349/

i looked through there - it's a massive amount to read through, but it gives you a sense of how many studies have been put forward looking at autism vs vaccines, autism vs MMR vaccine in particular (measles mumps rubella - the "more dangerous" vaccine), vaccines vs several other developmental disorders - and this book only covers a few years. i tried doing a literature search for recent articles, and there were more articles covering vaccines than i've seen for any other topic

I can't really tell you why your pediatrician told you that. maybe they haven't read the literature, maybe they don't want to deal with vaccine deniers... many pediatricians refuse to see patients who delay/refuse vaccines, others are just plain sick of arguing. none of their arguments are rooted in fact, it's either their "feelings" or stuff they read on the internets (like the "toxins" thing)

i don't see many people who refuse vaccines, quite the opposite in fact... i work with mostly immigrants, and they get off the boat, come to the hospital, and want every vaccine their kid is missing, all at the same time...
 

kess

Member
1) not the first, but measles vaccine contains the highest quantity of toxic elements and is generally the one thought to be responsible for the worst side effects.

From the CDC:
Do MMR vaccines contain thimerosal?

No, measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines do not and never did contain thimerosal. Varicella (chickenpox), inactivated polio (IPV), and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines have also never contained thimerosal.
 

eso76

Member
No, there is no evidence of vaccines causing autism. You can't just say "there is no evidence either way". No study has shown any link whatsoever. That means all evidence points to no link.

No study has shown there is a connection.
No study has proven there isn't a connection.

"a connection hasn't been confirmed" is not enough when it's your son or daughter we're talking about.

I can link to a thousand articles stating that research indicates the need for more investigation into vaccination programs without financial ties to industries that profit from vaccination programs.

It's not like we haven't heard of vaccines and medicines being withdrawn because completely useless or even harmful before and for every article you link I can find one stating the opposite, from a source that looks just as legit to me.
But this is going towards conspiracy territory, and I don't want to go there.

While one should trust science, I unfortunately saw my friend's life turn to utter shit that day.
Coincidence, most likely.
Then something similar happened to another guy i know.
Then stumbled upon more than a few similar stories on internet where I perfectly know how easy it is to spread bullcrap and misinformation. Heck Facebook is full of fake articles, utter fabrications being shared as facts by hundreds of thousands of people each day that won't even bother checking the source. But I digress.
Coincidences, but the tiniest doubt is enough to scare people, and this is understandable when it's your kid we're talking about.
When you see what my friend has been through, science will have a hard time un-scaring people.
 
"a connection hasn't been confirmed" is not enough when it's your son or daughter we're talking about.

Quite, but frankly vaccines are going to be the least of their worries growing up in a household with reading comprehension and critical analysis this poor.

Thankfully, we can say things like "deadly diseases are the least of their worries", because almost every other parent is responsible.
 

Orayn

Member
No study has shown there is a connection.
No study has proven there isn't a connection.

"a connection hasn't been confirmed" is not enough when it's your son or daughter we're talking about.

It's the best you'll ever get. Science can't prove a negative, it can only fail or succeed to confirm a hypothesis. Every rigorous attempt at proving the claim that vaccines cause autism has failed. There is no way to rigorously disprove something, you can only establish a body of knowledge with predictive power that strongly suggests that a particular thing doesn't happen.

But I guess we should just give up on the entire fucking scientific method because parents behave irrationally sometimes. Such a shame.
 

eso76

Member
Oh and btw, while I'm not completely convinced vaccines are 100% safe, I had my daughter receive all the recommended ones, in case anyone was wondering.
I just can't condemn those parents who were terrified by the stories they were told.

Quite, but frankly vaccines are going to be the least of their worries growing up in a household with reading comprehension and critical analysis this poor.

Uh, I'll pretend that wasn't directed at me. That's really so not the case, but what would you know.

I'm glad a few people took (a lot of) their time to provide links and have a civil discussion.
I've read through most articles and unlike many i'm open to listening/reading and changing my mind, or at the very least trying to understand other people's point of view and this thread was an interesting read.
 
No study has shown there is a connection.
No study has proven there isn't a connection.

"a connection hasn't been confirmed" is not enough when it's your son or daughter we're talking about.

The burden of proof is on the connection, not on the absence of connection.
 
Oh and btw, while I'm not completely convinced vaccines are 100% safe, I had my daughter receive all the recommended ones, in case anyone was wondering.
I just can't condemn those parents who were terrified by the stories they were told.

I can, because like you, no matter how much evidence you give them they will still rely on bullshit false anecdotes, a fundamental misunderstanding of science and healthcare, and are putting their children at risk because they are too stupid and self centred to do the research themselves.
 
I can, because like you, no matter how much evidence you give them they will still rely on bullshit false anecdotes, a fundamental misunderstanding of science and healthcare, and are putting their children at risk because they are too stupid and self centred to do the research themselves.


This sums like my opinion as well.
 

Orayn

Member
No one has proven that I am Batman. No one has proven that I'm not Batman.

Therefore the criminals of Gotham should be afraid, because there's still a possibility that I am vengeance, the night, etc.
 
Not only is the bullshit putting their children at risk, but everyone else at risk. Now, while as a parent it is scary to hear that vaccines might harm your children, and autism is very scary with how little we know about it: you have to be educated if you are going to raise children. Honestly, I would not want to treat someone who believes this kind of nonsense as why should I recommend anything as a doctor if they are going to ignore what I say.
 

muu

Member
so going with eso76's logic, how should people respond to PETA's claims that drinking milk causes autism? Just like the vaccine scare, there's some anecdotal evidence in there, which goes to show that the threat is real for some people. There's also a study correlating reduction in autism w/ drinking milk with 20 subjects. I haven't seen any studies that showed drinking milk reduces autism so it must be as bad or worse than not drinking cow milk. Did your friend with the autistic kid feed him cow milk, or god forbid, cheese pizza? He should send his anecdotes to the PETA because it might not be vaccines that caused the condition -- it could be this. People need to be aware.

I'd consider anyone that believes this hyperbole to be a bunch of fucking idiots. If you feel the same, then what makes the vaccination-autism connection any different, other than the fact that it somehow made it through the "this is bullshit" phase for a select group of people?
 
Guys i don't know.

I personally know the father of a kid who started regressing to being an autistic after vaccines and another person in a similar situation.

His 18 months old kid felt bad the very same night, and the day after that, and the night after that etc, and things got progressively worse.
He progressively stopped smiling, talking and responding to people calling his name.
He would just cry and scream all the time.
He was able to use a spoon to eat before, and in a few weeks he couldn't even find his own mouth.
Mind you, starting THAT day's night.
Not in that period, in the following weeks or months or 'around the same time'
It started that very same night. Coincidence, maybe. Maybe not.
This is not something i heard of, this is something I saw with my eyes.

Now, i understand that a lot of these stories sound like they were made up or exaggerated by conspiracy nutjobs, but i've read and spoken with a lot of people (this includes doctors) and heard too many stories from sources i consider reliable to rule out things can be related. Doctors themselves can't.

It's easy to call fools those parents who refuse to have their kids vaccinated but have you seen a kid regress from lively and happy to someone who is not able to communicate anymore and just cries and screams in pain all the time, with doctors you've spoken to admitting they don't know much about autism and can't rule out the vaccine might have been the cause for sure ?

What would you do with your own kids, knowing and having witnessed that ?

Stop calling those parents fools.
They probably happened to see or hear stories that made them afraid and made it very hard to take a decision in either direction.

There is no evidence that it is at all linked to autism.

The issue is that the age that kids get vaccinated is often around the same age as when you might start recognizing autism symptoms. So parents just think back to the last thing that might have affected the kids health . . . booom . . . It was the vaccination! (Never mind that 99% of the other kids that got vaccinated with the same things didn't become autistic.)
 

yepyepyep

Member
There was a news report about this in Melbourne. Apparently it is only the very affluent suburbs that have below average immunisation rates. Middle class and low-socioeconomic areas are almost 100% vaccinated.
 

eso76

Member
Oh man.
I'm really willing to have a civil discussion but you keep talking of "anecdotal evidence bullcrap" when I told you about my friend's son.
A kid that you personally saw regressing to that stage, followed by another, and more you read about will inevitably strike you as something more than anecdotal.

It may be, but I wouldn't have thought it would be hard for people to understand that witnessing that yourself would leave a scar you'll have a hard time brushing off as a coincidence.


I liked the batman jokes.
But I could make similar ones saying that while 3 of the 100 guys I saw diving in the ocean never came back, science has never proven the ocean is what killed them, so I will lightheartedly dive myself thinking those 3 probably died of old age or something.

Why can't you allow me to be just a little afraid of diving ?

@speculawyer I know that, and I know autism ruins families and they will need someone or something to point their finger at.
Still. I understand being scared. Autism is scarier than measles, maybe it shouldn't be, but there's not a lot you can do to change people's perception.
 

Orayn

Member
Oh man.
I'm really willing to have a civil discussion but you keep talking of "anecdotal evidence bullcrap" when I told you about my friend's son.
A kid that you personally saw regressing to that stage, followed by another, and more you read about will inevitably strike you as something more than anecdotal.

It may be, but I wouldn't have thought it would be hard for people to understand that witnessing that yourself would leave a scar you'll have a hard time brushing off as a coincidence.

That's human fallibility and I do my best to check myself for that kind of thinking. Of course I can understand how it's too much for some people due to the power of the emotional factors in play, but you can't let a personal experience tear you away from the way we otherwise understand the world to work.

I liked the batman jokes.
But I could make similar ones saying that while 3 of the 100 guys I saw diving in the ocean never came back, science has never proven the ocean is what killed them, so I will lightheartedly dive myself thinking those 3 probably died of old age or something.

Why can't you allow me to be just a little afraid of diving ?

"Disappearing while diving = drowning" is a very probable scenario that's consistent with the way we understand water, the human body, and the act of diving to work. Even if those divers technically just missing and you couldn't conclusively prove that they drowned, it's a reasonable prediction to make that doesn't require any new assumptions to be true.

Claiming that vaccines cause autism is more in line with me claiming to be Batman. Confirming it would take a bevy of new evidence, most of which is pretty far-fetched stuff.
 

reckless

Member
Oh man.
I'm really willing to have a civil discussion but you keep talking of "anecdotal evidence bullcrap" when I told you about my friend's son.
A kid that you personally saw regressing to that stage, followed by another, and more you read about will inevitably strike you as something more than anecdotal.

It may be, but I wouldn't have thought it would be hard for people to understand that witnessing that yourself would leave a scar you'll have a hard time brushing off as a coincidence.


I liked the batman jokes.
But I could make similar ones saying that while 3 of the 100 guys I saw diving in the ocean never came back, science has never proven the ocean is what killed them, so I will lightheartedly dive myself thinking those 3 probably died of old age or something.

Why can't you allow me to be just a little afraid of diving ?
Because you are promoting horrible decisions that effects everyone around you, because of a false fear.
Antivaxers thrive on anecdotal stories precisely because there is no real evidence of a connection. So they appeal to emotions instead of science.
 
Oh man.
I'm really willing to have a civil discussion but you keep talking of "anecdotal evidence bullcrap" when I told you about my friend's son.
A kid that you personally saw regressing to that stage, followed by another, and more you read about will inevitably strike you as something more than anecdotal.

It may be, but I wouldn't have thought it would be hard for people to understand that witnessing that yourself would leave a scar you'll have a hard time brushing off as a coincidence.


I liked the batman jokes.
But I could make similar ones saying that while 3 of the 100 guys I saw diving in the ocean never came back, science has never proven the ocean is what killed them, so I will lightheartedly dive myself thinking those 3 probably died of old age or something.

Why can't you allow me to be just a little afraid of diving ?

@speculawyer I know that, and I know autism ruins families and they will need someone or something to point their finger at.
Still. I understand being scared. Autism is scarier than measles, maybe it shouldn't be, but there's not a lot you can do to change people's perception.


People keep saying anecdotal evidence because what you describe is the very definition of anecdotal evidence.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Guys i don't know.

I personally know the father of a kid who started regressing to being an autistic after vaccines and another person in a similar situation.

His 18 months old kid felt bad the very same night, and the day after that, and the night after that etc, and things got progressively worse.
He progressively stopped smiling, talking and responding to people calling his name.
He would just cry and scream all the time.
He was able to use a spoon to eat before, and in a few weeks he couldn't even find his own mouth.
Mind you, starting THAT day's night.
Not in that period, in the following weeks or months or 'around the same time'
It started that very same night. Coincidence, maybe. Maybe not.
This is not something i heard of, this is something I saw with my eyes.

Now, i understand that a lot of these stories sound like they were made up or exaggerated by conspiracy nutjobs, but i've read and spoken with a lot of people (this includes doctors) and heard too many stories from sources i consider reliable to rule out things can be related. Doctors themselves can't.

It's easy to call fools those parents who refuse to have their kids vaccinated but have you seen a kid regress from lively and happy to someone who is not able to communicate anymore and just cries and screams in pain all the time, with doctors you've spoken to admitting they don't know much about autism and can't rule out the vaccine might have been the cause for sure ?

What would you do with your own kids, knowing and having witnessed that ?

Stop calling those parents fools.
They probably happened to see or hear stories that made them afraid and made it very hard to take a decision in either direction.


They are fools. Sorry for their situation but they aren't just passively ignorant, they embrace anecdotes and lies and ignore mountains of evidence and their actions endanger the lives and health of everyone they touch. And they propagate and exacerbate their own ridiculous myth.

They aren't just fools, they're reckless and arrogant idiots.

And anecdotes are literally stories you tell about people or circumstances you know.
 

CDX

Member
I definitely remember getting hugged in chicken pox groups at a young age. The vaccine wasn't available in the US back then, so there you go. I'm sure the shingles will suck ass later in life, but severe pain can be overcome, hopefully. Adult chicken pox, however, is no joke. Serious business, that.

WHAT THE FLYING FUCK? How is that possible?

The chicken pox vaccine is relatively new.

It wasn't available in the US until 1995. Japan was one of the first countries that made it available and that was in 1988.
 

eso76

Member
That's human fallibility and I do my best to check myself for that kind of thinking. Of course I can understand how it's too much for some people due to the power of the emotional factors in play, but you can't let a personal experience tear you away from the way we otherwise understand the world to work.

I agree. But i don't call a fool or a criminal someone whose personal experience was too much for him/her to be able to ignore it and take a lucid decision afterwards.
Rational or irrational, we don't exactly understand how a lot of things work.

Many have said science cannot prove there's no connection.
Well, thats only partially true. It may if it knew what autism is.
I know what a broken leg is, I know a vaccine won't cause that.

"Disappearing while diving = drowning" is a very probable scenario that's consistent with the way we understand water, the human body, and the act of diving to work. Even if those divers technically just missing and you couldn't conclusively prove that they drowned, it's a reasonable prediction to make that doesn't require any new assumptions to be true.

Claiming that vaccines cause autism is more in line with me claiming to be Batman. Confirming it would take a bevy of new evidence, most of which is pretty far-fetched stuff.

Oh FFS, that was a joke.
I understand it wasn't exactly a good example, but use a little imagination.
You scientists are all the same "well it is indeed a very probable scenario that's consistent with the way we understand.. ". Geez.

You want something closer to this scenario ? Here:

You were there moments before the police found the joker, two face and the penguin tied in a bat rope.
Now this is anecdotal evidence and you might not be batman but I, the Riddler, will make sure not to fuck around when you're in sight, just in case.

I only know I'm safe around you if you're not an orphan. Unfortunately, science doesn't know.
 

zoku88

Member
The chicken pox vaccine is relatively new.

It wasn't available in the US until 1995. Japan was one of the first countries that made it available and that was in 1988.
No wonder I had never heard of it until recently. I was too old for this to have been useful for me.
 

Dead Man

Member
eso76, your heart seems to be in the right place, but you are writing off mountains of studies and evidence and then relying on anecdotal evidence to trump them. It's just not a convincing line of argument.
 

eso76

Member
People keep saying anecdotal evidence because what you describe is the very definition of anecdotal evidence.

Oh.
I'm afraid English is not my first language and thought it meant something slightly different.

My point is still, it becomes hard to ignore.

There's literature going both ways, they all look legit to me but heh, what doesn't on internet !
 
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