Galaxian wrote:Brian Peacock wrote:Re vaccination: It's also worth pointing out the herd immunity levels need to remain high in order to limit and suppress the evolution of drug-resistant strains of contagion.
Part of the problem here is that communicable contagions such as small-pox, measles, mumps, TB, etc are beyond the living memory of all but the aged. Most of us have benefited from 60+ years of national vaccination programs, but it is foolish to think that because such infections are so rare that they present no risks or harm. The argument that "I've never heard of anybody dying of small-pox, so vaccination against it is unnecessary," is no argument at all, and belies a fundamental misapprehension of both vaccination and it's underlying principles. Vaccination isn't a matter of personal choice, but of public health - which is something on which we all depend.
The role of the pharmaceutical industry & their cronies does not help. When in the course of a three decades the number of compulsory or recommended vaccinations, in some countries, rises from less than 10 to over 50 (including repeats), that is cause for worry.
Well, that's an observation, but why is it a concern exactly? To begin with scientists had relatively rudimentary understanding of contagion and little means of developing vaccines. Building incrementally on the knowledge gained by diligent researchers methodologies were improved, diseases became better understood, and the list of contagions that could be dealt with via vaccination programs expanded. This is how medical science progresses.
There's nothing suspicious about the fact that we now have more effective vaccines against more contagions than ever before. I mean, what would the alternative be? Going back to the olden days, when all this was fields, and we'd happily run to school on frosty winter's mornings with our little shaven heads painted purple with Gentian Violet because we all had ringworm?
Galaxian wrote:When the rates of neurological & other physical injuries to children has risen many-fold in that same period that raises serious questions.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation.
Correlation is not causation. Only 30 years ago a cognitive condition like dyslexia was considered a character trait that denoted intellectual impairment - now we know that this is not the case, that people with dyslexia are not intellectually impaired, they just have a specific learning difficulty. Researchers developed diagnostic tools which allowed more people with dyslexia (both children and adults) to be identified more specifically. It would be a simplistic over-generalisation to say that more people have dyslexia today than in times past--that rates are rising--without some critically robust and comparable data on the matter, but what we can say is that more people are being more effectively diagnoses as dyslexic than in times past. Similar things can be said about conditions like those encompassing autism spectrum disorders, and even your unnamed 'neurological and physical' conditions of children, and indeed adults. For example, you can now undergo a diagnostic for arthritic factors which will flag your risk decades before the condition is manifested physically, but to say that the rates of illness have increased is to confuse two very different strands of medicine; the understanding of the pathologies, diagnosis and treatment of conditions, and the manifestation of those conditions in the population. Infection rates by the contagions on the list below haven't gone down by magic you know.
This is how medical science progresses - incrementally, building on what has gone before to expand knowledge and understanding and through that to develop diagnostic methodologies and effect treatments, where possible. I know I've said it already, but I think it bears repeating in this context...
Correlation is not causation.
Galaxian wrote:When the vaccine manufacturers are shielded from civil action that too is troublesome. When there is a revolving door between the industry & the regulators (such as CDC & FDA) there is corruption at hand.
Even accepting this point for the sake of argument, it says nothing in and of itself about the public health benefits vaccination programs have brought to the developed world, programs which have systematically reduced suffering and harm, lowered mortality rates from infectious contagions in children and adults, and acted as one of the cornerstones of the social and economic progress that has led to the societies from which we benefit today, societies in better general health and wealth than at any time in human history. Even you cannot think that life was better for humans before systematised public health programs, when people died from bad teeth, malnutrition, and infections, and 6 out of ten children died before reaching reproductive age?
No, your remarks may reflect a certain truth, but that only speaks to the necessity of robust democratic, medical, and regulatory frameworks and not, as you would have us believe, that vaccines are a sham and a scam.
Galaxian wrote:The list of vaccines required in California is:
http://www.nvic.org/Vaccine-Laws/state- ... ornia.aspx
(b) The governing authority shall not unconditionally admit any person as a pupil of any private or public elementary or secondary school, child care center, day nursery, nursery school, family day care home, or development center, unless, prior to his or her first admission to that institution, he or she has been fully immunized. The following are the diseases for which immunizations shall be documented:
(1) Diphtheria.
(2) Haemophilus influenzae type b.
(3) Measles.
(4) Mumps.
(5) Pertussis (whooping cough).
(6) Poliomyelitis.
(7) Rubella.
(8) Tetanus.
(9) Hepatitis B.
(10) Varicella (chickenpox).
(11) Any other disease deemed appropriate by the department, taking into consideration the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Yes, all of those diseases are a great risk to humans, and when contracted they have a severe and permanent effect on adults and are particular harmful to children who's developing immune systems are less robust than most adults.
But what exactly is the focus of your OUTRAGE here? Is it that you think there are too many preventable diseases these days, or that too many people are being prevented from contracting these diseases?
Galaxian wrote: You talk about "herd immunity" but don't mention that SV40 was deliberately & negligently spread through the population. This would be described as "herd culling". You talk about forcing everyone to be injected & to swallow fluoride, but ignore the deliberate addition of mercury to vaccines to cause brain & other nerve damage. This could be called "herd sedation".
No, I didn't mention SV40, but that in itself does not address, nor counter, the point I made about the statistical-medical necessity of maintaining high level of herd immunity to contagious agents. As such, raising it does not represent the 'killer blow' you probably think it does.
To say that "SV40 was deliberately & negligently spread through the population" is disingenuous I feel, because it gives the impression that the reason a treatment to prevent polio was promoted was in order to deliberately infect people with monkey flu, and in so doing raise their risk of cancer. That manufacturers, regulators and politicians did not act quickly when there was enough information on which to act is regrettable, and imo reprehensible as well, as it was in the case of Thalidomide and several other compounds of that period, but it would be churlish to not allow that exactly these kinds of incidents have also led to more stringent regulation, testing, development practices and manufacturing regimes than in the bad-old good-old days.
Galaxian wrote: You are in what the Germans call "schlaraffenland" : The idyllic, laid back, somnolence of breast feeding infants. "Out of it" as a heroin junkie would say. Just keep on dreaming amigos. Keep on dreaming. The world doesn't need you. The world doesn't want you. In the words of Shakespeare, "A pox on all your houses!" (no pun intended).
The more you resort to categorising the personal qualities and attributes of myself and others according to your own opinions and perspective, while declaring those opinions and perspectives essentially incapable of error, the more you demonstrate how eager you are to occupy the less rational and reasonable position. And besides, two can play at that game!
Avast Ye Galaxian! Blow your wind, and crack your cheeks, but it is a poor player that struts and frets his lonely hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Yes you have a tale to tell, but it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 
Galaxian wrote:Talking of 'pox'. It is shorthand for 'smallpox', that you talk about being a disease to be vaccinated for... infact you'd be hard put to even order such a vaccine, since that disease does not exist, and the vaccine for it is strictly restricted.
Why does Galaxian always have to do the fucking legwork! Don't you guys have computers or the internet? Are you sooo bored? ... [videos] ...
It seems my irony was a little too oblique there. The reference to smallpox was an example of the kind of fundamental misconception about the basic principle of vaccination - which, as I said, is not a matter of personal choice but a matter of public health. Yes, smallpox has, to all intents and purposes, been eradicated. And how do you think that happened? Seriously, how? That nobody dies from smallpox any more, or that a whole raft of previously fatal contagions are now a statistical and anecdotal rarity, is no reason not to get yourself or your children vaccinated and immunised against all of those nasty diseases on that list above.
Thank you Rainbow for that link. Of course, decade by decade they've been edging towards the incontrovertible fact that we live in a somewhat infinite Universe, with trillions of habitable planets & billions upon billions of civilizations. ... But give them time, they have chat forum members to consider, don't want to upset them, eh?
