Parents Scared of Vaccinations Okay With Giving Kids Lollipops Licked by Strangers

[Yugl]

It's funny how this is the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the McDonalds thread.

[Kerberoz]

Internet hoax? Urban legend?

You have far too much faith in humanity.

Anti-vaxxers aren't insane; that would be an insult to insane people. They're just very, very, very fucking stupid.

Some reading, if you're bored and not easily depressed:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Vaccine_hysteria
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
http://jennymccarthybodycount.com/Je...ount/Home.html
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/me...nation_lunacy/
http://whatstheharm.net/vaccinedenial.html
http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=5&order=desc
http://www.skepdic.com/tialtmed.html

[Shuvo]

Bill Gates almost has polio completely wiped out right?

Yeap, as of 2 weeks ago the global number of polio infections has dropped by 99% since the year before. It's quite possible that nutjobs like Jenny mcarthy or other anti-science fundamentalists might undo it all though. The cost of vaccinating that last 1% is exponentially higher then the first 99 :/

[Kerberoz]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewh...of-bill-gates/

It's going to be hilariously sad when diseases that are being wiped out in the third world experience more and more resurgence in the first world.

Also hilariously sad that the bitter, lonely control freak with keyboard-phobia who never gave a shit about other human beings was treated like a demi-god, while the man who's given more to charity than anyone else in history is "teh evil micro$uck guy kekekeke"

[Apelila]

Off topic but related to Kerb: I think that time will remember Gates for his charity work more than MS. There's something to be said for being the richest man in the world and giving so much of it away that by doing so he erradicated multiple diseases from Humanity. Compare that to Jobs who has very little legacy outside of Apple. Jobs wasn't exactly a warm, huggy person either. I'll bet that carries over or is distorted more as time goes on. Charisma doesn't last after death, people will always remember an asshole.

Back on topic: I hope that whenver the next big bug sweeps through there's enough warning that it's posible to make damn sure I do absolutely no traveling.

[thetruepandagod]

Aren't you guys usually cheering things that result in idiots breeding less?

[Apelila]

This doesn't have a direct impact on the ability of idiots to breed. It results in a large percentage of idiots being the cause of a pandemic through their improperly protected children. I guess it prevents their ability to breed because in the case of Whooping cough, all the very little kids can die because one of the older ones got sick.
Add in that vaccines lose potency overtime, that this campaign of stupid has been ongoing for the last 10+ years, and the effects could be beyond description if is there was a large scale outbreak of something we haven't seen for 40+ years.

In some communities, something like 8% of the population this last year has chosen no vaccination either because they are lazy, stupid or Jesus told them not to. I guess the lesson out of all of this is stay away from children? Idk.

[Soa]

I'm glad my school district doesn't allow kids to enter unless they've been fully vaccinated beforehand.

[Correction]

Aren't you guys usually cheering things that result in idiots breeding less?

It might be a problem if these lollipops carry other communicable diseases that aren't commonly vaccinated against in children, like Hep A.

[Khajit]

The first thing that came to my mind was some pedo is going to read that article and start giving out semen covered lollipops.

[SephYuyX]

People who get vaccinations out of fear are lol.
These yearly flu shots, last years swine flu, etcetc are so BS.

I havent had a shot since I was a kid, and the worst thing ive had since is a cold.
Learn to breed better.

[Niiro]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewh...of-bill-gates/

It's going to be hilariously sad when diseases that are being wiped out in the third world experience more and more resurgence in the first world.

Also hilariously sad that the bitter, lonely control freak with keyboard-phobia who never gave a shit about other human beings was treated like a demi-god, while the man who's given more to charity than anyone else in history is "teh evil micro$uck guy kekekeke"

[Celestialstrife]

Do you want the short story?

Tell us a story :D

[Correction]

People who get vaccinations out of fear are lol.
These yearly flu shots, last years swine flu, etcetc are so BS.

I havent had a shot since I was a kid, and the worst thing ive had since is a cold.
Learn to breed better.

troll copypasta or just stupid?

The real benefit of flu vaccinations aren't about lowering the mortaility rate in young and healthy adults.

[hey]

People who get vaccinations out of fear are lol.
These yearly flu shots, last years swine flu, etcetc are so BS.

I havent had a shot since I was a kid, and the worst thing ive had since is a cold.
Learn to breed better.

"i didn't get any vaccines, and i'm perfectly fine, so anyone who does is an idiot, and would also be just fine without them".

[Cream Soda]

Never vaccinated, never had the pox. My brother had it for a week, they had me hang out w/ him the whole week trying to get me to catch it, never did.

[kuronosan]

The reason your immune system is the way it is really depends on the potency of the antigen in question. Generally the stronger the reaction of the immune system, the longer the titers of antibodies will remain for. Sometimes viral proteins will linger for years until disappearing and some (in the case of hepatitis) cycle and disappear/reappear quickly.

The B-cells responsible for producing the antibodies will eventually forget the DNA sequences of the antigens (epitopes) and will produce less and less antibody in response to them when they enter the system.

The advantage to this is that natural immunity can occur with viral diseases like chickenpox (and reoccur later as shingles) and the flu, but is harder to achieve with bacterial diseases as antibodies generally only work toward protein structures and not towards organisms. This is also why bacterial infections, protozoic infections, and fungal infections are much more deadly as B-cells don't interact with them and when they do they're far more reliant on other branches of the immune system to combat infection. Viruses are different, because the only advantage they have is that some of them can mutate. This is why you get sick from the cold, which mutates frequently enough and doesn't last long enough to produce large enough amounts of antibodies to provide natural immunity (there are other factors involved, of course).

In the case of tetanus, the approximate cooldown period amounts to almost 10 years. After that period, there aren't enough of the plasma cells remaining to produce antibodies required to protect you from the bacterial toxins (that's right, the shot protects you against the toxin, not the Clostridia responsible for it).

The benefits of vaccination is that it can give your body the chance to produce antibodies to things it normally wouldn't (such is the case of TB or other bacteria, or viral vaccinations). The drawback is that stupid people get vaccinations they really don't need (like the flu vaccine) for diseases that aren't really fatal (like chickenpox) which can cause herd immunity. Those not immune to the disease naturally, after time, can be wiped out completely because their body lacks the natural defenses to fight disease.

That's why it's essential that everyone be vaccinated against the more important diseases, so that they're no longer prevalent enough to affect people (like polio) in such severe ways.

[Zilong]

Never vaccinated, never had the pox. My brother had it for a week, they had me hang out w/ him the whole week trying to get me to catch it, never did.

Once again your continued existence had Darwin rolling in his grave

[Kerberoz]

Refusing vaccination endangers the entire population, not just your jackass self. Herd Immunity. Try to grasp the middle-school biology concept.

[MaachaQ]

I'm glad my school district doesn't allow kids to enter unless they've been fully vaccinated beforehand.

Problem is, alot of the aniti-vaxers are also home schoolers, but being home schooled doesn't keep you from exposing other kids to diseases when you visit the same playgrounds, grocery stores, restaurants etc. Also, I don't think day care requires vaccination, and it's in daycare where the kids too young to be vaccinated will mingle with older kids whose parents chose not to vaccinate and who might expose the little ones to bad stuff.

Herd immunity is right, and the lower the herd immunity is, the greater chance that those who already have weak immune systems due to age (too old or too young) or disease (cancer treatment, etc) will catch some of these rare bugs. Once the rare bugs gain a foothold, even those who were vaccinated in the past are at risk if they haven't had a recent booster shot.

Here in Korea it's still normal to have kids get Tuberculosis vaccinations, and there was initially a problem when we went to enroll my kids in school here because they do not vaccinate for it normally in the US. By the time we had moved here the kids were already past the recommended age for vaccination, so we have to rely on herd immunity to protect them.