Apparently, vaccination is rape

[Valka D'Ur]

Correct. It only strongly resembles the debate about abortion, but with the sides reversed.

J

This. Is. Not. About. Abortion.

Yes, there is a "my body, my decision" reasoning here. But refusing to be vaccinated means deliberately putting other people at risk. Some other woman's pregnancy doesn't affect me in the slightest. But if she refuses to get her kid vaccinated and that kid brings measles or the flu or something else into the vicinity, it's possible that I could end up sick. I'm part of the population that is considered "at risk" as far as the flu is concerned. Therefore, I take a very dim view of people who refuse vaccinations for any reason other than it would likely kill them.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This. Is. Not. About. Abortion.

Yes, there is a "my body, my decision" reasoning here. But refusing to be vaccinated means deliberately putting other people at risk. Some other woman's pregnancy doesn't affect me in the slightest. But if she refuses to get her kid vaccinated and that kid brings measles or the flu or something else into the vicinity, it's possible that I could end up sick. I'm part of the population that is considered "at risk" as far as the flu is concerned. Therefore, I take a very dim view of people who refuse vaccinations for any reason other than it would likely kill them.

Getting in the drivers seat of a car puts other people at risk...with much higher probability. Serving food to someone puts them at risk of choking. If you want to gulag everyone who puts somebody at risk it's already done...just consider the planet the gulag.

Once again, this is why we don't gulag people for possibilities. Just for significant probabilities.

 

[Evie]

Which is why there is a metric fecal matter ton of things you're prohibited from doing while driving a car.

But don't kid yourself. The reason we tolerate driving car is not freedom ; it's the enormous tangible benefits it brings. If driving wasn't such a hyper-practical means of transportation, it would be a lot more restricted than it is right now.

What's the enormous tangible benefit of not vaccinating, again?

 

[Borachio]

One in ten thousand is far less reasonable under most circumstnaces, and far worse when your baby suffer it (as it's death versus a severe allergic reaction which does not necessarily translate in death).

My mother's response to this would have been that death is preferable to what her daughter experienced.

I couldn't comment.

I can only indicate in the most general terms the sort of real dilemmas that this issue raises. I don't have any answers to them to offer.

 

[Evie]

I can understand that, and I hesitated before raising that point for that reason.

But the thing is, measle, too, has the potential for nasty brain damage, through the possible resulting encephalitis. And while I don't have the numbers, it's likely a significantly higher odds - still infinitely low, but significantly higher - than what happened to your sister.

That's the bottom line, really. Yes, the vaccine can some, very rare time, have terrible result. But pretty much every possible terrible result of getting the vaccine is at least as likely and most often far more likely to happen if you don't get the vaccine and catch the disease instead.

 

[Borachio]

I agree. And the maths makes sense.

But considerations of probability go out the window when it's your child who is affected (whether it's because they've been vaccinated, or because they haven't).

It's not a rational response, I think, but it is a human one.

It's no use to say "it's a 1 in a million chance", or a 1 in a whatever; if it's happened to you, it's 100%.

 

[Snorrius]

Someone please tell me this is a joke that I'm missing because of cultural context or something.

The term "rape" was raped long ago since the introduction of "marital rape" oxymoron and "statutory rape" legalistic nonsense, so equalizing rape with vaccination is no surprise. This is the magical force of equality!

 

[aelf]

Correct. It only strongly resembles the debate about abortion, but with the sides reversed.

Nice try. Only it doesn't resemble the typical debate about abortion at all because in this case other persons' health is involved.

Well said.

Consistency has never been the Lefts strong point.

Does being both "pro-life" and pro-death penalty sound familiar?

 

[warpus]

war is peace, ignorance is strength, vaccination is rape, cheese is bread

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I can understand that, and I hesitated before raising that point for that reason.

But the thing is, measle, too, has the potential for nasty brain damage, through the possible resulting encephalitis. And while I don't have the numbers, it's likely a significantly higher odds - still infinitely low, but significantly higher - than what happened to your sister.

That's the bottom line, really. Yes, the vaccine can some, very rare time, have terrible result. But pretty much every possible terrible result of getting the vaccine is at least as likely and most often far more likely to happen if you don't get the vaccine and catch the disease instead.

Oda, you are ignoring the factors presented previously in your assessment of probabilities. You are comparing "If my kid gets measles these bad things have this probability of happening" vs "if your kid gets vaccinated these similar bad things have this much lower probability of happening" and finishing with the conclusion that since the probabilities are two orders of magnitude apart the better path is obvious.

But the probability of bad things happening to the child being vaccinated is multiplied by one; the probability of vaccination. While the probability of bad things happening to your kid if your kid gets measles has to be multiplied by a non unity factor representing the probability of your kid getting measles in the first place. I submit that that factor is small enough to make up the two orders of magnitude, and more.

 

[warpus]

You're arguing against vaccination, Tim? Devil's advocate? Don't tell me you jumped into the deep end with the rest of the anti-vaxxers..

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You're arguing against vaccination, Tim? Devil's advocate? Don't tell me you jumped into the deep end with the rest of the anti-vaxxers..

Nope. I argue for the same thing I always argue when this topic comes up. Anti vaxxers are nutty extremists using fearmongering over a ridiculously small risk to try to make their point...but they present a risk that is also ridiculously small so fearmongering over it and promoting madness like "separate but equal for the unvaccinated" or "take their kids under child abuse statutes" is just as extreme if not more.

I am anti-nuttiness, not anti vaccine.

 

[warpus]

Well, they do pose a bit of a dangerous risk. If their ideas caught on enough, herd immunity would be compromised and it would lead to a lot of huge problems. Already this is happening in some very specific geographic areas. It doesn't seem to be bad enough to pose a risk to the general population on the whole continent, but herd immunity is such a fickle thing, you don't want too many people believing that garbage.

I don't mind at all what Australia did - no more exemptions from vaccinations - and those who refuse to vaccinate have to.. well, I don't quite remember the details, but it seemed like a good measured response.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, they do pose a bit of a dangerous risk. If their ideas caught on enough, herd immunity would be compromised and it would lead to a lot of huge problems. Already this is happening in some very specific geographic areas. It doesn't seem to be bad enough to pose a risk to the general population on the whole continent, but herd immunity is such a fickle thing, you don't want too many people believing that garbage.

I don't mind at all what Australia did - no more exemptions from vaccinations - and those who refuse to vaccinate have to.. well, I don't quite remember the details, but it seemed like a good measured response.

The problems weren't "huge" when there was no vaccine at all, so even if the anti-vax crowd did have some shot at really compromising herd immunity they couldn't create a huge problem now. Add to that the fact that they have no shot at actually compromising herd immunity with their fringe fear mongering and there is no justification for legislative action against them...all fringe fear mongering about an epidemic of suddenly deadly measles aside.

 

[warpus]

The problems weren't "huge" when there was no vaccine at all

I'm not sure how you define 'huge', but people were dying from all the diseases that we've eliminated on a regular basis.

Add to that the fact that they have no shot at actually compromising herd immunity with their fringe fear mongering

Depends - they managed to actually compromise it in parts of California and I believe the Netherlands.

At some point you've got to step in and make sure that these idiots aren't endangering the rest of us. If there's only a handful of them, that's fine, but they've been pushing their message and getting new converts. If we don't fight back in some way, the idiocy will spread.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Depends - they managed to actually compromise it in parts of California and I believe the Netherlands.

At some point you've got to step in and make sure that these idiots aren't endangering the rest of us. If there's only a handful of them, that's fine, but they've been pushing their message and getting new converts. If we don't fight back in some way, the idiocy will spread.

There were areas in Canada that had bad measles outbreaks last year because a bunch of parents refused to get their kids vaccinated for "religious reasons."

Even around here, there were reports that "if you were at this location on this day you were exposed to measles, so if you weren't vaccinated, monitor yourself for symptoms and consult the health line for further information if necessary."

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not sure how you define 'huge', but people were dying from all the diseases that we've eliminated on a regular basis.

That "regular basis" amounted to a few hundred a year when there was no vaccine and virtually every kid in America was getting the measles. That probability, as Oda has pointed out, is just a couple orders of magnitudes greater than the probability of bad reactions to the vaccine, which those who are demanding legislation say are far too low to be of concern, if they are willing to stop pretending that they do not exist at all. Factor in that no matter what happens to herd immunity you still have the opportunity to have your kids vaccinated. Which makes the probability of your kid having severe consequences from having measles (probability of vaccinated kid getting measles multiplied by probability of severe consequences) at or more likely beyond the same miniscule probability that is being called negligible in regards to the vaccination risks.

 

[warpus]

The measles wasn't the only disease that has been eliminated due to mandated vaccinations though. There used to be all sorts of potentially deadly diseases going around.

 

[civvver]

The real problem here is politics and propaganda mixing with sound medical advice. The only reason some parents don't want their kids vaccinated these days is because of the stupid anti drug company, drugs cause autism and every other ailment under the sun these days, crowd. It's just a lot of propaganda for whatever their purposes are. Sometimes it's to get phony research grants, sometimes it's just some political agenda, who knows, the problem is it only takes one quack to start spreading nonsense about how vaccines cause autism and then suddenly a large enough portion of society believes it because of all the seeds of mistrust that have been ingrained into us about big pharma. Which I am not all at saying big pharma are these benevolent beings who only have your best interests, but look at all the anti-GMO stuff out there, how every food additive supposedly causes cancer now and it just goes on and on and on and you cannot get to the truth and get sound education any more because it's all political on both sides. People don't take time to properly educate themselves on anything these days.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The measles wasn't the only disease that has been eliminated due to mandated vaccinations though. There used to be all sorts of potentially deadly diseases going around.

Oh, I agree completely. If you look back through the thread you will see me mention Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine, and if you want to limit your case to saying that anyone who turns down polio vaccine should be culled for the safety of the herd I would likely agree. Same with smallpox.

But I think the main focus of the ant-vax crowd is the vaccines against the routine childhood diseases, which from a statistical perspective is a negligible risk that can be taken to avoid a different negligible risk, leading to extreme arguments on both sides that are blown far beyond the proportion that either risk merits.