Vaccinations, Personal Freedom, Social Responsibility

[_MeDotOrg]

There is a measles outbreak of over 50 cases in in Clark County, Washington, which could be seen coming from a mile away. In 2017, only 78% of Kindergarteners had their full range of shots.

The last big measles outbreak happened in Philadelphia around a Faith Healing Congregation that discouraged vaccinations. Thousand got the measles. Nine children eventually died. Now that the measles outbreak is actually occuring in Clark County, the vaccination rate this year is up 500%. People are abandoning their old time religion for science in a needle. Public health is where the irresistible force of greater good meets the immovable object of religious freedom.

But where does the right of one person to practice their religion interfere with another's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? A simplified version of Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative is the question "What if everybody did it?". What if 40% of Americans refused to vaccinated for diseases? Our health care landscape would be drastically worse.

It has been said that your right to swing your arm freely ends where the other man's nose begins. The same principle should apply to public health and religious freedom.

[_Jersey Girl]

Oh boy am I going to jump in on this topic. But not just yet. I'll come back to this for sure.

[_huckelberry]

Is there reason to think this is related to religion? This part of the country is not big on old time religion though I suppose noplace is immune. There have been been anti immunization fears spread about some groups without religious connection.

[_huckelberry]

what if everybody did it?

such as??
moved to Phoenix?
Played the Oboe?
devoted their life to being a plumber?
raised only cotton?
climbed Mt Rainer every year?
become professional guides to fishing the South Fork of the Snake?
Got a phd in math? or philosophy?
became professional chess players?

I miss the sense in this moral guide.

[_Maksutov]

Is there reason to think this is related to religion? This part of the country is not big on old time religion though I suppose noplace is immune. There have been been anti immunization fears spread about some groups without religious connection.

Oprah, Oz, Jenny McCarthy and various professional woosters as much as religion. Some religions are less scientific than others.

[_Jersey Girl]

I know that this isn't precisely what you had in mind MeDot, but I do think it will add to the discussion at hand. Let me post a couple or three snippets of a wiki for the express purpose of enticing the reader to investigate further how all of this started.

Because it started with a conflict of interest driven by a disreputable doctor.

Meet Andrew Jeremy Wakefield.

Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1957)[1][2] is a discredited former British doctor who became an anti-vaccine activist. He was a gastroenterologist until he was struck off the UK medical register for unethical behaviour, misconduct and dishonesty. In 1998 he was the lead author of a fraudulent research paper claiming that there was a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism and bowel disease.

WebMD reported on Deer's BMJ report, saying that the $43 million predicted yearly profits would come from marketing kits for "diagnosing patients with autism" and that "the initial market for the diagnostic will be litigation-driven testing of patients with AE [autistic enterocolitis, an unproven condition concocted by Wakefield] from both the UK and the US".[100] According to WebMD, the BMJ article also claimed that Carmel Healthcare Ltd would succeed in marketing products and developing a replacement vaccine if "public confidence in the MMR vaccine was damaged".[100]

In October 2012, research published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identified Wakefield's 1998 paper as the most cited retracted scientific paper, with 758 citations, and gave the "reason for retraction" as "fraud".[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

[_Jersey Girl]

There is a measles outbreak of over 50 cases in in Clark County, Washington, which could be seen coming from a mile away. In 2017, only 78% of Kindergarteners had their full range of shots.

Yep. And that's not the only reported outbreak.

The last big measles outbreak happened in Philadelphia around a Faith Healing Congregation that discouraged vaccinations. Thousand got the measles. Nine children eventually died. Now that the measles outbreak is actually occuring in Clark County, the vaccination rate this year is up 500%. People are abandoning their old time religion for science in a needle. Public health is where the irresistible force of greater good meets the immovable object of religious freedom.

Here's what I've got from the CDC website. This is the instances of measles just prior to the first MMR vaccines.

In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year, among reported cases, an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.

But where does the right of one person to practice their religion interfere with another's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? A simplified version of Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative is the question "What if everybody did it?". What if 40% of Americans refused to vaccinated for diseases? Our health care landscape would be drastically worse.

It is not just the practicing of religion. Medical, religious and philosophical exemptions are now being challenged. In my view, only the medical exemptions should be left to stand.

It has been said that your right to swing your arm freely ends where the other man's nose begins. The same principle should apply to public health and religious freedom.

Vulnerable children and adults whose immune systems are compromised were previously thought to be protected by herd immunity. As you can see by the current rise in measles diagnoses, the effectiveness of herd immunity is failing.

There are parents who place strong faith in anti-vaxx influencers. If I read about one more parent suggesting essential oils, elderberry, or other unregulated supplements as prevention or treatments for these childhood diseases, I think my head will blow apart in pieces.

These are parents who have never seen a child die from measles, who never had the measles (mumps or rubella) themselves because they were vaccinated, have never known even one person in their lives who had polio that lived their lives in an iron lung.

Your responsibility begins and your rights end when you are moving about as part of the population and pose a public threat to society. In this case, a public health threat.

That's where your rights end, as well they should.

If that is not the case, then let's remove road signage and traffic lights while we're at it, and see how that crap goes.

[_Jersey Girl]

Here's an example of what the anti-vaxxers are reading. This is about a new super vaccine.

Note the absence of a link to the clinical trial and notice how the anonymous author is using the child deaths in the clinical trials to ratchet up fear in the reader. Do a little more digging and you'll see this is coming from a lobbyist group.

http://www.anh-usa.org/new-super-vaccine-approved/

I'm not sure I am up for a super vaccine. I'm certainly not on board with the fear mongering or exploiting children to do it. I have seen the clinical trial outcomes. The deaths seemed well within the normative percentages of each cause of death listed as I looked up the stats for each cause of death in the population for multiple years.

[_MeDotOrg]

I was incorrect in saying the anti-vaxxers were only doing so out of religious convictions. There are different viewpoints within the anti-vaccine movement.

'What if everybody did it' is usually an example of individual behavior that may not seem egregious in and of itself, but if everyone were allowed to do it, the results would be hugely negative. Running red lights, double-parking, butting in line, cheating on taxes, driving without insurance, etc.

[_EAllusion]

The stereotype of an anti-vaxxer I have in mind is an affluent liberal who isn't all that religious, but describes themselves as "spiritual" when asked. The conservative, religious anti-vaxxers are always the ones I have to remember because the intellectual energy and leadership of the anti-vax movement comes primarily from the left. This is one of those issues where the far left and far right, or at least important subcultures within them, tend to align. Anti-GMO's is another. So is pro-supplement taking.