Vaccine fears brought measles back to New York | Hacker News Reader

Vaccine fears brought measles back to New York

nature.com

57 pointshckr_nj29 comments

I said it on the other thread, but I'll say it again here. Measles is crazy contagious, with an N0 of somewhere around 15. You basically need everyone vaccinated, because a full 2-3% of the people you give the vaccine to won't become immune, and that's like dangerously close to the level you need for herd immunity.

Somewhere around 0.2% of people (mostly kids?) die from it, in a modern country with a decent emergency medical system.

Also worth mentioning that the fatality rate of 0.1-0.2% is comparable to the fatality rate of coronavirus in healthy adults, and higher in kids. We're scared of coronavirus. We should be scared of measles when unvaccinated.

They should talk to the mothers about rubella and what it does to pregnant women, and they should talk to the fathers about orchitis in mumps and how exquisitely painful it is. The MMR shot protects against these two.

If there’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate more recently, it’s the unbelievably huge value we get from vaccines. The portion of the population that remembers Polio firsthand got too small, and some of society started to go insane.

If anyone is wondering why we have vaccines....Well we are living in a time where the global population lacks a vaccine and has no immunity to one single disease. One. How's that working out for you?

So yeah, let's all not get vaccinated, then we can experience this for like, lots and lots of diseases. Maybe each one "only" kills 1-2% of the population... yay!

Seriously though - if this doesn't kill the anti-vax moment well, then I guess there's no vaccine, or cure, for being stupid.

I don't know the best forum for suggesting something like this without sounding like a monster, but to play devil's advocate for a moment:

What do the SE Asian countries that responded well to Covid-19 have in common?

A: They were more severely impacted by outbreaks of other influenza/coronavirus diseases in the last 20 years.

Is there any benefit to a population having had experience responding to outbreak occasionally so they have the ability to respond in situations like we find ourselves now? There are physicians working who've never actually encountered outbreaks of contagions before. There are politicians who have no clue what it means to lead in a time of contagion. Is it possible that in our pursuit of avoiding suffering in the near-term we set ourselves up for more and greater suffering in the future?

Please, for the love of god, vaccinate yourself and encourage your loved ones to be vaccinated.

And now I await the flood of downvotes because I dared to bring up an untouchable discussion point on hacker news.

Are you suggesting that regularly being impacted by outbreaks is, on average, beneficial to a population? This seems far fetched.

There certainly are ways to teach the correct response to an outbreak, other than killing 1% of the population.

And yet we already have crazies speaking against coronavirus vaccines that don’t even exist yet, with a little bit of mind control and 5G-related nonsense for good measure.

People are more willing to acuse elites about some nefarious play, than to "believe" in vaccines. Our cranium has been shrinking for the last 10k years for a reason. We eliminated individual level natrual selection to a large degree. Instead, one idiot can bring down a whole population. In some way it all boils down to responsibility and proto-christianity in the form of humanism and progressivism. We are willing to risk the future of our species, just to not have to make hard decisions. It's make believe that the suffering does not exist if I can't see it and that I'm smarter than everybody else, therefore my actions cannot produce negative effects. I'm a part of the problem and so are you.

Well if you vaccinate yourself I'm not sure why you're worried about if and who else isn't vaccinated.

I'm guessing you're probably more of the religious fundamentalist of the secular humanist faith, because you're certainly more concerned with worldview than data or fact.

But authoritarians will authoritarian i suppose.

Because not everyone who gets vaccinated gets immunity. So those who don't vaccinate also risk the health of those people.

If anyone's wondering why we have anti-vaxxers... Well, we are living in a time when bodies that could abuse them have proven time and time again that they deserve absolutely zero trust.

The root cause is a completely rational crisis of faith in institutions.

Regardless of the essential nature of vaccines, given the track record of modern governments you would have to be brain-dead to let them inject substances into the whole population without trepidation. It may easily be more stupid to not even question the system than to be overly paranoid.

Why focus on vaccines if your fear is government conspiracy?

Couldn't these same nefarious people be putting 'substances' into the water you drink, the food you eat, the air you breathe, the pills you take, the clothes you wear, the surfaces you touch, etc?

By your logic, I don't see why an anti-vaxxer would ever go to the doctor at all. Why would you trust the pills, the surgery, the diagnostic imaging, the blood draws etc but then draw the line at the vaccine injection?

Food and water supply are important too, who said you can only ¨focus¨ on vaccines? I don't really understand your argument. The controversy with fluoride where some countries are totally against it while others love it shows water is important. Anyway...

None of those things you list are comparable to vaccines - something essential that is systematically, uniformly applied over the population with data kept on each individual. The science is complicated and the supply chain is fragile to being compromised. You can grow your own food and have access to tons of different water supplies, aren't forced to take pills, etc. Not many people have the capacity to do large, long term studies on the vaccine and verify that the contents of the injection are what they should be.

Empirically it's easy to see that abuse is a real danger. I assume everyone knows how the US government used fake vaccines to get 'terrorist DNA' (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci...). There are many disturbing stories, usually in undeveloped countries. Other dystopian shit like barcoding people with vaccination data, really seems a small step away from injecting a chip: https://news.mit.edu/2019/storing-vaccine-history-skin-1218. If you make vaccines mandatory, it doesn't farfetched to me that governments will try to move toward these things.

You can't gather DNA or chip people with food, water, pills, etc

I wonder if a lot of vaccination fear is because the problems associated with the vaccination are a lot easier to relate to (in a society that doesn't often anymore see outbreaks that do a lot of damage) that the problems vaccines are claimed to cause. Like, we all know an autistic kid, or the idea your kid is getting "injected with mercury" - foreign things in your body could cause death, right? That seems easier to relate to than measles or polio - because we really have no idea what that's actually like anymore.

I think one of the most interesting questions today is what are people really thinking when they profess X. I don't believe most antivaxers actually think vaccines actually represent a risk in any logical way. I think they want to be different. I think they want to feel like hero's or people with inside knowledge (special people in some way). I think they want the attention. I think they want to feel more control over the world.

This is why logically explaining risk and rewards to them has no actual effect. Facts don't change how they feel, whether a vaccine is good or not does matter when someone wants to feel special or "make a stand".

This is the same as political extremism or religious or other illogical group forming processes.

Normally we just ignore these groups: if you join a sex cult or a far right militia then society at large doesn't really care. And that's still generally true for anti vax. But they are on the edge of becoming an issue (because it makes a material difference in my life if you don't vaccinate).

We've seen what happens when you try to break these groups up by force (Jones Town, Wako, etc). I wonder if we're any closer to actually preventing this issue (ironic given we're talking about vaccination). I wonder if public opinion will remain strong if and when we have to send in SWAT to drag kids out for vaccination...

It's more about facts and real science than feeling special. The people who are against vaccines want them to really be "safe and effective" and not just labelled as such.

Two things are needed for that to happen: - a study comparing vaccined to unvaccinated (the data is already there, someone just needs to be allowed to compile it) - a proper double blinded placebo safety study which was not done for any vaccine (source: Stanley Plotkin, Vaccines Deposition, Under Oath)

OK, so we have done dozens of such studies. The overwhelming opinion is that vaccines are safe. Here is just one report on the many studies:

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2f93s53t

Read it, and let me know if you're not convinced please! Aussiming you're not, I'd like to hear your reasons. I don't expect to convince you beyond the above report, but I would really appreciate hearing your thought if that's ok?

Thanks!

This is a review and as they usually do they excluded all the convenient research and data. So we'd need to look at every paper taken into account for this review and look at it separately.

On the other hand you can take a look at one of these. There is a whole range of issues here: lack of immunity after vaccination, shedding (infecting other people after vaccinations), adverse affects. And it's just a small sample of studies, there is a lot more out there.

Adverse Events following 12 and 18 Month Vaccinations: a Population-Based, Self-Controlled Case Series Analysis http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3236196/

A dose-response relationship between organic mercury exposure from thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25198681

Relative trends in hospitalizations and mortality among infants by the number of vaccine doses and age, based on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 1990-2010. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22531966

Is infant immunization a risk factor for childhood asthma or allergy? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9345669

Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170075/

Infection, vaccines and other environmental triggers of autoimmunity. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16126512

Increased Risk of Noninfluenza Respiratory Virus Infections Associated With Receipt of Inactivated Influenza Vaccine http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/12/1778.long

A measles outbreak in a middle school with high vaccination coverage and evidence of prior immunity among cases, Beijing, P.R. China https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X1...

Adverse events following immunization with vaccines containing adjuvants. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23576057

Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis following Vaccination against Hepatitis B in a Child: A Case Report and Literature Review. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27478662/

Pertussis epidemic despite high levels of vaccination coverage with acellular pertussis vaccine. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24216286/

[Major measles epidemic in the region of Quebec despite a 99% vaccine coverage] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1884314

Impact of influenza vaccination on seasonal mortality in the US elderly population. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15710788

Having known many people that believe vaccines can harm kids, yes, it can be a 100% real belief, not some cover.

That's why you recognize that it would not go well to attack this with physical force - the strength of people's reaction would not because they want to appear special, but because they honestly, 100% believe someone is trying to hurt their children.

The reason it happens I think is because they exist in a bubble. Most people never research exactly why vaccines are safe, they just take it on trust. There is a lot more (mis)information out there on Anti Vax than Pro Vax because it's not the default position.

What you find when you look into it is that yes vaccines are safe but only because we take stringent measures to ensure that safety. They are not safe by default as most people believe. Then what you have is Anti Vax people believing they have some untapped knowledge because when they talk to people about it very few know exactly why or how vaccines are safe, just that they are which coming from the Anti Vax perspective makes you feel you know something other people don't which is enough to validate your opinion.

This doesn't take into account risk reward even if they were not safe but that's another story.

Sorry, my point wasn't clear. I think these people honestly believe what they claim. 100% believe it. You could MRI them and detect no (conscious) deceit. It's 100% real like you say.

But why do they believe it?

I think they believe it because it makes them feel good.

This is important because if they believed it because they'd looked at the science etc, it would mean they could be convinced by more science. But if its because of feeling, no amount of pro-vax evidence would convince them.

That's the point here: they'll die for their beliefs (some of them at least). But why do they believe it?

Until you know why, you can't challenge the belief. Your only option is to challenge the behaviour, and that's where things get messy...

I see you've got a lot of downvotes for this, which is a shame because it's an interesting discussion point. I've often wondered how the rise of ardently held fringe beliefs corresponds with the decline of religion in Western society.

Thanks.

I find it interesting that everyone just takes religion/fringe groups at face value. Are people really going to church because God or is it community and wanting to feel part of an in-group? The same seems doubly true for antivax: have people really honestly read all the studies and open-mindedly decided its a giant conspiracy, or are they just lonely and want something to make them feel smart?

Big pharma is happy to see this in the first page of HN. Measles vaccination is in many cases ineffective. One of my best friends at 35 vaccinated almost died of measles. This for you may be just "anecdotal", but I am still convinced that is better to have contracted the virus when young than think to be immune when that is not the case, and contract the illness when adult, where death rate is much higher (without taking in consideration the amount of undesired effects the vaccine certainly have on some individuals).

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