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Comment by crispy2000 | Hacker News Reader

crispy2000

Kinda over the top, dontcha think? I had measles as a child, and it was hardly "devastating". Chart seems to be missing any indication of the percentage of people vaccinated, so that one can at least see a correlation, let alone infer causation, or "impact"! And since Disneyland is a tourist spot, isn't it at least possible that some of the guests could be people from countries which don't vaccinate for measles? That is assuming that the strain of the current measles outbreak is the same one prevented by the vaccine.

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http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Measles/Pages/Complications.asp...

1 in 5000 people who get measles will die.

The "uncommon" (for medication side effects "uncommon" means between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1000 people get the side effect; "rare" means that between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 people are affected and "very rare" means that fewer than one in 10,000 people are affected -- I don't know if this is the same for disease complications).

Uncommon:

liver infection (hepatitis)

misalignment of the eyes (squint), if the virus affects the nerves and muscles of the eye

*infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord (meningitis) and infection of the brain itself (encephalitis)

These seem pretty severe, especially since they're mostly avoidable.

EDIT:

> possible that some of the guests could be people from countries which don't vaccinate for measles?

Which countries would they be? Measles immunisation covers 80% of children under 1 year old.

http://www.who.int/immunization/programmes_systems/en/

> assuming that the strain of the current measles outbreak is the same one prevented by the vaccine

Are you saying the Edmonson strain doesn't protect against current strains? Or are you making shit up?

However it is more complicated than this, b/c the majority of people that do get the measles and die from it typically already have other health problems. Recently my niece got the measles --a "breakout case" from the vaccination itself actually. I was very concerned b/c I thought if they expect everyone to get vaccinated it must be pretty deadly. The doctor said otherwise. Because she was perfectly healthy in all other respects, there was no cause for concern.

Measles is pretty devastating in the approximately 0.3% of cases in which it's fatal, and that's in the US (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles). It's (even) worse in less well-developed countries.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6334a1.htm#Tab3 here.

The magic number you are looking for is 95%.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-measles-spread...

You may be surprised to learn that Disney etc may have thought of the source and method of spreading of this particular outbreak.

There have only ever been 21 strains of measles discovered, nothing seems to suggest that current infections involve a novel strain.

I agree. Where is the proof that the increase in cases is directly related to fewer vaccinations? I recently read a study out of South Korea that showed despite a 97% vaccination rate against chickenpox, the number of cases continue to rise.

The most fundamental problem with our healthcare system is that we all know that pharmaceutical companies primary goal is to make bank, so we can't trust them.

The most fundamental problem with EVERY FUCKING PRIVATE COMPANY THERE IS is that we all know that their primary goal is to make bank, so we can't trust them.

Do you grow your own food? Make your own clothes? Did you assemble your car yourself from materials you created using your own steel mill and other such basic materials manufacturing plants? You trust private companies every day, every one of which happily states that they want to make money. What's so special about medicines?

Yes I do grow some food. I also eat as much organic food as I can. I also am a thoughtful and careful buyer of all things. But medicine stands out above all other industries b/c it has extreme life-and-death consequences. For the companies involved, to make money there is a strong perverse incentive to have sick people. Compare it for instance to the police. How do you think we'd fair if the police were all run by private corporations and you had to pay them for service and protection?

>Yes I do grow some food. I also eat as much organic food as I can.

This is something I use to wonder about. Isn't it more important that the food we eat be free of harmful toxins (like pesticides or harmful fertilizers?), but there is no agency that is responsible for checking the quality of vegetables or meat (At least here in India). There was an big issue with pesticides (Endosulfan)[1], in my state some time back. But still no government agency bothers to check for vegetables that are being sold to the public. No one bothers to check meat and fish for harmful levels of antibiotics or harmful chemicals.

So my question is, why are not governments spending any effort on this regards, while spending so much money of immunization. Combine with the fact that there is rampant corruption in every level of government, general poor quality of drugs sold in India, past proven incidents with pharmaceutical companies malpractices like faking results of medicine trials, is it too much if I think twice about giving an immunization drug to my kids?

[1]http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1189820/revea...

But for some reason you trust a hoax which originated with falsified study?

But I am supposed to trust you calling the study a "hoax" and "falsified", when I doubt you even know what study I am talking about?

Pointing fingers at each other and shouting "YOU'RE WRONG, NOT ME, I'M RIGHT" is of zero value. Let's see the study.

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