Gardasil Cleared of Anti-Vax Nonsense (slate.com) 508
New submitter Zane C. writes: A new study once again shows vaccines have no link with yet another batch of medical disorders. The vaccine in question is a relatively new HPV vaccine called Gardasil, mainly targeting preteens to reduce infection. Phil Plait has more on this, debunking anti-vax claims and explaining why you should receive the vaccine: "It’s another typical anti-vax call to arms due to a complete and gross misunderstanding of how reality works. To them, if something happens after something else, it was caused by that first thing. This is the classic post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. But the Universe doesn’t work that way. And this kind of bad thinking has consequences. In the U.S. alone, 79 million people are infected with HPV. That’s more than a quarter of the entire population. Fourteen million new cases crop up every year. Gardasil can substantially cut those numbers back—it’s working, and working well, in the U.S. and Australia—but not if the fearmongering falsehoods by anti-vaxxers get traction."
VAX is back? (Score:5, Funny)
I loved working on my VAX systems - a great little healthcare OS.
Re: (Score:3)
I loved working on my VAX systems - a great little healthcare OS.
Really, my VAX literally sucked.
The herd's moving (Score:5, Insightful)
If you take a former playmate's advice on vaccinations, maybe the herd could do without you.
Re:The herd's moving (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the problem with this is that the idiots refusing vaccines aren't just putting themselves at risk.
If it was just they and their offspring would become ill? Hey, run wild. You've taken yourselves out of the gene pool and we don't care. That's your damned problem for a choice you made.
But that isn't what happens. Someone else gets sick.
Which means if you refuse to get vaccinated and then help to spread disease you should be liable for that. Like criminally liable.
If it was as simple as the herd doing without the ones who wouldn't get vaccinated, it would be an easy choice. What they really end up doing is endangering other people.
Which means they aren't solely the ones in danger by their own stupidity, and they should be refused access to places like schools and jobs so they don't make others ill due to their own stupid.
Re:The herd's moving (Score:5, Insightful)
It is even worse than that. If you provide a host population for a virus it will mutate over time. It could mutate around the vaccine the others have taken and become generally infectious again.
One of the things many in medicine are worried about is that anti-vax people are going to provide a host population and something like measles will mutate and go back to killing millions of people. It is unlikely that we will come up with a new vaccine very quickly and even if the government makes this a crash project and devotes insane resources to it progress could still be slow.
For many of these diseases that we can vaccinate against we have nothing else. The diseases are still deadly and we don't really have a way to treat them.
The worst problem is that this outcome is inevitable if you have a host population. Anti-vax people put EVERYONE else at risk and it is just a matter of time until it happens.
This is why vaccines should be 100% mandatory unless there is a valid medical reason. I don't care what your religion, personal beliefs etc are. If you are going to live around other people you have to be vacinated.
Re: (Score:2)
This is why vaccines should be 100% mandatory unless there is a valid medical reason. I don't care what your religion, personal beliefs etc are. If you are going to live around other people you have to be vacinated.
I share this sentiment for easily communicated diseases (which is what I'm vaccinated against), but why should people be forced to take vaccines for diseases that are very easily avoided? I'm not going to lose sleep over sending my (hypothetical) child to a school where a bunch of children haven
Re: (Score:3)
Here's a hint as to why.
Your (theoretical) child will have sex before you're ready for them to.
If they get HPV due to not getting this vaccine, they are much more susceptible to several cancers and may die earlier.
So I guess you're up for russian roulette for your child?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The herd's moving (Score:4, Insightful)
Or here's a more general objection: should adults also be required to be vaccinated against HPV?
Another point is, lets say he says the answer is yes...
Any time you say something is "required", you then also have to answer the question, "or else what?"
Lets say you decree that I must be vaccinated. Ok, now I refuse, so now what?
Do you suggest that government teams go around person to person and hold people down against a table and inject them against their will?
I don't know about you, but frankly, that is worse than anything nature might throw my way, that is evil, pure and simple.
Re: (Score:3)
I apply a more general rule for the "or else" question: if I would not be comfortable personally enforcing a law, I won't support it. I don't have much of a problem with, say, the compulsory smallpox vaccinations that used to occur, since willingly unvaccinated individuals would be putting me in huge danger simply by breathing the same air. (Although in this case, banishment would indeed be an option.) Or for MMR, relatively harmless in comparison to smallpox but still easily transmissible, I have no pro
Re:The herd's moving (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't have much of a problem with, say, the compulsory smallpox vaccinations that used to occur, since willingly unvaccinated individuals would be putting me in huge danger simply by breathing the same air.
Your right to not be in danger does not remove my right to be secure in my body and self against forced government injections.
In other words, while I understand your concern, you don't get to harm me to keep yourself safe.
---
Here is the thing. Do I think the smallpox vacieene is effective? Yes, of course, it was amazingly effective.
However, do I think that people have the right to refuse it? Yes, they do.
Let me put this another way. If you think you have the right to force an injection into me, then I have the right to shoot you in self-defense.
---
Second point: Public Schools. I completely understand the concerns over public schools and vaccines. That being said, since my tax dollars support public schools, you can't just exclude my children because of your fears without compensating me.
However, that problem actually is easy to solve. Simply provide school vouchers, so that parents can send their kids to the school of their choice, using the tax dollars already set aside for them. If public schools want to ban kids who aren't vaccinated, fair enough, there will be private schools as options, and they can accept the vouchers
Re:The herd's moving (Score:4, Insightful)
If we still had smallpox circulating, an unvaccinated person is a threat. At any time, he or she may contract smallpox and transmit it. If we don't run you out of town immediately, but wait until you develop smallpox, it's too late. You've already had the chance to infect people who may not have been vaccinated, either for a legitimate medical condition or because they're too young. If you infect a baby who dies because you're an asshole, you're a murderer.
Wiping out smallpox involved inoculating everyone we could get a needle into. If enough people had refused to keep a population active, it would still be a threat.
We provide free public education for children, but we can put reasonable limits on it. We don't have to let people in who are biohazards by choice, for example.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
This is why vaccines should be 100% mandatory unless there is a valid medical reason. I don't care what your religion, personal beliefs etc are. If you are going to live around other people you have to be vacinated.
I share this sentiment for easily communicated diseases (which is what I'm vaccinated against), but why should people be forced to take vaccines for diseases that are very easily avoided? I'm not going to lose sleep over sending my (hypothetical) child to a school where a bunch of children haven't taken Gardasil, as long as they've taken vaccines for anything they'd be likely to spew onto other children in the classroom.
I hate to break it to you, but STDs are easily communicated diseases. You may think you will be some kind of perfect parent whose children would never go against your wishes, but that just shows how unprepared for parenthood you are right now. Over two thirds of teenagers have sex before they are 20, and only 3% of Americans save themselves for marriage. If you assume your children will be part of that very small percentage then I wouldn't trust you with heavy machinery let alone children.
Re: (Score:3)
HPV is not easily avoided,
ubiquitous (not comparable)
Being everywhere at once: omnipresent.
To Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Christia
Re:The herd's moving (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the things many in medicine are worried about is that anti-vax people are going to provide a host population and something like measles will mutate and go back to killing millions of people.
Keep in mind that this is more of a risk because of vaccination, for two reasons:
1: When the diseases were not vaccinated against, the diseases were still mutating and competing, and the most successful strains over time were the milder, which didn't kill the host, and allowed propagation. Lethal spreadable diseases are evolutionary dead ends compared to their less lethal cousins. With vaccines, we've eradicated the competition too, making it easier for a dangerous mutation to propagate.
2: And on the flip side of the coin, before vaccination, the humans who had genes that made it more likely they would survive the disease would have more viable offspring. After vaccination, those genes no longer give an advantage, and others without the resistance propagate their genes just as much, leading to a population that is more susceptible to not surviving an outbreak.
Re:The herd's moving (Score:5)
It is all the lies that the government and Pro-Vaxxers spew forth that make me trust that the vaccines are safe even less. Measles has never caused millions of deaths.
From the WHO [who.int]:
In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.
Approximately 114 900 people died from measles in 2014 – mostly children under the age of 5.
Now, what were you lying?
Re:The herd's moving (Score:4)
My previous post said nothing about the conditions under which people got the measles, and I did not make the claim that it was exceedingly dangerous to those in the First World. I specifically pointed out that you were, in fact, wrong when you said it never caused millions of deaths. However, even discounting deaths, measles can have permanent unpleasant side effects, which generally aren't reduced by easily available food.
Re: (Score:3)
What an ethical argument. Would you care to provide some sort of actual argument, starting from any publicly recognized system of ethics?
"My body, My choice".
(Yes, I'm *for* vaccinations, and against anti-vaxxers. Doesn't mean I support forced and/or coerced injections by the state).
Re: (Score:2)
Which means if you refuse to get vaccinated and then help to spread disease you should be liable for that.
I think there's a bit of a difference between diseases that you can catch because someone else's third grader sneezed on yours, and diseases that are only transmitted through sexual contact.
Re: (Score:3)
Got news for you dude, sexual intercourse isn't the only way you can get HPV, if it were than virgins wouldn't have it. Sexual intercourse is the easiest way but not the only way; a lot of things that 3rd graders do can spread it, two people scuff their elbows on the same door frame running out to bus and it's transmitted; it's not like Johnny always washes his hands after peeing you know.
Re:The herd's moving (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes but this is an STD. I mean you don't get HPV just being in the same room with someone. So by your logic everyone having monogamous unprotected sex is: helping to spread disease and ought to be held criminally liable.
Actually doing so would probably go a lot farther to stopping the spread of disease more than forcing people to inject things into their bodies. If you are not going to regulate the bedroom than there is no compelling reason to force vaccination for STDs. Other than your own twisted moral reasoning some of us do not share.
Personal I think the only ethical system is, "your health is your problem" if you don't get some horrible disease for which a vaccine exists get the vaccine for it yourself. Mind your own damn business and don't worry about what the rest of us are or are not doing. If you can't get vaccinated for whatever reason than you have to take alternative steps to protect yourself like partial isolation; to fucking bad we all play the hand we are dealt.
Re: (Score:3)
In the Army, they told us we could refuse a vaccine, however if we got the illness that the refused vaccine prevented, we earned ourselves a Court martial. I have no problems with charging Parents with Child Endangerment if their child contracts a preventable disease and they weren't vaccinated. It's against your religion, well if God didn't want you to go to Prison, He wouldn't have infected your child with a preventable disease.
Re: (Score:2)
Is my grand ma criminal for having her computer infected and possibly infecting other?
I think so, yes.
Ignorance should not be a defence against liability. If anything, I think it should be considered an aggravation of crime, not a mitigation.
Re: "other people" (Score:5, Insightful)
No, at least not all of them.
Some people are immuno-comprimised. This would be people like infants, the elderly, children with diseases like leukaemia, adults undergoing cancer treatment, or people who have received life saving organ transplants and must take drugs that suppress their immune systems (for the rest of their lives). These people's lives depend on the rest of us doing the right thing and getting vaccinated so deadly diseases cannot take hold in the population and then find a path to the chronically ill.
I just think that it is amazing that we have developed a vaccine that can prevent a type of cancer! It's really unclear how many lives can be saved by gardisil because cervical cancer is kind of a secondary effect of long term HPV infection, but just think about it. In the future, what other cancers be preventable with a few shots in childhood? Prevention is such a better option than treatment. Both of my children have been vaccinated against HPV (male and female). We have a chance to strike a blow against a troublesome disease, HPV, and a secondary deadly disease, cervical cancer. This is truly like the fight against polio, or mercury exposure. It can make a much better life for future generations.
Also: It's not 100% protection. (Score:3)
Also: Immunizations are not effective in 100% of those immunized.
If enough of the "herd" are immunized so the exponential function of infection is quickly decaying rather than growing, outbreaks are tiny and peter out very rapidly. So individuals are protected by the immunization program even if their personal immunization failed. If enough have failed immunizations or refuse for the expon
Re: (Score:2)
Has Joe_Dragon started giving English lessons?
Re: "other people" (Score:4, Insightful)
Vaccines are not 100% effective. There are some people who do not develop the proper immunity even after taking a vaccine. There are also people who are allergic to vaccines. These people benefit from the herd immunity. There are also children not in a position to make the decision for themselves.
So yeah in a black and white world where the only people effected by negative consequences were adults who made bad choices, then the system you talk about would be more viable.
And as far as I know nobody is forcing anyone (even kids) to be vaccinated. The only measures I've heard being proposed is removing the personal belief exemption for allowing unvaccinated kids from attending public schools (while keeping the medical exemption), and forcing healthcare workers who don't want to get flu shots to wear masks. I have never heard of a mentally competent adult literally being forced to get a medical procedure they didn't want.
And while it's true that modern medicine is not perfect, comparing the knowledge of modern medicine to the knowledge of the people in the anti-vax community is like comparing modern chemists to alchemists of the middle ages.
I think a healthy skepticism of "expert opinions" is a good thing, but this skepticism in the anti-vax community is gone well into unhealthy territory.
Re: (Score:3)
The question isn't whether government scientists are right or wrong about any particular vaccine, it is whether the government should have the right to force people to inject stuff into their bodies.
That's not the question until law enforcement start showing up at your house with vaccines and guns.
Private schools can make that argument and require vaccinations to their hearts' content. Public schools, however, are bound by limits on governmental powers; for example, they can't advocate particular religions, and likewise, they shouldn't be able to impose vaccinations.
I don't see how these are the same at all. One would be a regulation on thought (i.e. religions are belief systems), the other is a regulation on public safety. If the government can prevent people from coming into government buildings with firearms, then they should be able to kids from going to schools if they are a public safety hazard due to lack of immunizations.
A compromise would be to move to a voucher system that allows kids who don't want to attend public schools to use the money to pay for private schools, but that is something progressives and their public sector union lobbyists are fighting tooth and nail.
Schools are paid for by property taxes.
Re: (Score:3)
Law enforcement doesn't have to show up with vaccines on your doorstep in order to coerce you; they can arrest you, or take your stuff, or limit your freedom of movement, or whatever until you "choose" to get vaccinated. Those approaches are just as coercive as if they showed up with vaccines at your house.
The way government *forces* you to do something is with guns. They have other tools like fines and prison, but should you refuse to pay fines or report to prison, the guys with guns show up to your house. Simply preventing you from using some public services like public schools is not coercion. It's just a normal requirement like any other.
Whether people who don't have any kids pay for the education of other people's kids, and how that education is delivered are two entirely separate issues.
It is the same issue as the issue of paying for public schools if you don;t vaccinate your children, because in both scenarios you are forced to pay for a service you
Re: (Score:2)
Can the "other people" just can vaccinated?
No vaccine is 100% effective, and some vaccines are far less than perfectly effective. The primary benefit of vaccines is not individual immunity, but herd immunity, that prevents a disease from spreading through a population.
Is my grand ma criminal for having her computer infected and possibly infecting other?
If her negligence is harming others, then she should be held liable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, vaccines don't pull in big money for pharmaceutical companies. That's one reason why the vaccine court was formed. If pharmaceutical companies needed to face normal lawsuits (both real and baseless) over vaccines in the regular court system, they would lose money and stop making vaccines. Not because the vaccines aren't safe, mind you, but because lawsuits cost so much to defend against and vaccines bring in so little money.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is, NOBODY is doing the complete risk analysis to see if paying Big Pharma is worth the money being poured into Vaccines.
That is totally wrong. People don't start vaccination programs on a whim. The law is very strict on the number and type of medical studies that must be done to allow medicines and vaccines can be sold, and even more to prove their effectiveness , safety, and cost-effectiveness before large scale vaccination programs are implemented.
How many times have you laughed at some scientific study because it seems to be attempting to prove what we already "know"? That is because science does check and recheck everyth
Re: (Score:3)
Did you buy that Logitech 'Hyperbolous Arguer' keyboard? The one with hotkeys for 'evil' and 'Hitler', and the function keys that let you incorrectly cite logical fallacies? I think your cat just walked on it.
Compulsory vaccination does not mean G-men strapping you down for the needle. It works from the other end. It means that if you refuse to get your child vaccinated, then you need to home school them and hope that they never want a job in food service or medical care. It means that enough places inst
Re: (Score:3)
Once you accept that point, then we can talk about it. Maybe I'll change my mind. Maybe you'll convince enough people to take them. That's fine, you can argue your pro points all you like, so long as you respect the right to refuse.
Here is you apparently saying that you do not reject the efficacy/safety of vaccines, just the idea that they would be made mandatory.
Let me be clear. I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Here is you equating a failure to predict an earthquake with refusing to get a vaccine that you know prevents a disease, then getting that disease, then giving it to other people, because you feel that your rights are impinged by the measures the rest of us put in place (the measures that you explicitly and knowingly
Re: (Score:3)
If you take a former playmate's advice on vaccinations, maybe the herd could do without you.
Well, HPV is sexually transmitted, so the vaccine makes sex safer, thus encouraging people to have sex. So her expertise may be relevant. But, seriously, some people actually oppose this vaccine because they think it encourages teenagers to be more promiscuous.
Re:The herd's moving (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is ridiculous. Which teenager needs encouragement? :-P
Re: (Score:2)
Those people usually think teenagers shouldn't have sex, so aren't having sex, so aren't realistic that they are having sex, at much higher numbers.
Re: (Score:3)
"You have no self control, have sex, we adults understand,
No that is not the adults telling the teenagers to have sex, it's their own hormones that are hardwired to do so.
You repeated exactly what I said, in reverse order. Or do the subtleties of nuance in language escape you?
BTW, some kids manage to get through Junior High (and High School) without having sex. Something about self control, and having a bit of it.
But big pharma needs money! (Score:3)
That's the big excuse of the anti-vaxxers. That's why they fearmonger us into buying their vaccines. They need our money and they want to get rich off us. No vax for me!
Instead, let's all buy bleach at a few hundred bucks a gallon from an ex-scientology member. He sure ain't in it just for the money!
Anti-cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
Most important vaccine of the century (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
this one vaccine might cut cancer rates in our children
I'm confused, is HPV implicated in childhood cancers?
Re: (Score:3)
There are around 150 strains of HPV, #16 and 18 causes the most human cancers, If a person hasn't been immunized by age 13, the chances are they are all ready infected, and will have an increased risk of getting a HPV cancer later in life.
Re:Most important vaccine of the century (Score:4, Informative)
There's no common test for HPV, and a very large percentage of people have some strain of it. So let's say you have a daughter, who is magically pure and never thinks about sex but is eventually going to grow up and marry a man, and lose her virginity in order to produce children. There's a 1/3 chance that the guy has HPV and doesn't know it.
Only if he's been promiscuous.
There's a significant chance that the HPV causes cervical cancer.
Only if they continue to be promiscuous after contracting HPV...it takes multiple strains to be an issue.
So even in this optimal scenario, not vaccinating your daughter is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette with your daughter's health. In real-life scenarios where teenagers spend most of their free time making out with each other (HPV is transmitted by kissing too), she's guaranteed to be exposed to HPV unless all her friends were vaccinated.
Most strains of HPV are benign, and the body normally flushes them out quite quickly. HPV only becomes an issue when multiple incompatible strains are present at the same time. There's a reason that a vast majority of the population has been exposed to HPV but only an extremely small percentage are suffering any kind of side-effects - a percentage that is smaller than the percentage of people suffering side-effects from the supposed cure.
Re: (Score:2)
You know what's as bad as anti-vax nonsense? (Score:5, Informative)
Believing that a vaccine is by nature safe. This article makes it out like it's ridiculous to believe that a vaccine could have serious negative side effects. It's not; being a vaccine doesn't make anything safe. Yes, the data show that Gardasil isn't the cause of the various things some suspected of it. But that wasn't a foregone conclusion.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it was, in context.
These debates aren't over the scientific concept of whether you can absolutely determine if a thing is safe or not; rather, they're over simple claims like X causes Y. Frequently, they use analysis of anecdote (which is data; it's just not statistically-sound data--mostly, it's cherry-picked) or of non-qualified data.
Most vaccines contain methylmercury compounds. Methylmercury compounds are absolutely toxic. They will kill you. They will damage your system. Pharma co put
Re: (Score:3)
Most vaccines contain methylmercury compounds. Methylmercury compounds are absolutely toxic. They will kill you. They will damage your system.
I think the mercury compound used was generally ethyl mercury, which doesn't bio accumulate as badly as methly mercury.
Neither are to be confused with dimethly mercury which is wildly, insanely toxic, to the point where a few drops spilled on a latex glove with your hand inside will kill you.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You know what's as bad as anti-vax nonsense? (Score:5, Informative)
Most vaccines contain methylmercury compounds.
Actually, none of them do. Some USED to contain ethylmercury (Thimerosal) until the anti-vaxxers went nuts over it and it was removed, making vaccines much more expensive for developing countries.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah no, a few vaccines contain Thiomersal when supplied in multidose vials, or as a trace contaminate during manufacture, single dose vials don't contain thiomersal other than as a trace. Thiomersal dose breakdown in the body to ethyl-mercury, a shot with thiomersal in it gives a person about 2.5% of their daily tolerable mercury dose.
Re: (Score:2)
That's now how I read the article. The article is about Gardasil specifically, not all vaccines generally. He doesn't sound like it would be ridiculous to assume that even Gardasil specifically might have serious negative side effects, he is refuting the claims that it is (not might be; that it actually is) directly related to death or other syndromes, where the evidence specifically shows that it is not related.
Yes, the data show that Gardasil isn't the cause of the various things some suspected of it. But that wasn't a foregone conclusion.
That's true, it was not a foregone conclusion. But the major problem with the anti-vax moveme
Stop Calling them Anti-Vaxxers!! (Score:3)
Call them what they really are: Hosts.
Legal Immunity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Legal Immunity (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll start using vaccines when they are able to actually take responsibilities of their own products.
I hope you contract a disease we had all but eradicated 20 years ago.
It's one thing to claim with a completely unscientific basis that a vaccine is dangerous because you don't understand scientists, but quite another to consider it dangerous because your government has some law regarding who is liable for side affects and reactions which will statistically occur in a very very small percentage of a population. It's one of the fewer sane laws in a country which sues for millions of dollars when someone so much as hurts someone else's feelings. That kind of law is the reason that these drugs can be afforded in the first place.
On behalf of civilised society, from all of us I extend a hearty FUCK YOU.
It doesn't matter if its been cleared or not (Score:2)
Sounds like IT support.... (Score:2)
To them, if something happens after something else, it was caused by that first thing. This is the classic post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.
.
Sounds like computer IT support. "My computer was working fine until YOU did (whatever)"
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Gardasil [wikipedia.org] is made by Merck Sharp & Dohme.
Cervarix [wikipedia.org] is made by GlaxoSmithKlein.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's the Japanese rate of HPV?
Why did they ban it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Side effects in 0.0245% in recipients seems more than acceptable, and a very good way to reduce (roughly) 4500 cases of cervical cancer PER YEAR.
Somebody, probably many somebodies, are idiots in Japan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This story... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is part of the problem.
Big pharma are greedy, lying bastards who would climb over us to make a buck and not think twice.
The anti-vaxxers are a bunch of loonies who can't look at scientific evidence or recognize the initial claims were fabrications by a discredited scientist.
Both of them aren't trustworthy entities ... one lies about its science and the other doesn't understand it.
I fear as long as we can still point to how the pharmacy companies have lied or manipulated their findings, people will be willing to believe they're just evil corporations out to make a buck. But then you just let a bunch of drooling idiots take over the conversation.
Re: (Score:3)
Does Japan have any additional evidence that they feel invalidates TFA or did they ban it because of crying mom and her parents association? All articles say "amid health concerns", which sounds like a herd mentality reaction to unsubstantiated data. This article suggests they are conducting their own study (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/15/national/cervix-vaccine-issues-trigger-health-notice/#.VpPyhd-rQUE), which may or may not match the finding of TFA.
It is good that people are conducting their
Re: (Score:3)
To be clear, it is overly expensive - and most of the cost is profit. The company could recover the cost to research it and manufacture it within one year, if it cost just 1/5 the current price. But that excludes the money they spent on many other drugs that failed to make a profit. Most drugs they research fail to ever become profitable - success rates vary between 5 and 15%.
As such, a profit ratio of 5:1 is
Re: (Score:2)
Submissions like this just make those who support vaccines and vaccinations look like total kooks! This submission has the same "holier than thou" attitude that we see from those who push the Rust programming language or those who support systemd
Because people who rant about systemd in response to stories about HPV vaccine don't, even slightly, look like kooks.
Re: (Score:3)
As somebody who wholly supports vaccines and vaccinations, I absolutely hate it when I see really shitty submissions like this one. It doesn't even attempt to present something resembling an objective view of the situation. It's extraordinarily biased and sensationalist, with childish name-calling like "anti-vaxxer", and self-righteous babble like "fearmongering falsehoods".
Indeed. There are many different reasons for why someone might be against vaccinations, and TFA is largely strawman argumentation, with a dash of ad hominem. This is no better than "the classic post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy" he argues about.
Argue against views as they are presented; don't ascribe people views and then knock those views down, calling people names in the process.
For what it's worth, I am against vaccination precisely because vaccines are effective and have negligible side effects.
I bel
Re: (Score:2)
If we lose 10% of all children to external causes, I think it would be better for humanity.
I'm guessing you either a) don't have children, or b) assume that it will be other people's kids who die, because yours are richer and/or genetically superior.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing you either a) don't have children, or b) assume that it will be other people's kids who die, because yours are richer and/or genetically superior.
Good guesses, but false. If you had understood what I wrote, you would see that "because yours are richer" must be false, because I argued specifically against tribal factors like who's richer.
What it boils down to is that I don't see life as sacred. Deaths can be tough on a personal level, but I like to think that as a species, we are slowly moving away from basing our actions on base feelings or religious bias, and more based on rational thought. If a child of mine dies, I will of course be very sad.
There's a problem with this line of thinking... (Score:2)
there are a lot of people who are unable (for various medical reasons) to get certain vaccinations or whom otherwise are not completely protected by vaccinces, their only protection from certain terrible diseases is via herd immunity. Those people don't believe your pseudo-intellectual nonsense, but they are still affected by it if you choose not to vaccinate yourself and your kids.
If anti-vaxxers were only hurting themselves then I'd have less objection to it, as refusing to take simple steps to protect yo
Re:Yet another blatantly biased submission. (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that the "all lives are sacred" thinking is religious based, and not supported by science. A certain amount of predatory culling leads to fewer regressive genes being propagated, which I believe is good for the species long term. And as long as who gets a vaccine and who doesn't is largely based on what society you grow up in, vaccination seems to me to be a form of eugenics, where the rich get to decide who gets to live and who doesn't. I don't like the taste of that at all.
Wow, you really don't understand evolution at all, do you?
Things like vaccines, insulin, or even eyeglasses or handwashing are beneficial evolutionary adaptations. These are precisely the things that have made our species more successful than our competitors. Caring for our sick and infirm is an adaptation that has made us more successful than our competitors. Cooperation has made us more successful than our competitors, although we are not unique in that trait. Civilization (and the wealth that accompanies it), far from being a form of eugenics, is a beneficial evolutionary adaptation. The list goes on.
Where do you draw the line? What health care do we deny people to ensure that a proper "culling" takes place? Do we not do C-sections? Do we not set broken bones? Do we not rescue drowning people? Seems to me that it smack much more of eugenics to forbid medical treatments because they prevent "culling".
Re: (Score:2)
If it's NPOV you're after, Thickypedia is over there somewhere --->
You know? Something here is disturbing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Note this up front: Vaccines are good for you. I have zero problems with vaccination as it is beneficial to humanity individually and overall.
Now - about this article: Way the hell too much sensationalism, too much flamebait imputed, and IMHO way too much of this attitude: '...this study is right so I am right and therefore fuck you! Get right with us or else you are not worthy of life you troglodyte!' Seriously... is this what Salon has fallen to? Well, okay, I know they've always been a bit partisan (okay
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The whole article is an ad hominen .
The piece tries to sell vaccines by calling anyone against _this_ particular vaccine an Anti-Vaxxer, and saying that rejecting this vaccine is is Anti-Vax nonsense.
It's not nonsense. Vaccines can be very risky. The first thing you have to do is doubt them.
Then they need to be proven safe. They can be sold then.
Then they need to be proven effective. You might want to use them then.
Then they need to be proven beneficial to the people as a whole, as opposed to the same mone
Re:You know? Something here is disturbing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you need to prove the herd effect is very useful.
Not that you were batting anywhere close to a 1000, but this just totally ruins it. 1) You should have written that the herd effect needs to be proven to exist; it's obviously beneficial. 2) It has been proven, empirically, hundreds, if not thousands, of times. It does not need to be proven for each and every vaccine individually.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole article is an ad hominen .
The piece tries to sell vaccines by calling anyone against _this_ particular vaccine an Anti-Vaxxer, and saying that rejecting this vaccine is is Anti-Vax nonsense.
It's not nonsense. Vaccines can be very risky. The first thing you have to do is doubt them.
Then they need to be proven safe. They can be sold then.
Then they need to be proven effective. You might want to use them then.
Then they need to be proven beneficial to the people as a whole, as opposed to the same money used on the next best. Then you can have governments pay for it.
Then you need to prove the herd effect is very useful. Then you can have the government ask everybody to use it.
All of these things about Gardisil have been proven safe and effective using this thing called "science".
If you don't believe in the science then your are an "anti-vaxxer".
Re:You know? Something here is disturbing... (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, anti-vaxxers lean both left and right, often for different reasons. Basically, it all boils down to a distrust of the establishment, whether that's government, or scientists, or whatever. These aren't always the most politically active people, so their leanings are a bit less well defended, and I've found them to often espouse causes on both sides of the spectrum, sometimes on the same subject. For example, I find they're more likely to ask the government to get out of their own lives (right-wing on small-government) but to increase environmental regulation (left-wing on ecology), so when saying whether they're left or right, one must take a balance of all their views to see which way they lean predominantly (abortion, gay marriage, etc.).
Re: (Score:3)
In my experience, anti-vaxxers lean both left and right, often for different reasons.
I think it varies by region. Where I live, the anti-vaxxers tend to be left wing extremists. It's the same people who believe all scientists are corrupt and Monsanto is the devil and GMOs will destroy the world, yet do believe the scientific consensus that climate change is real because science says so. They think Big Pharma is out to get them, and that cancer patients should eat avocados lemon water instead of undergoing chemo. They profess that the paleo diet is how everyone should eat, and think that
Re: You know? Something here is disturbing... (Score:3)
Who's to say there isn't a cupcake in orbit around Pluto? I'm not saying there is, but the question has to be answered.
(Or less sarcastically, what would lead you to suggest even a possible link between vaccines and IQ? If anything, fewer lifetime flu infections may be linked to less brain swelling and lower risk for dimentia)
Re: (Score:3)
Anti abortion but also opposed to spending government money on orphanages, highly critical of government regulations with foster homes, want to remove welfare benefits to single mothers, etc.
Not all of them mind. There are, or at least used to be, social conservatives who are willing to see the consequences. I had a conservative relative once who proclaimed that she was for free condoms in school, which shocked others in the family. But she was a OB/Gyn nurse who saw lots of pregnant kids and knew it was
Re: (Score:2)
"Seriously... is this what Salon has fallen to? "
This article is from Slate. Salon hates science and would probably come down on the side of the anti-vaxers.
Re:You know? Something here is disturbing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Note this up front: Vaccines are good for you. I have zero problems with vaccination as it is beneficial to humanity individually and overall.
Glad we can agree!
Now - about this article: Way the hell too much sensationalism, too much flamebait imputed, and IMHO way too much of this attitude: '...this study is right so I am right and therefore fuck you! Get right with us or else you are not worthy of life you troglodyte!' Seriously... but TFA and summary alike are indicative of what's wrong these days - too much sturm un drang, not enough persuasion.
Interestingly enough, Slate leans a bit to the left... and most anti-vaxxers lean very much to the left, so why was the bile necessary? You'd think that instead of turning it into a contest that hardens opinions (on both sides), that they'd try to at least be a little persuasive about it. ...or has science degraded into an echo-chamber shouting match these days?
Two things:
1) I like a good public discourse on many subjects, but vaccination is public health issue and treating these sides like equal positions has the potential to do more harm to the public health than good. The proven science of vaccinations is not of equal validity as the fear-based lies spun by anti-vaxxers, and our public discourse should reflect those truths. Sure there could be less insults and flamebaiting, but there's no need to give the anti-vaxxer position any more respect or fair treatment than we would give to any other patently false ideas, like flat-earth theory, cold fusion, phrenology, etc.
2) As for the political leanings of anti-vaxxers being liberal...that may be true in your area or experiences, but the ones I've encountered are usually conservative types (sometimes libertarian) who distrust the government, science, and anything that could be perceived as meddling in their lives.
Re: (Score:3)
Just look at the recent GOP debate where Trump repeated the "Vaccines Cause Autism" claim (disproven so many times, I've lost count). Ben Carson started to refute Trump (and as a doctor should have had the knowled
"100% effective with zero side effects" (Score:3)
I don't know of anything - not just any vaccine, any thing that's ever existed in the universe - that is "accepted as 100% effective with zero side effects". That seems to be a high enough bar to be, er, perhaps obstructionist. To be honest, I wonder what your objection might be once this technique [nytimes.com] gets commercialized [codagenix.com].
My wife and are teaching our children about how things work and what contraceptive options
Re: You know? Something here is disturbing... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
That is a fair point... but it doesn't matter... you miss the key point...
My body, my right...This isn't a debate (or shouldn't be) about the effects of vaccines, it is about what rights do you have as a human being.
I get the "my body, my right" argument and if one holds to just that narrow argument, fine. But if one tries to further support that stance with anti-vaxxer distortions of the vaccine science and risk then society doesn't need to treat those false statements with any respect or deference to the individual's opinion. That's the point I was making above.
However, what's really happening here is we are talking two different points. My main point about vaccinations is one based on public health, and your main po
Re: (Score:3)
No, it looked like to me that the author is fed up of the bullshit anti-vaxxer nonsense and was saying what was on his mind instead of sugar-coating the whole thing.
Re: (Score:3)
It takes serious patience to remain polite when those are the stakes and the opposition has dug in and is willing to move the goalposts no matter what evidence you bring to the tabl
Re: (Score:3)
Interestingly enough, Slate leans a bit to the left... and most anti-vaxxers lean very much to the left, so why was the bile necessary?
You are obviously unfamiliar with how the left <air_quotes>functions [youtube.com] </air_quotes>.
No matter where you are no the political spectrum, if you are completely honest with yourself you have to admit there are some people on your side who are an embarrassment. The kind of people who take an important and valuable idea and find a way to make a complete hash of it. The left wing anti-vaxxers have absorbed the lessons about distrusting the self-serving narratives of corporations and the powerful, but i
Re: (Score:3)
so avoiding vaccines is the safe call! Take your science and shove it!
Not having sex with someone you don't know is clean is the safe call, but hey fuck all that nonsense. Take your root cause analysis and shove it!
Re: (Score:3)
Better safe than sorry, so don't eat chicken sandwiches on a Tuesday. You can't prove conclusively to me that eating chicken sandwiches on a Tuesday won't give your family cancer!
Why look at me, I never eat chicken sandwiches on a Tuesday, and I don't have cancer. I think.
Re: (Score:2)
"... In the U.S. alone, 79 million people are infected with HPV. That’s more than a quarter of the entire population. Fourteen million new cases crop up every year. Gardasil can substantially cut those numbers back—it’s working, and working well, in the U.S. and Australia—but not if the fearmongering falsehoods by anti-vaxxers get traction."
Isn't it odd that we'll do everything we can to focus on the vaccination and those who might be affecting that profit stream, all while ignoring the root cause and ever-growing infection rate.
Yeah, there's a fucking herd of elephants standing in the room, but they're making us a shitload of money, so...
I question the 79 million people being infected. Per the CDC site, in the summary:
How do I know if I have HPV?
There is no test to find out a person’s “HPV status.” Also, there is no approved HPV test to find HPV in the mouth or throat.
So if there is no way to know if someone has HPV, then how the fuck can there be a count of the people with HPV.?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Furthermore, they aren't claiming they can cure it, just prevent most of the HPV strains that cause cancer.
Re: (Score:2)