Parents Who Don't Vaccinate Kids Tend To Be Affluent, Better Educated (go.com) 411
schwit1 quotes ABC News: Vaccines are universally backed by respected scientists and federal agencies, but that isn't enough to convince every parent to vaccinate their children. The decision to fly in the face of near universal scientific opinion doesn't come as a result of a lack of intellect, however, as experts who have studied vaccines and immunology acknowledge that many parents who don't vaccinate their children are well-educated. They also appear to be the victims of a widespread misinformation campaign, the experts said.
Daniel Salmon, who is the director of the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said that existing research suggests that there are some common attributes that many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children share. "They tend to be better educated. They tend to be white, and they tend to be higher income. They tend to have larger families and they tend to use complementary and alternative medicine like chiropractors and naturopaths," Salmon said.
Salman also says outbreaks typically start when an American returns from a visit to Europe, where there are much higher rates of measles than in the U.S. But lower vaccination rates help it spread.
One study in August reported Russian trolls "seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," though their campaign on Twitter failed to gain traction.
"I blame Amazon Prime," writes long-time Slashdot reader destinyland. "That 'misinformation' they're talking about is the pseudoscience documentary Vaxxed -- and Amazon is one of the top site's pushing it. The movie is not only free for all Prime members -- Amazon's actually featuring it on the front page showing free-with-Prime movies."
Daniel Salmon, who is the director of the Institute of Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, said that existing research suggests that there are some common attributes that many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children share. "They tend to be better educated. They tend to be white, and they tend to be higher income. They tend to have larger families and they tend to use complementary and alternative medicine like chiropractors and naturopaths," Salmon said.
Salman also says outbreaks typically start when an American returns from a visit to Europe, where there are much higher rates of measles than in the U.S. But lower vaccination rates help it spread.
One study in August reported Russian trolls "seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society," though their campaign on Twitter failed to gain traction.
"I blame Amazon Prime," writes long-time Slashdot reader destinyland. "That 'misinformation' they're talking about is the pseudoscience documentary Vaxxed -- and Amazon is one of the top site's pushing it. The movie is not only free for all Prime members -- Amazon's actually featuring it on the front page showing free-with-Prime movies."
One-eyed among the blind. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a pattern that I recognized. There's a class of people that are smarter than the US average, yet still rather stupid and arrogantly over-confident from an actually smart point of view.
E.g. Randall Munroe of xkcd or Ricky Gervais are famous examples.
They simply LOOK and ACT smart, but they aren't really that smart. They're just not utter and complete morons.
Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Interesting)
You might be referring to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Like somebody who is top of their game in field A assumes their knowledge is sufficient in field B.
They may also be bad at stats and be completely unaware of it.
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I would be curious if these “better educated” parents disproportionately fall into one particular professional field. My guess is that engineering is very strongly represented in the anti-vaxxer group.
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Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Informative)
because there are some people that can't be vaccinated for various reasons and people who could be but choose not to put them at risk, kids who have certain disorders, newborns, women who are pregnant who may not be as well protected by their own childhood vaccinations because of changes in body chemistry, elderly people, etc, etc, etc
to address what some anti-vaxxers try to rely on, yes there is a herd immunity, but we rely on it for those that legitimately can't be vaccinated and not just those that choose not to because they are morons, besides the fact that if we get enough morons, then the herd immunity disappears anyway
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But why should you care if they don't vaccinate as long as you vaccinate? Isn't that what vaccines are for?
Vaccines are not 100% effective across the population. For example, of the children who die from flu each year, around 20% were properly vaccinated. Additionally, there are populations who cannot, for valid medical reasons, be vaccinated. Thus, it's important that as many people who can be vaccinated are, to provide protection to those who cannot be vaccinated, or for whom a vaccine may not be effective.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Randall Munroe seems fairly well educated in technical areas. Did I miss something? And, from my understanding,he's open and upfront that his comics aren't based just on his knowledge but that he has to do research fro them.
And I never heard anyone claim Ricky Gervais is particularly smart. Maybe you were confused by his accent into thinking people thought he was smart?/p:
Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a class of people that are smarter than the US average,
The title says "better educated" . . . not "smarter".
Lots of folks are educated way beyond their intelligence.
If your family is affluent enough to send you to Andover, Exeter or St Paul's . . . you're better educated.
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OK, let me explain the language that was used above that confused you.
The thing you saw talked about education. Because that is a data point you will have about a sub-population. But people aren't asked for an IQ score on forms, people don't have any sort of formal listing of their intelligence for you to track. So the data collection part will use education as a proxy for things like that.
Then, you came upon the slashdot comments, where somebody was offering an explanation that includes considerations of i
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This is a pattern that I recognized. There's a class of people that are smarter than the US average, yet still rather stupid and arrogantly over-confident from an actually smart point of view.
The above-average can't appear smart without being excessively credulous. It goes with not actually being all that smart. How else would they appear to be so? How else would they have more success than the next above-average person who doesn't have that extra appearance of intelligence? By being credulous, and identifying slightly better than average answers.
Or in Munroe's case, simply illustrating common ideas so that average people can understand them. He gets the credit for their understanding, so in the
Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a younger relative who's an anti-vaxxer, and she has a master's degree in school counseling. She's not a bad person, in fact she's a good person but with overblown, romantic disposition that blinds her to her own folly on the issue.
Here's what I think happened. After Vietnam, and revelations about cigarette companies lying about lung cancer, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, we've done a good job teaching people to be wary of authority and corporate power. We haven't, however, done such a great job in giving them something *other* than trust in authority to fall back on. We haven't taught them to be skeptical.
Disbelieving a traditional authority figure and then putting your faith in an alternative authority is not skepticism. Treating every question of fact as if it were a matter of opinion isn't skepticism either. Both these things kinds of weak-tea skepticism are just alternative forms of credulity.
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We haven't, however, done such a great job in giving them something *other* than trust in authority to fall back on.
I would think the very process that identified those cigarettes as being bad for you would be a good fallback mechanism. Those damn big cigar corporations lying to us, scientists exposed them! Wait vaccinations? I don't trust science!
Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Informative)
The anti-vaxx conspiracy theory is that Big Pharma have co-opted scientists.
Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is "authorities" also told us to give up butter in favor of trans-fat laden margarine and keeps alternately telling us eggs are good and eggs are of the devil. Then the people who brought out that smoking is harmful and then somewhat exaggerated the claims for 2nd hand smoke have started going off about 3rd and even 4th hand smoke (I'm not kidding).
All of that really has left a vacuum that is now being filled by cranks and quacks.
Re:One-eyed among the blind. (Score:4, Informative)
In general the advice over the last 70 years with regards to diet, exercise and smoking has been pretty consistent. Where there are adjustments to the overall pretty consistent message it gets blown out of all proportion. Plus people tend to suggest that the message is black-and-white (give up butter) when the actual advice was to reduce saturated fat overall and replace with with monounsaturated vegetable fats, not margarine. Sometimes examples like noting that butter contains a lot of saturated fat is mentioned when people are asked for examples, and the actual advice seems to be lost by turning the nuanced advice into the headline 'Butter is now bad!'.
In terms of exaggerated risk that is often due to the misunderstanding between risk, prevalence and lifetime risk. Clinicians probably don't help matters, but again it's mostly the media not understanding the science.
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This is a pattern that I recognized. There's a class of people that are smarter than the US average, yet still rather stupid and arrogantly over-confident from an actually smart point of view.
E.g. Randall Munroe of xkcd or Ricky Gervais are famous examples.
They simply LOOK and ACT smart, but they aren't really that smart. They're just not utter and complete morons.
This should be at +5 pronto.
Reading the article, these people are also tending to alternative medicine, some of which works, but the majority not. Might as well try tapping or crystal resonances.
But to AC's insightful and informative post. An education does not equal intelligence or smarts. Many college courses are based on giving your opinion, not on actually learning anything. That's how in the US, a Philosophy graduate is considered vastly superior to a master machinist, although there are a lot of
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Reading the article, these people are also tending to alternative medicine, some of which works...
Alternative medicine that works is called... wait for it... ready... Medicine!
True, although not always used in mainstream meds. Arnica MOntana is great for muscle sprains and strains, but it has that homeopathy stigma (actually it isn't homeopathy because it's a tincture of the flowers of the arnica daisy, and does numbe the area very well. Smells good too, like new mown hay.
Then there is aconite patches. Some of my mother in law's students brought that over from China after I had broken my ankle and torn the ligaments in the same som years back. I'm allergic to opioids, and was
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When people are ignorant of statistics, they are unable to collect good information, and unable to figure out what is true among multiple interpretations. The correlation is real, what do they decide?
There is a very real correlation between venemous spiders and spelling bee champions [tylervigen.com]. That is undeniable. Understanding the correlation takes a level of understanding of statistics. Wh
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I wonder how many of the anti-vaxxers are "cheaters" in other spheres of their life. I have this idea that anti-vaxxers believe (or know) the actual odds of their kid developing an immunizable illness are very low, but they think it will give them an advantage to not expose them to a vaccine -- it's the best of both words, no autism/vaccine risk and the disease risk is very low.
It's like just another sociopathic behavior trait common among the well-educated/wealthy. They probably cheat on their taxes, may
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's plenty of issues people have with vaccines that are based in science, often from the vaccine companies themselves. It's a parent's choice to teach a child their culture, just the same to vaccinate or not... you cant shove a lifestyle onto anyone. One way or another...
Unless you're planning on home schooling them. No proof of vaccination, no public schools or most colleges for you.
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. I live in a somewhat rural part of Clark County, WA (where the recent measles outbreak is taking place) and know a fair number of parents who are adamantly against vaccines. They tend to fall into one of two camps. First, there is a more religious group (Apostolic Lutherans being a significant portion but a number from a variety of Christian sects) that homeschools their kids (although even homeschooled kids will have a number of interactions with regularly schooled children). Relatively few of them will go to college. Instead, they generally move into a skilled trade after getting their GEDs. These people have generally been living in the area for generations and I seriously doubt that any level of education will change their minds. Closing them off from public schools/colleges will have little effect. I read their posts on the community Facebook pages and the shortsightedness and irresponsibility makes my mind reel. While they don't like measles, the prospect of infection isn't nearly enough to make them change their minds. I question whether anything more serious would. Second, there is a large community of first generation Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, many of whom tend to look with suspicion at anything any government asks them to do. I suspect this community will come around after a generation, if not sooner, since this group, although wary of government, tends to be more pragmatic and some of the measles infections have occurred in Slavic community centers and private schools.
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It will be amusing to see the Antivaxxers infiltrate the U.S. military. There, if you are scheduled for vaccinations, you will get them, or you no longer qualify to deploy; which would likely mean also not qualifying to remain in the service.
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This is s common lie many school administrators will tell you, but it is patently true. The article itself stated that the non-vaxed are among the most educated in the country. How do you think they got their?
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
So then they're off the hook for school taxes, right?
LOL no. School taxes are based on owning property regardless of how many children you have in the household.
The real value would be having 10 kids, same price as one.
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Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
Not, "trade unto Caesar where you expect to benefit from Caesar's public works."
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
Antivaxxer kids are like dark humour - they never get old.
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
Found one of the educated ones.
Vaccination is not a lifestyle choice, regardless of what the morons spouting anti-vaccination rumors say.
Vaccination is a medical choice. You either assist society by exterminating destructive diseases, or you literally empower your dumb-by-extension children to accidentally infect and kill children with responsible parents, who are too young to be vaccinated.
Does that mean you need to get every vaccine for your child? No. Chicken pox has a vaccine these days and it's not on the same tier as other diseases (though why risk it?). Measles though? That stuff will kill your child and, if not them, then your neighbor's younger child who cannot get it yet. Thanks to people making the decisions that you're describing, combined with immigrants coming from places without the vaccine, Washington State has had to declare a state of emergency.
I actually agree that you should be free to avoid any and all vaccinations because that's what freedom allows. But that doesn't mean that you should be afforded the tax payer-assisted opportunity to then put your child into contact with everyone else's children in publicly funded places, like public school. And it definitely doesn't mean that when your child does get those diseases that the government should assist you financially to get through it.
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IMO what enables anti-vaccination stances is the almost feral response to even voicing concern. My children are both fully vaccinated but we were concerned about pediatric appointments where they were given more than two vaccines at the same time...so we worked with our pediatrician and spread the shots out. Instead of getting 4 in a single visit, we'd get 2 in a visit and then the next month get the other 2.
At no point did that seem unreasonable to either of us but the anti-anti-vax crowd attacked us as if
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Singles vaccine? Is that the one that makes it less likely your children will get diseases?
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Looks like cayenne8 forgot his password.
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the pros and cons and there is no medical contraindication, but you still decide that your kids should not be vaccinated, then you can't blame it on science, you're just being a dumbass. This is not a lifestyle choice, the same way giving your children cigarettes is not a lifestyle choice. That's endangering a person in your care, and in the case of antivaxxers, many others too. If you and your kids are serious threat to the well-being of a population, that population is morally justified to defend against you. People are afflicted with lifelong handicaps due to that sheer idiocy. Some even die. This is not tolerable. People who do not have their kids vaccinated should be banned from medical insurance.
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No, they should be banned from medical insurance because they're taking the benefits of the group for themselves, but refuse to be part of the group when it comes to fighting epidemics. If they were only endangering themselves, it would not be an adequate reaction, but they're not and it would be.
Re: One-eyed among the blind. (Score:3)
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That big spatula isnt free you know!
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That's typical of how for-profit healthcare works. Over here, with our cawmnust NHS, we make do with a mop.
bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Like what, exactly?
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Adverse effects (usually around one in a million for most vaccines for severe adverse reactions, one in ten for most mild ones). Correlation here is risk calculation and game theory, not "stupid parents".
First of all, remind yourself that wealthy parents in upper middle class tend to have only one child. That means that "all their eggs are in one basket". That leads to complete change of risk calculation for the child - even utterly minor things like child getting kidnapped by a satanist cult, or severe adv
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Adverse effects (usually around one in a million for most vaccines for severe adverse reactions, one in ten for most mild ones). Correlation here is risk calculation and game theory, not "stupid parents".
First of all, remind yourself that wealthy parents in upper middle class tend to have only one child. That means that "all their eggs are in one basket".
I think it's closer to two children but that doesn't really change your point. Both rug rats are precious snowflakes.
What I think is missing is the alternative risk. Say there's a one in a million risk for a serous complication (I have no idea whether that's correct and what the complication might be. I do know autism isn't one of the possible complications.) What are the chances of getting measles without the vaccine? Apparently slightly higher than one in a million because we have more than 300 cases in Washington alone.
Given that measles can kill you, I'm not sure it's all that clear cut that your snowflakes are safer without the shot.
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Autism, to my knowledge, is the "haha look at these dumb right wing nut job parents" that modern hysteria-chasing media is selling this as. These people do exist, but they appear to be a fairly small minority in this particular issue.
The actual problem is mentioned in the OP - upper middle class, well educated and smart parents. Notably, you just failed the relevant risk assessment, because you failed to note the fact that as long as herd immunity holds, risk is effectively zero. You cannot contract a disea
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they've tricked a bunch of people into thinking that the flu shot is a vaccine, and that having everybody take it would create "herd immunity." Even though it clearly doesn't; the success rate is far too low to create that effect.
That's good to know, no more flu shot for me.
Educated? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think educated the word that you're looking for. How about uselessly credentialed?
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They might be perfectly good at their specialty, and still be complete idiots on other topics.
The implied mistake that you made is that you too are excessively credulous of the word "education," so when some average idiot is also highly educated, you want to do a No True Scotsman on their education so that you can protect the word education from the idiots.
But education might simply not imply much value when used as a label on the past. We know that they had lots of learning opportunities, and we know that
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I agree, affluence is definitely the key factor here. Not only because of excellent point in above post, but also because of the constant rush to be able to do things differently, as some kind of weird status symbol, to demonstrate affluence to others, probably with the side goal of appearing to be more knowledgeable.
"Yeah I could have just bought a [averagely efficient and cost effective car model] but I did my own research and really this hand-crafted, 2-seater, avocado-powered scooter is the best thing for my family. It's Goop-certified, you guys should really think about getting one."
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Not really (Score:4, Interesting)
They also appear to be the victims of a widespread misinformation campaign, the experts said.
I suppose this could be a case of 'Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.' But I'm going to go out on a limb and call BS. The affluent expect your little snot-dribblers to get vaccinated. No matter how small the risk. Just so their precious ones can benefit from herd immunity [wikipedia.org].
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I dunno, there are plenty of ridiculous diets and parenting fads that the affluent get involved with. Maybe they are better educated but misinformation targeting them can still be effective if it pushes the right buttons.
It makes sense really, they have the money to invest in healthcare and so take more interest in it, which means reading a lot of BS on the internet and in magazines.
Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
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like raising taxes for driving their cars
What do you have against the poor?
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"A lot of people have religious objections to man-made vaccines." What might those be, precisely? I do not recall Christ, or Moses, or Muhammed saying squat about medicine. I do recall a lot of pseudo-religious nutjobs running around claiming that they needed to live as in those ancient times as ancient times, a bit like the people ascribing miraculous powers to crystals. Putting your children at risk just because you have a bone-headed belief is not freedom to practice religion. It is religious indoctrina
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I know several anti-vax people who are that way because of their religious beliefs. But they claim that almost all of their beliefs come from their religious beliefs, even the ones which are strongly counter to examples in their Bible. So we're hitting the common divide between what people believe about their motivations, and their actual motivations.
People seem really bad at self-reflection, and really bad at taking responsibility for their beliefs and actions.
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If you do not support it, you should make your home in a more suitable country for your beliefs.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"
That suitable country would be this one. If you need an exception carved out of the law to practice your religion, perhaps it is you that should leave.
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A lot of people have religious objections to man-made vaccines. Why do you oppose freedom to practices one's chosen religion? It's a foundational principle that the USA was built on. If you do not support it, you should make your home in a more suitable country for your beliefs.
You can do whatever the fuck you want in your religion. But if you want to be anti vaxxer then isolate yourself from the rest of society for life, why should my children be sacrificed to death because you of your beliefs.
Study must be deeply flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Stop trying to leave yourself behind, everybody can receive a college education if they work at it long and hard enough.
What that means is, being educated doesn't imply increased intelligence. It implies increased time spent as a student. That and only that.
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Either this 'study' is deeply flawed, or it's actually the product of the Russian trolls it speaks of, since this makes precisely zero sense, someone not vaccinating their kids against common diseases is among the obvious definitions of 'unintelligent'. Don't really give a damn what anyone thinks of what I just said, either, so don't bother.
It seems dreadfully flawed to me. And seems to make an assumption that education and money equal smartness.
And it warmer down south than it is in the winter.
The anti-vaxx movement is merely another target to hate, like antifa or smokers or Hillary's emails or Trump's whatever. Pick your target.
Now I don't really care if anti-vaxxers decide to re-enact Jonestown, but I do have sympathy for their children, as well as for immunocompromised children who are at risk because of the loss of herd immunity.
Re:Study must be deeply flawed (Score:4, Insightful)
No it isn't an obvious definition of unintelligent. As someone above mentioned, it could easily result from the affluent thinking the proles need the vaccines so they can surf the herd-immunity. If anything, it is self-absorbed selfish behavior.
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diseases is among the obvious definitions of 'unintelligent'
Neither the study nor the summary of it mentions intelligence.
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not anti-vax at all
there are known and proven cases around the world of harmful improperly prepared vaccine
but you're quick to label people instead of using your mind
Re:Study must be deeply flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
As measles and polio and rubella and all the other illnesses we vax again are (thanks to the vaccination) no longer in plain sight, people tend to underestimate their risk. As we easily can imagine the piercing hurting the child, the wound becoming infected, the child misreacting on the vaccines and so on, we tend to overestimate their risk. Thus we want to protect the child against the perceived danger and not against the real danger.
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If you don't get vaccinated against some disease that only exists in some godforsaken corner of the world and you don't plan to even remotely go there, that's sensible. But we're not talking about something like this. We are talking about a highly contagious disease that exists right here, with a chance of 1:1,000 to have a severe, potentially life threatening or permanently lasting negative impact on an infected, with an incidence rate of less than 1:1,000,000 for ANY side effects of the vaccination.
If it
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No truly intelligent educated person can refute the overall positive effects of immunization.
That is a very intelligent statement.
Don't really give a damn what anyone thinks of what I just said, either, so don't bother.
And that is not an intelligent statement.
"Intelligence" is not a binary state. People are intelligent about many things and self-deceiving about others. Actually, sometimes about the same things.
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intellect != well educated. (Score:4, Interesting)
The article claims that:
Which is asinine. There's many ways to be smart, and many entirely different ways to be educated. A degree in business administration or economics gives you no insight into not getting fooled by dumbass anti-vaxxers or various conspiracy theories. In fact, it may make it easier, since they're "educated" and don't think they can be fooled! It's just as easy to trick so-called "educated" people as it is non-educated people. The only difference is the bait you use.
One of the reasons this anti-vaxxer stuff gets spread is we live in a world where we're taught that science is things printed in books, arguments that "sound right" rather than actually being educated on critical thinking skills, evidence based, and degrees of certainty.
Educated but stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Higher educated, does not mean not stupid.
Remember when it was just the Religous Right? (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember when it was just the religious right that was anti-science? Ah, those were the days. We could just mock them behind their backs and call then neanderthals. Ha ha. Oh, nostalgia.
Turns out "religion" had nothing to do with it after all. A certain percentage of people will just believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of ethnicity, religion or economic status. Looking back, wasn't that always the case?
It's not that simple (Score:2, Insightful)
No, I don't think it's that simple. Religion, by definition, is deliberate ignorance: believe something that has no basis in reality because it has no basis in reality. I don't know a whole heck of a lot of truly smart people who are also religious. I honestly don't know if I know any.
But, religion is becoming passe. It's dying off quickly in more educated, modern societies (ie: Europe). Without religion, some people still have some sort of innate need to
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I don't know a whole heck of a lot of truly smart people who are also religious.
Several of the most intelligent (and best educated) people I know adhere strongly to their religious practices.
Whether they actually believe any of that shit is something I'm very kind and don't press them on, but they're heavily into the 'must do' / 'must not do' shite purely on archaic superstitious grounds.
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So, what part of the south are you from, Dallas May?
Re: It's not that simple (Score:2, Troll)
If you don't know any Intelligent religious people then 1) you are completely ignorant about how many of the Intelligent people you know are also religious, 2) don't know any Intelligent people, 3) have simply surrounded yourself by your own echo-chamber bubble, 4) you are simply lying to some random internet stranger to justify your own belief and bigotry.
All options are equally plausible. Since you immediately reject all of the above options, my bet is that you are lying and don't even work for any resear
Re: It's not that simple (Score:2, Troll)
I mean wow. Do you really not hear how bigoted you are. You literally just said that you don't know any intelligent Jews.
Wow.
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It's entirely possible that I don't realize that some of the very smart people I know are also religious, but I kind of doubt it. Talking to a woo-woo imaginary sky wizard(s) after a lifetime of education and critical thinking doesn't really make much sense. Somebody who devotes their life to truth probably isn't going to also spend much of their life dedicated to the exact o
Re: It's not that simple (Score:2)
That's easy to explain.
Many many many brilliant people throughout history have believed in all kinds of gods and religions.
Why do you think Jews and Muslims can't be intelligent?
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Remember when people were so dumb and racist that they presumed Neandertals were stupid, just because they were shown a chart that said they were "different" than "modern" humans? ROFLCOPTER
A certain percentage of people will just believe whatever they are told. Especially if you add an ethnicity, religion, or economic status to the people discussed. Looking back, wasn't that always the case?
--Signed, Prominent Occipital Bun
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Remember when it was just the religious right that was anti-science?
Umm, no I don't. It's been long known that the distribution of anti-vaxxers was a pretty equal mix of Conservative and Liberal.
Different reasons, but equally stupid reasons.
Stupidity knows no political affiliation.
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Thank you. I wasn't sure I got my own point.
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Being able to understand and apply "what the experts say" about a particular topic is literally the definition of intelligence.
Re: Remember when it was just the Religous Right? (Score:2)
I don't believe that.
Education is not equal to intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
I've met people who have plenty of fancy letters after their names, and they're dumb as rocks. They studied deep in a single field, but can only regurgitate knowledge, not integrate and extrapolate.
The more life I experience, the more I realize just how truly rare intelligence is.
No (Score:3)
Just because you inherited money and your dad paid for a new library at Harvard doesn't mean that you aren't a stupid fuck.
Caviar (Score:2)
If the plebeians can't afford it, it must be superior! Just like I am! Oh, ho ho ho ho! /s
social media responsible ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry to drag social media into the fray again, but it may have undue influence. The poorest, most ignorant people don't use social media much. When the doctor, or some authority, tells them to get vaccinations, they obey.
But those steeped in social media see lots of opinions, lots of controversy, lots of fake news. When an authority tells them to get vaccinations, they think they know better.
'All's fair in love and war', they say. Raising children is a very emotional activity. Parents tend to be protective and sometimes paranoid about obscure threats to their children. Rationality is sometimes overlooked when they find urgent online pleas to avoid vaxxing.
I work with illiterate adults, helping them to be readers. They are very docile and will do what doctors tell them to do. The rest of us are too smart to fall for that blind obedience trap.
"Well-educated"... (Score:2)
"educated" != "understands how things work" (Score:2)
There are a lot of highly educated morons around. Some of them even have high intelligence. Does not matter. The problem is one of wisdom, in the sense of what to apply education and intelligence to. A lot of humans will just prefer their misconceptions even when they are educated end intelligent enough to easily verify what is actually true and what is not. The human tragedy at work: They could know better, but they _chose_ to not find out what is true.
Re: (Score:2)
It's experience, if anything. Do you know any anti-vacc'er above the age of 80? Won't find one. Why? Because they DO remember what an iron lung looks like. And they probably saw a sibling in one.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes. However if you need personal experience for a risk that is well understood and documented, then you have failed as an intellectual being. Not that this is not the normal mode most people live their lives in...
So it's settled (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the dumb fucks but the selfish assholes. Gotcha.
As in smoked, or as in Rushdie? (Score:2)
At one point it's Salmon, and later it's Salman.
Pharma hides data so people distrust them (Score:2)
Vaccination manufacturers don't make data available available, or at least actuarial data that any insurance company would trust. Insurance companies will insure almost anything - a jewelry store in Vancouver, BC, pays insurance against more than some number of centimeters of snow falling in January, and if that happens, the insurance company refunds all their customers purchases from December (actually happened once). However, after our first-born had a major reaction as a child to a vaccination and needed
Re: show butthoal (Score:5, Informative)
Do you get a smallpox vaccine? No, smallpox was eradicated.
Unless you are working in labs that maintain samples of smallpox for research, this is probably true. That said, if a new outbreak ever occurs somehow (e.g. cross-species transmission), then being able to rapidly ramp up those immunizations could be pretty important.
Do you get a chicken pox vaccine when you already had chicken pox? Probably not. The efficacy of having had chicken oox is better understood than the efficacy of the vaccine.
Actually, that's untrue. People who have previously been infected by chickenpox need a vaccine booster later in life. The chickenpox virus is never completely eliminated from the human body, and as a result, it can resurface in the form of shingles, a painful and debilitating condition that affects a million people per year in the United States alone. Given that the chickenpox vaccine was not approved for use in the U.S. until 1995, exactly zero percent of the main at-risk age group (elderly) were vaccinated as a kid, which is to say that (approximately) all cases of shingles occur in people who had chickenpox, not the vaccine. But periodic booster vaccination can prevent it from occurring/recurring.
Do you get your second dose of gardasil as a child? No, you get it later in life assuming you even want it or some guideline has not changed.
Huh? Like all vaccines, protection lasts for a period of time.
I would ask that you idiots please stop talking about vaccines as though they were some monolithic thing that everybody gets from big brother.
Vaccines aren't all the same, but they are pretty darn similar except for the virus itself. They confer an immunity to a particular virus and similar viruses for a period of time. They must periodically be supplemented by a booster if continued immunity is required, and mutation of viruses can result in less or no protection (e.g. influenza). The only questions you need to ask are:
That's it. There's really only a single factor to consider when deciding whether to be vaccinated. People who go to countries that have more viruses need more immunizations. People in the U.S. need fewer (but still more than none). And when groups of people refuse to get immunized, the herd immunity of the society they live in is reduced, and everyone is at greater risk of dying from what would otherwise be an entirely preventable disease.