8 More Deaths Caused by Gardasil Bringing Total Number To 11

[Ben Kenobi]

You don't need rates that high to significant decrease the spread, though, so that even the uninoculated are unlikely to catch it.

You mean herd immunity?

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/training/overview/pdf/eradicationhistory.pdf

check out slide 17.

According to epidemiology, it varies according to the disease. Some diseases are easier to spread then others, and so the numbers are higher.

For Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Pertussis, Diphtheria, Smallpox and Polio, you have numbers from 75-85 for mumps and from 92-95 for Pertussis.

15 percent isn't even on the same planet.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme


1.You got the definition wrong.
A free rider is not somehow who benefits from not having the vaccine.
It is someone who benefits from others taking the vaccine.

2.If the vaccine is free, the free rider problem isn't really present, but I never brought it up in that context, so I don't see why you bring this up. That is, I don't think I brought up the free rider problem in the context of a free vaccine (where free vaccine in this context must mean free of any associated cost, so no side effects, etc...)


For one thing, in practice there is really no free vaccine, and the free rider problem is always present.

I brought up an hypothetical free vaccine to enlighten a different issue, that of Ben's twisted rules for deciding on effectiveness.

Free to the public. The government footing the bill. The free rider 'problem' is only a 'problem' when there is a general disincentive to doing something - ie, if you have an economic reason to not take the vaccine. Making it free means that economic reason does not exist; you choose to take it or not based on your own cost-benefit analysis. Certainly people will benefit (ie not get the disease) who don't take the vaccine; but that's not a problem, because it doesn't cost anybody anything to take it or not take it (and in fact, it saves society money if you don't take it), and if it is safe enough that the far majority consider it safe to take, then they will. I've always believed vaccines that provide a public benefit should be offered free of charge.

Note that in the US, vaccines required by schools are NOT free to the public, although the poor can typically get them for free or at reduced costs.

[Lul Thyme]

Ben

You missed my point by such a wide margin I'm not sure we'll be able to communicate.

I have rewritten this post a couple of times, because everyway I tried to explain it seemed too similar to what I did before which you didn't understand.


Let me try an example:

Disease A has two strains:
A1
A2


Disease B has three strains
B1
B2
B3


Each of the 5 sprains of these 2 diseases (A1, A2, B1, B2, B3) is as widespread , as dangerous, as contagious etc... (say kills 5% of 100K people per year or whatever you want)

We have vaccine A that treats A1, A2, so treats disease A as a whole.
We have vaccine B that treats B1, B2, so doesn't treat any disease, "unfortunately".

Both vaccines cost the same, have same side-effects etc...

Under your proposed policy, vaccine A should be mandatory because it treats a whole disease, but vaccine B should not because it doesn't.

YET THEY HAVE THE SAME EXACT COST AND THE SAME EFFECT.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You mean herd immunity?

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/training/overview/pdf/eradicationhistory.pdf

check out slide 17.

According to epidemiology, it varies according to the disease. Some diseases are easier to spread then others, and so the numbers are higher.

For Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Pertussis, Diphtheria, Smallpox and Polio, you have numbers from 75-85 for mumps and from 92-95 for Pertussis.

15 percent isn't even on the same planet.

Where the **** did 15 percent come from?

[Kuciwalker]

Free to the public. The government footing the bill. The free rider 'problem' is only a 'problem' when there is a general disincentive to doing something - ie, if you have an economic reason to not take the vaccine. Making it free means that economic reason does not exist; you choose to take it or not based on your own cost-benefit analysis.

Except that the government can't annihilate all of the cost of the vaccine, in the form of the medical risk.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Taxonomy of diseases is no more arbitrary then species classifications.

Ha ha way to dig your own hole.

I didn't want to go point by point but this is classic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem

"... I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and varieties" Darwin 1859 (p. 48)[42]

(see disease vs strain... )

"No term is more difficult to define than "species," and on no point are zoologists more divided than as to what should be understood by this word". Nicholson (1872) p. 20[43]

"Of late, the futility of attempts to find a universally valid criterion for distinguishing species has come to be fairly generally, if reluctantly, recognized" Dobzhansky (1937) p.310 [10]

"The concept of a species is a concession to our linguistic habits and neurological mechanisms" Haldane (1956) [33]

"The species problem is the long-standing failure of biologists to agree on how we should identify species and how we should define the word 'species'." Hey (2001) [37]

"First, the species problem is not primarily an empirical one, but it is rather fraught with philosophical questions that require-but cannot be settled by-empirical evidence." Pigliucci (2003) [36]




Species ARE arbitrary, for exactly the same reason diseases are.

It seems you are confused on these issues, but at least I've cleared up where the confusion stemmed from.

You're welcome.

[Kuciwalker]

I laughed at that too.

[Ben Kenobi]

We have vaccine A that treats A1, A2, so treats disease A as a whole.

We have vaccine B that treats B1, B2, so doesn't treat any disease, "unfortunately".

It doesn't cure a disease but go on.

Under your proposed policy, vaccine A should be mandatory because it treats a whole disease, but vaccine B should not because it doesn't.

YET THEY HAVE THE SAME EXACT COST AND THE SAME EFFECT.

One cures a disease, the other does not. I'm not sure I see how they have the same effect.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Free to the public. The government footing the bill. The free rider 'problem' is only a 'problem' when there is a general disincentive to doing something - ie, if you have an economic reason to not take the vaccine.

Why economic? What a one-dimensional analysis!
Side effects are a disincentive to taking a vaccine.
The time it takes also is one.

Etc.
In practice, there is always such a disincentive and so the free rider problem is always present.



I have to decide whether to take a vaccine, but I don't want side effects. Oh! Everybody else is taking it, the disease won't be as present, therefore I don't need to take it. Yeah!

I'm a free rider.

[Kuciwalker]

One cures a disease, the other does not. I'm not sure I see how they have the same effect.

Then you are officially hopeless.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


It doesn't cure a disease but go on.



One cures a disease, the other does not. I'm not sure I see how they have the same effect.

But a disease is just a name!!
It seems you're more interested in curing names than curing people.
They cure exactly the same number of people of exactly the same symptoms!!
That's an effect!
A real, real-life, real effect.



The fact the we decided to bundle up B2 and B1 with B3 in some big book of names is irrelevant in practice!!

It has no effect on reality!


Anyway man, I'm sorry but the confusion runs deep.

The fact that you brought up the species problem to SUPPORT your point just goes to show there is more for you to catch up on than I have the will to explain in this thread.

[Ben Kenobi]

Lul Thyme:

So there is no difference between two strains of say HIV and two strains of HPV?

The fact that one is labelled HIV and the other is HPV is completely arbitrary?

[Kuciwalker]

Yes.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Do you really want to get into the taxonomy of infectious diseases?

I already explained it for you.

HPV refers to different viruses found within the same family. You know... Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. (Not all viruses within the family are HPV... as the "H" stands for Human, and not all of them affect humans.)

Guess what? The common cold and polio are from the same family as well. (As is Hepatitis A.) Just because polio vaccines do not prevent the common cold or Hepatitis A does not mean anything about whether we should require vaccinations for polio.

The same is true of HPV. Either the strains that are affected by the vaccination are worth requiring vaccinations for, or they aren't. The other viruses that comprise HPV, but are not affected by the vaccination, are irrelevent for that discussion. Using them to drive down the % effectiveness of a "HPV" vaccination is an intellectually defunct argument.

[Lul Thyme]

I'm going to modify the example to make your policy even more crazy.

We have the same A1, A2, B1, B2, B3 as before except now
B1, B2 are both extremely dangerous, while A1 and A2 are benign.

Vaccine B is a cheap, all powerful vaccine that destroys the virus in multi-mile ranges, while Vaccine A requires the whole state of California to produce and has big side effects.


Which should be mandatory?

Using Ben's rule of vaccine mandatoriness... (cures a disease= , doesn't = ), we get that vaccine A should be mandatory.

If it's still not clear why this policy is crap I give up.




Seriously Ben, this issue of definition (like in the species case) is misunderstood by a lot of people and is cause of a lot of problems in discussion that I see in a wide range of places.



I mean you used the species example thinking that was a nail in a coffin while it was exactly the opposite. It couldn't really hurt you to understand the issue a little more.
You should read up a bit on the link I gave you.

Anyway , I'm officially out of this thread.

I'm close to my quota for the month and don't want to lose my Lurker Status