Congratulations Anti-vaxers. Measles spreading in California

[Berzerker]

I like having Timmy around just in case a lion chases us

[I AM MOBIUS]

Also your thing about unvaccinated survivors of a disease being stronger - well I hate to break it to you but people who are vaccinated are also 'survivors' of a disease - that's the whole point of being vaccinated!

Basically your only argument is that 'there are too many people' - which is a tacit admission that vaccines are in fact effective!

It's all a pretty weak troll if you ask me...

C- 'Must try harder'

[Aeson]

I like having Timmy around just in case a lion chases us

This just gives the lions a taste for human blood...

[Berzerker]

Also your thing about unvaccinated survivors of a disease being stronger - well I hate to break it to you but people who are vaccinated are also 'survivors' of a disease - that's the whole point of being vaccinated!

Basically your only argument is that 'there are too many people' - which is a tacit admission that vaccines are in fact effective!

It's all a pretty weak troll if you ask me...

C- 'Must try harder'

If you survive a disease without a vaccine your immune system is stronger than the person who needs the vaccine to survive. And your descendents will have stronger immune systems too, the descendents of the survivor who needed the vaccine will also need the vaccine. What happens when our medical interventions result in a superbug we cant control with vaccines? A much larger percent of the population will be infected thereby threatening the herd's immunity more than if vaccines never existed. There are too many people and it aint because of vaccines.

[Jon Miller]

If you survive a disease without a vaccine your immune system is stronger than the person who needs the vaccine to survive. And your descendents will have stronger immune systems too, the descendents of the survivor who needed the vaccine will also need the vaccine. What happens when our medical interventions result in a superbug we cant control with vaccines? A much larger percent of the population will be infected thereby threatening the herd's immunity more than if vaccines never existed. There are too many people and it aint because of vaccines.

You aren't understanding how survival of the fittest works nor how vaccines work.

The way around vaccines is to be a highly mutating virus. Some, like measles, are not highly mutating and will die out. Others, like flu, are highly mutating and will prosper.

The vaccine works by giving your immune system practice beating up weak (or dead) versions of the virus. Then it is stronger and can work on the real thing. There isn't any reason for someone without a vaccine to have a stronger immune system than someone with.

JM

[Sava]

You didn't answer the question, one is less likely to survive long enough - the one descended from folks who were vaccinated. And the one best able to adapt to change is the one who survived diseases without vaccinations.

Uhm. No.

You're making a massive assumption and leap in logic. What evidence do you have to suggest one is less likely to survive than the other. There is absolutely zero evidence to support that statement.

[Sava]

If you survive a disease without a vaccine your immune system is stronger than the person who needs the vaccine to survive.

No.
NO NO NO

That's not how it works.

Assuming there aren't any genetic defects that would leave a person with an inherent vulnerability (like an auto-immune disorder... e.g. lupus), the immune system is heavily dependent on environment factors.

[Jon Miller]

I think you have vaccines and anti-biotics confused.

JM

[Sava]

Measles Proves Delicate Issue to G.O.P. Field

By JEREMY W. PETERS and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAFEB. 2, 2015


WASHINGTON — The politics of medicine, morality and free will have collided in an emotional debate over vaccines and the government’s place in requiring them, posing a challenge for Republicans who find themselves in the familiar but uncomfortable position of reconciling modern science with the skepticism of their core conservative voters.

As the latest measles outbreak raises alarm, and parents who have decided not to vaccinate their children face growing pressure to do so, the national debate is forcing the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential hopefuls to confront questions about whether it is in the public’s interest to allow parents to decide for themselves.

Gov. Chris Christie’s trade mission to London was suddenly overshadowed on Monday after he was quoted as saying that parents “need to have some measure of choice” about vaccinating their children against measles. The New Jersey governor, who is trying to establish his credibility among conservatives as he weighs a run for the Republican nomination in 2016, later tried to temper his response. His office released a statement clarifying that “with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated.”

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a physician, was less equivocal, telling the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday that parents should absolutely have a say in whether to vaccinate their children for measles.

“While I think it’s a good idea to take the vaccine, I think that’s a personal decision for individuals,” he said, recalling his irritation at doctors who tried to press him to vaccinate his own children. He eventually did, he said, but spaced out the vaccinations over a period of time.

The vaccination controversy is a twist on an old problem for the Republican Party: how to approach matters that have largely been settled among scientists but are not widely accepted by conservatives.

It is a dance Republican candidates often do when they hedge their answers about whether evolution should be taught in schools. It is what makes the fight over global warming such a liability for their party, and what led last year to a widely criticized response to the Ebola scare.

As concern spread about an Ebola outbreak in the United States, physicians criticized Republican lawmakers — including Mr. Christie — who called for strict quarantines of people who may have been exposed to the virus. In some cases, Republicans proposed banning people who had been to the hardest-hit West African countries from entering the United States, even though public health officials warned that would only make it more difficult to stop Ebola’s spread.

On climate change, the party has struggled with how to position itself, with some Republicans inviting mockery for questioning the established science that human activity is contributing to rising temperatures and sea levels.

There is evidence that vaccinations have become more of a political issue in recent years. Pew Research Center polls show that in 2009, 71 percent of both Republicans and Democrats favored requiring the vaccination of children. Five years later, Democratic support had grown to 76 percent, but Republican support had fallen to 65 percent.

The debate does not break entirely along right-left lines. The movement to forgo vaccinations has been popular in more liberal and affluent communities where some parents are worried that vaccines cause autism or other disorders among children.

President Obama acknowledged the concern as a candidate in 2008, saying, “Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines, this person included.” But asked about immunization over the weekend in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” Mr. Obama urged parents to “get your kids vaccinated.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton also weighed in with a jab at vaccine naysayers, writing Monday night on Twitter, “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork.”

Howard Dean, a presidential candidate in 2004 and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said there are three groups of people who object to required vaccines: “One is people who are very much scared about their kids getting autism, which is an idea that has been completely discredited. Two, is entitled people who don’t want to put any poison in their kids and view this as poison, which is ignorance more than anything else. And three, people who are antigovernment in any way.”

“But the truth,” added Mr. Dean, a physician, “is you can be conservative without putting kids in harm’s way.”

The issue has more political potency among conservative voters who are highly skeptical of anything required by the government.

The vaccine question surfaced in the 2012 Republican primary when rivals of Rick Perry, then the Texas governor, pounced on him for issuing an executive order requiring sixth-grade girls to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus — the first regulation of its kind in the country. One of his opponents, Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman in Minnesota, went as far as saying the vaccine could cause “mental retardation,” a claim with no scientific merit. But in a sign of the issue’s political weight, Mr. Perry apologized for the mandate.

Asked about the measles vaccine controversy on Monday, a spokesman for Mr. Perry affirmed his commitment to “protecting life” and pointed to efforts by his administration to increase immunization rates.

But as Mr. Perry’s experience shows, the debate is not one-sided for Republicans. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, also a possible 2016 candidate, was asked on Sunday about vaccinations on the ABC News program “This Week,” and insisted that the science was clear and convincing. “Study after study has shown that there are no negative long-term consequences,” he said. “And the more kids who are not vaccinated, the more they’re at risk and the more they put their neighbors’ kids at risk as well.”

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is considering a run for president, has noted that the link between autism and vaccines was discredited. As governor, he received his flu shot at the State Capitol and encouraged all Arkansans to get vaccinated.

But for Republicans like Mr. Paul who appeal to the kind of libertarian conservatives who are influential in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the first two contests in the battle for the nomination, there is an appeal in framing the issue as one of individual liberty.

Asked about immunizations again later on Monday, Mr. Paul was even more insistent, saying it was a question of “freedom.” He grew irritated with a CNBC host who pressed him and snapped: “The state doesn’t own your children. Parents own the children.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/us/politics/measles-proves-delicate-issue-to-gop-field.html

I just... I feel like I'm watching the GOP commit ritual suicide.

There are no words for how happy this makes me.

[N35t0r]

I like how, in the absence of BK, we still have people to argue the darndest things...

[Sava]

I like how, in the absence of BK, we still have people to argue the darndest things...

It's really nice not having every thread turn into a debate about gayism and abortion.

[I AM MOBIUS]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/us...gop-field.html

I just... I feel like I'm watching the GOP commit ritual suicide.

There are no words for how happy this makes me.

Republican AND Religious = Thick as pig****

It really is that obvious these days...

[pchang]

Since we are still allowing natural selection to work on intelligence, this will all work out in the end.

[Dr Strangelove]

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is considering a run for president, has noted that the link between autism and vaccines was discredited. As governor, he received his flu shot at the State Capitol and encouraged all Arkansans to get vaccinated.

This year's flu vaccine didn't work.

[Sava]

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is desperate for attention while promoting his book

fixed