The Gaming Den

So... the wife and I got the swine flu vaccine just several hours ago.

While I've had non IV vaccines before, it was strange to have it shot up my nose.
Funny seeing how many things have gone up my nose starting with a tamarind seed when I was three and ending with copious amounts of pharmacopia.

Mean Liar, it's because your objections are completely fucking stupid that you're getting a handwave.

I don't know how to respond to your fractally wrong statements, but I guess I will start with this one.

Check fatalities. The most recent US outbreak was 15 deaths last year. Not only that, but mumps is most lethal in adults, not children. Had those 15 adults gotten mumps as a child, they'd be naturally immune and still alive.

First of all: do you even know what a vaccination is?

I don't even know how to parody this statement, it's so fucking stupid. I guess the most charitable I could say is that you somehow think that getting the 'full' disease somehow gives you more immunity than getting a vaccination.

But you know what? Even disregarding the wrongness of that statement, since the outbreaks are random we would have actually had to take everyone off of the mumps vaccine--otherwise they wouldn't have gotten a full-blown case of it as a kid. Which means, guess what, hundreds of thousands more infections which means way more fatalities.

I mean, really, did you even think a little about about your policy? 'Sure, millions more of kids would be getting mumps but those 15 adults wouldn't have died in the future then it would've been a just outcome!'

I suggest you actually argue the merits and discuss the links I'm posting. Vaccination as a concept is worth pursuing in the face of fatal outbreaks and their risks are also acceptable for dealing with extant, domestically-active fatal or crippling diseases. Outside of those arenas, what then?

I actually don't think that autism is directly linked to any single vaccine - that's been explored thoroughly. There are other questions and risks that haven't been explored and simply saying "THAT'S JUST BULLSHIT" when the data and MODELS are inadequate is trusting science without consideration.

So fuck your handwaving dismissal. If you think this is shit then come up with something that's substantial rather than ad hominem.

Your proposals don't even show a basic understanding of logic, let alone medicine. So why should I actually bother to get into sources?

Seriously, here's what you just said: 'Diphtheria cases in the U.S. are non-existent. Therefore we can take people off of vaccines!'

We've been over your stupid logic before. In the 19th century in the United States, after smallpox cases went way down following the introduction of said vaccine morons--such as yourself--asked the boneheaded question 'since smallpox is so much rarer, why do we need to vaccinate people?'. And of course since vaccine hysteria has been around since there has ever been vaccines, said morons bolstered their case by coming up with a bunch of stupid woo about vaccines.

Well, people unwisely listened to the antivax fuckheads and GUESS WHAT HAPPENED? That's right, once people actually listened to that blithering 'logic' smallpox cases experienced a huge resurgence in the later 19th
century.

The only reason that statement would make even a little bit of sense is if for some reason Diphtheria magically disappeared from the planet.

Well, it's not. I just showed you a source that says that it's not gone and even worse such cases are right next door to the United States. So when confronted with this, what did you say?

With... >49 cases in the US last year.

Out of 300+ million people.

Adverse reactions occur in 12-24 out of every 100,000 and you need 4 shots of it. Hooray.

Not only that, but the vaccines aren't guaranteed to even do anything, as noted in the outbreaks in Canada and Germany, and even in places that have desperate problems with diphtheria outbreaks:

mean_liar, you're normally a smart guy, so when you post bullshit like this and then rant about 'orthodox science' it gives me a clear explanation for the source of this appalling ignorance. That's why I singled that out.

Seriously, while ad hominems are a logical fallacy the sad fact of the matter is that people who are part of fringe beliefs like anti-vaccination and gold standards and astrology have an accuracy rate so low in their field of interest that it's not worth your time. You can take a gamble that they might post something smart but you can also buy tickets to the lottery.

Okay, now, vaccinations of diseases do eventually stop. Most famously, smallpox is actually eliminated.

But the keyword here is actually eliminated. Smallpox vaccination has been going on for over a century and a half before they decided to ease off. We still have mumps, diphtheria, rubella, polio, etc. out there. And when people slack off before the disease is actually eliminated it follows a frequent pattern:

A) Paranoid anti-science dumbshits prematurely end vaccination.
B) Cases invariably rise in the area where dumbshits reside.
C) People quickly do ring vaccination and suppress the disease.
D) Dumbshits don't learn anything, repeat their attack on vaccination sometime in the future.
E) Hopefully the government doesn't listen to the dumbshits and we have a happy ending.

This pattern is happening again right now with polio, though in that case it's motivated by racial prejudice rather than anti-science hysteria. I'm not sure whether that's better or worse.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:First of all: do you even know what a vaccination is?

Unlike the immunity that comes from natural exposures, vaccines don't provide life-long immunity - it's why you need booster shots. Not only that, but in the case of mumps I don't believe that you understand how the disease's mortality operates: it's non-fatal in kids.

Children are being vaccinated against a non-fatal disease, meaning that just around the time their immunities are wearing off they're at just the right age for the disease to kill them.


Re: Diphtheria.

3 cases in the US in the last decade. Three.

You're actively causing more harm with the vaccine than the disease, since:

1. The disease's outbreaks occur in vaccinated populations, so there's a legitimate question as to how efficacious the existing vaccine even is

2. The adverse reactions are so much more prevalent than the disease that you have to wonder what you're being protected against and if that's actually a wise call


...


As a thought experiment: when is a population safe enough that it need to be required to get a vaccine? The answer requires understanding the risks of continuing vaccinations as well as understanding the risks of outbreak. With most vaccines, the first part is only understood in the context of immediate adverse reactions and the second is a theory that holds that vaccination consistently and predictably prevents diseases and outbreaks in protected populations when it's clear that this is not incorrect.

So if you can't adequately measure efficacy or risk, what's the basis of your judgment?

In cases of immediate fatal/crippling threat its easy to roll the dice because no one wants to fucking die. When you're looking at a scenario where there is no such immediate threat, then what's the basis of assumption other than assuming?

Autoimmune disorders are growing at a rate far outstripping population growth. Since it can't be tied to anything specific, the implication is that its an environmental disorder, some collection of stockpiled and ubiquitous subtle problems that haven't been checked or properly analyzed. Vaccinations would be a prime candidate for investigation given their immune system targeting, unknown elements associated with their functioning mechanisms as well as unexamined longterm effects of their increase to toxin load.

mean_liar wrote:Children are being vaccinated against a non-fatal disease, meaning that just around the time their immunities are wearing off they're at just the right age for the disease to kill them.

You mean like small pox and how it has wore off of people given the inoculation LONG ago?

mean_liar wrote:2. The adverse reactions are so much more prevalent than the disease that you have to wonder what you're being protected against and if that's actually a wise call.

WTF?

A) What adverse side effects? So far, you have given zero examples. Other than "A small increase in Autoimmune disorders in the people who live longer." Which is somewhere like 100% likely even if not using your immune system didn't have an effect, because they are living longer.

B) The prevalency of the disease in non vaccinated populations is greater.

3 people out of 300 million died in a vaccinated population. Diptheria kills 5-10 percent of those that contract it.

Therefore, 60 people got the disease. Now. In a non vaccinated population, like for example, if you had your retarded fucked up murdering way, and no one born today or after got the vaccination, 100 years from now, how many people of the 300 million in the US would get Diptheria?

More or less than 60.

More. You fucking retard. Lack of disease fatalities in vaccinated populations is not a justification for not having vaccines. Just like lack of people turned away from hospitals because they don't have money in a country with mandatory care laws is a justification for removing mandatory care laws.

mean_liar wrote:Unlike the immunity that comes from natural exposures, vaccines don't provide life-long immunity - it's why you need booster shots. Not only that, but in the case of mumps I don't believe that you understand how the disease's mortality operates: it's non-fatal in kids.

The mumps isn't as benign as you'd like to make it out to be. As per Wikipedia, known complications of mumps include:

[*]Mumps viral infections in adolescent and adult males carry an up to 30% risk that the testes may become infected (orchitis or epididymitis), which can be quite painful; about half of these infections result in testicular atrophy, and in rare cases sterility can follow.
[*]Spontaneous abortion in about 27% of cases during the first trimester of pregnancy.
[*]Mild forms of meningitis in up to 10% of cases (40% of cases occur without parotid swelling)
[*]Pancreatitis in about 4% of cases, manifesting as abdominal pain and vomiting
[*]Encephalitis (very rare, and fatal in about 1% of the cases when it occurs)
[*]Profound (91 dB or more) but rare sensorineural hearing loss, uni- or bilateral. Acute unilateral deafness occurs in about 0.005% of cases.[17

So even if you don't die outright from the mumps, there are a number of horrible side-effects that you can carry with you for the rest of your life. I'd much rather get vaccinated and avoid horrors such infertility, brain damage, and hearing loss, thank you very much. And I'm sure the ladies out there appreciate not having to worry about their children spontaneously aborting because of this horrible disease.

mean_liar wrote:Re: Diphtheria.

3 cases in the US in the last decade. Three.

You're actively causing more harm with the vaccine than the disease, since:

1. The disease's outbreaks occur in vaccinated populations, so there's a legitimate question as to how efficacious the existing vaccine even is

There's not much question regarding the efficacy of the vaccine. The question is whether or not everyone is getting vaccinated like they should. As per Wikipedia:

After the breakup of the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s, vaccination rates in its constituent countries fell so low that there was an explosion of diphtheria cases. In 1991 there were 2,000 cases of diphtheria in the USSR. By 1998, according to Red Cross estimates, there were as many as 200,000 cases in the Commonwealth of Independent States, with 5,000 deaths. This was so great an increase that diphtheria was cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as "most resurgent disease".

So if you get vaccinated, you're protected. If you don't, you're at risk. It's pretty cut and dry. And if you don't get vaccinated, you're not only putting yourself at risk, but you're putting everyone else at risk because you're giving the disease fertile new ground to reproduce and mutate into a form that is unaffected by the existing vaccine, which means we all end up royally getting the shaft.

mean_liar wrote: 2. The adverse reactions are so much more prevalent than the disease that you have to wonder what you're being protected against and if that's actually a wise call.

As per kidshealth.org, here's what you can expect from the vaccine:

Although most children tolerate it well, the vaccine sometimes causes mild side effects such as redness or tenderness at the injection site, a low-grade fever, or general fussiness or crankiness. Severe complications, such as an allergic reaction, are rare.

And here's what you can expect from Diphtheria proper as per Wikipedia:

Symptoms include fatigue, fever, a mild sore throat and problems swallowing. Children infected have symptoms that include nausea, vomiting, chills, and a high fever, although some do not show symptoms until the infection has progressed further. In 10% of cases, patients experience neck swelling, informally referred to as "bull neck." These cases are associated with a higher risk of death.

In addition to symptoms at the site of infection (sore throat), the patient may experience more generalized symptoms, such as listlessness, pallor, and fast heart rate. These symptoms are caused by the toxin released by the bacterium. Low blood pressure may develop in these patients. Longer-term effects of the diphtheria toxin include cardiomyopathy and peripheral neuropathy (sensory type).

Heart disease or nerve damage? Sign me up! But wait, it gets better:

The overall case-fatality rate for diphtheria is 5% to 10%, with higher death rates (up to 20%) among persons younger than 5 and older than 40 years of age. Up to 40% to 50% of those who don't get treated can die. The case-fatality rate for diphtheria has changed very little during the last 50 years.

Seems to me that the complications of the vaccine don't hold a candle to what would happen if we allowed the disease to run rampant.

mean_liar wrote:As a thought experiment: when is a population safe enough that it need to be required to get a vaccine? The answer requires understanding the risks of continuing vaccinations as well as understanding the risks of outbreak.

With most vaccines, the first part is only understood in the context of immediate adverse reactions and the second is a theory that holds that vaccination consistently and predictably prevents diseases and outbreaks in protected populations when it's clear that this is not incorrect.

So if you can't adequately measure efficacy or risk, what's the basis of your judgment?

I have no idea where you're coming from with "though experiments" and stating that "we can't adequately measure efficacy or risk". Once again, it's pretty cut and dry: when you stop giving people vaccinations, people get sick and die. Both mumps and diphtheria are incredibly contagious and they pose an enormous risk to the health of anyone they come into contact with. We didn't just decide to start vaccinating people for shits and giggles - we vaccinate people to keep them from suffering or even dying from these terrible diseases.

mean_liar wrote:In cases of immediate fatal/crippling threat its easy to roll the dice because no one wants to fucking die. When you're looking at a scenario where there is no such immediate threat, then what's the basis of assumption other than assuming?

Please refer to the list of horrible, non-fatal side effects listed above for these diseases.

mean_liar wrote:Autoimmune disorders are growing at a rate far outstripping population growth. Since it can't be tied to anything specific, the implication is that its an environmental disorder, some collection of stockpiled and ubiquitous subtle problems that haven't been checked or properly analyzed. Vaccinations would be a prime candidate for investigation given their immune system targeting, unknown elements associated with their functioning mechanisms as well as unexamined longterm effects of their increase to toxin load.

You assert that autoimmune disorders are growing at a rate far outstripping population growth, but on what authority do you make this assertion? Is this statement based on the results of scientific research, or from the ramblings of some kook on the internet? And even if we accept that statement as fact, what scientific evidence do you have that indicates that we should look at vaccinations as a possible culprit? Or are we pretty much just pissing in the wind here?

Mean Liar wrote: Unlike the immunity that comes from natural exposures, vaccines don't provide life-long immunity

There is nothing magical about "natural" exposure. Targeted immunoglobulins that are not in use are down regulated over time. The big drop off in production happens right away - that's why you stop having an identifiable immune reaction (fever and such) shortly after the infection is eliminated. But the downregulation continues to happen throughout your life. At the limit of infinite time, you will eventually stop producing those targeted immunoglobulins altogether. And the timeframe that this occurs is random, because it's a passive elimination process. This is why people who get the Chicken Pox as children still get Rickets (same disease) about 30 years later.

Booster shots are simply interventions to keep immunity from being lost. Periodically triggering an upregulation in the production of those targeted systems keeps down regulation from ever falling to zero. And since all the rest of your crazy is based on this rather simple piece of non-understanding about immunology, I want a fucking apology. From you. Right now.

-Username17

Kaelik wrote:

mean_liar wrote:2. The adverse reactions are so much more prevalent than the disease that you have to wonder what you're being protected against and if that's actually a wise call.

WTF?

A) What adverse side effects? So far, you have given zero examples. Other than "A small increase in Autoimmune disorders in the people who live longer." Which is somewhere like 100% likely even if not using your immune system didn't have an effect, because they are living longer.

B) The prevalency of the disease in non vaccinated populations is greater.

http://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html

There were 9891 CDC-classified serious adverse reactions from diphtheria vaccines last year. Considering the mortality of diphtheria in the US (0% over the last decade), that's a roughly 3200:1 ratio of serious adverse reaction from vaccine to serious adverse reaction from the actual disease.

Prevalence and disease management in non-vaccinated populations isn't what I'm discussing. When you've got a high rate of incidence then it makes sense to vaccinate. Once domestic incidence rates are down, continuing to do so should involve a risk/benefit analysis.

In the US, that analysis is predicated on the assumption that there's apparently going to be an outbreak infecting a hundred or so people, every year, in a country that hasn't had any outbreaks in over a decade, and only 3 incidences in the last decade.

The epidemiological studies of the latest outbreaks also indicate that they occur in populations with poor living conditions and prevalent alcohol abuse; namely, not the entire population of a country that would justify wide-spread immunization programs.


...


Re: Mumps.

All of those results are EXTREMELY rare, and there's a distinct disparity between the magnitude of effects in children versus adults. Mumps used to be like chicken pox - kids got it, got over it, and that was it. The fallout was minimal, whereas today we've apparently got the CDC reporting 3987 serious adverse reactions from mumps vaccinations last year.


...


Re: Autoimmune disorders.

It's tough to find statistics that I can link to.

From the NIH report to Congress on the issue:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/925496/Prog ... e-Research

"Though each of the autoimmune diseases is relatively rare, as a group they are among the most prevalent in the United States, affecting between 14.7 and 23.5 million people – up to eight percent of the population. They also are a leading cause of death among young and middle-aged women. For reasons that are poorly understood, the incidence and prevalence of autoimmune diseases is rising."

There's also this, though its from an endocrinology symposium:
http://www.endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/0 ... 16s3.1.htm


...

Re: Vaccine-derived immunity duration.

http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/2 ... er.11.aspx

"A review of the published data on duration of immunity reveals estimates that infection-acquired immunity against pertussis disease wanes after 4-20 years and protective immunity after vaccination wanes after 4-12 years."

I couldn't find an examination of diphtheria immunity duration that was done in the last two decades. Most came from the 40s and 30s.

Natural immunity operates on a separate mechanism than vaccination-derived immunity. Duration is disease-dependent. In some cases the vaccine provides a lifelong immunity, but in others its significantly less. Pretending that this disparity doesn't exist and/or it's mechanism is understood is just overconfidence.

So fuck your apology, beyond the fact that I should have stated that natural immunity is not necessarily life-long in every disease case. The basic premise still stands: vaccine-derived immunity is inferior and yes, natural immunity is somehow "magical".

mean_liar wrote: Re: Vaccine-derived immunity duration.

http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/2 ... er.11.aspx

"A review of the published data on duration of immunity reveals estimates that infection-acquired immunity against pertussis disease wanes after 4-20 years and protective immunity after vaccination wanes after 4-12 years."

I couldn't find an examination of diphtheria immunity duration that was done in the last two decades. Most came from the 40s and 30s.

Natural immunity operates on a separate mechanism than vaccination-derived immunity. Duration is disease-dependent. In some cases the vaccine provides a lifelong immunity, but in others its significantly less. Pretending that this disparity doesn't exist and/or it's mechanism is understood is just overconfidence.

So fuck your apology, beyond the fact that I should have stated that natural immunity is not necessarily life-long in every disease case. The basic premise still stands: vaccine-derived immunity is inferior and yes, natural immunity is somehow "magical".

Wow, Mean, a disparity of 0 to 8 years. That obviously shows that the naturally acquired disease will give lifelong immunity while the vaccine won't--if you catch the disease at age 10 and die at age 30 (maybe because you weren't vaccinated for diphtheria?), and are incredibly lucky with respect to the duration of resistance.

Seriously, what the fuck are you arguing? 'A magically somewhat larger maximum period of immunization in some people obviously indicates a different pathway'? The only thing special about getting the actual disease is that you're exposed to a lot more of it. You can get the same (or greater) benefit while being exposed to less risk by getting your booster shots.

Re: Immunity duration.

I couldn't really find stats on other diseases, though I did want to. There aren't many studies of immunity duration.

Yes, my characterization of insta-lifelong immunity was wrong. However, there remains a disparity between natural immunity and vaccination immunity, which was a point that Frank poo-poo'd - and your attempting to parse between acute and mild exposure is only really meaningful in lethal diseases.


...

CatharzGodfoot wrote:You can get the same (or greater) benefit while being exposed to less risk by getting your booster shots.

I'd say that the relationship between serious adverse reactions from immunization and serious adverse reactions from actual infections of functionally non-existent or low-mortality diseases is such that the ubiquitous multiple-vaccine schedule in the US realizes greater risk.

The policy decision is between risking small outbreaks of non-lethal diseases against widespread use of injections whose longterm risks haven't been quantified.

For example, the safe dose amount of aluminum is 2ug/kg patient weight. Vaccination schedules exceed that. Aluminum is a neurotoxin in high concentrations. What then? The studies that say its safe are measuring the concentrations against the extant environment, with the general supposition that there is no environmental toxicity in that background count. Even with that it's generally acknowledged that vaccines spike aluminum and that you're measuring an acute exposure to a lower-magnitude one over time.

However, without a longitudinal study to confirm safety it's only supposition.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12184359
http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/S0 ... 0/abstract

Hey mean, what do you think about the UK teen that died from the vaccine against cervical cancer?

Mean Liar wrote:I couldn't really find stats on other diseases, though I did want to. There aren't many studies of immunity duration.

You remember that old quote by Lincoln about how it was better to close your mouth and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt? Yeah. There are one hundred and thirty eight immunology journals. That's without counting the epidemiology journals, the infectious disease journals, the evolutionary microbiology journals, or the medical engineering journals. Trust me, we do studies on immunity duration. That's why and how we develop booster shot schedules in the first place.

I'm going to give you the really simple version of specific immunity because I am openly contemptuous of you understanding the complicated version.

You have these stem cells that as they mature randomly mutate the gene that codes for the protein that is the business end of the protein recognition system. The first thing that happens is that the new cell is run through a gauntlet of your body's own cells. If it grabs anything here it gets murdered and you never hear from that version of the cell again. If not, it gets let loose in the body where it will circulate and eventually die.

But wait! If before it dies it comes into contact with a protein that its grabbers grab, it will replicate. And then the gene for a protein that grabs the (presumably foreign) protein gets multiplied many many times. And this means that not only are there enough to fight the infection, but also that the body will have a lot of copies left over to immediately jump in fist swinging if the body gets infected later. But if the body is not infected later, each of those cells is just a cell. It circulates in the body and eventually dies. If you go long enough without a new exposure, all your immunity will die off through simple attrition.

Now you'll note that getting a larger dose of the foreign protein will make there be a larger proliferation of cells that make proteins that fight it. And you'll also notice that you can get an actually much better result by getting small doses at intervals over your life. And if you don't remember enough calculus to figure out why that is, I'm sure someone will draw you a diagram.

---

But there's no "spiritual worth" to being infected by actual deadly diseases over simply exposing yourself to the dead shells of those diseases in much smaller amounts several times. You end up with the same immunity and you get a lot less sick and have a much lower chance of death.

Seriously, the core problem of your entire analysis is that you keep trying to find some "golden mean" between the medical establishment and some cranks on the internet. The fucking media keeps trying to do the same thing because controversy sells newspapers. But the thing is, the medical establishment is already a golden mean. We have literally thousands of people working on this problem, doing studies that involve millions of people.

The reason that when some crank on the internet wants to challenge our "big ideas" with questions that "haven't been asked" we tell that guy to read a book and get fucked is because those are not questions we don't ask. We have thousands of people asking those questions every day and presenting genuine research that adds to the body of collective knowledge. And if you're just a raving lunatic from outside who hasn't bothered to study these problems for six years, your chance of contributing anything meaningful is basically nil.

-Username17

mean_liar wrote:http://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html

There were 9891 CDC-classified serious adverse reactions from diphtheria vaccines last year. Considering the mortality of diphtheria in the US (0% over the last decade), that's a roughly 3200:1 ratio of serious adverse reaction from vaccine to serious adverse reaction from the actual disease.

I went ahead and did a search using the supplied database for the various Diptheria vaccines (the DTaP, DT, Td, and Tdap preparations) for the year 2008 and only came up with only 352 serious results. 77 of the reactions were life-threatening, and 20 of those resulted in death. As tragic as it is, I would rather lose 20 people a year to the vaccine then 20,000 a year to the disease itself.

Considering the mortality of diphtheria in the US (0% over the last decade)

Why the fuck do you think that is?

Since mean liar is now using VAERS reports as evidence, I think it'd be useful to keep this excerpt from the VAERS website in mind:

About the VAERS Program wrote:VAERS Does Not Determine Causality
Although VAERS can rarely provide definitive evidence of causal associations between vaccines and particular risks, its unique role as a national spontaneous reporting system enables the early detection of signals that can then be more rigorously investigated. VAERS receives reports of many events that occur after immunization. Some of these events may occur coincidentally following vaccination, while others may truly be caused by vaccination. Studies help determine if there is more than a temporal (time) association between immunization and adverse events. The fact that an adverse event occurred following immunization is not conclusive evidence that the event was caused by a vaccine. Factors such as medical history, diagnostic tests, and other medication given near the time of vaccination must be examined to help to determine the cause of adverse events.

Cielingcat wrote:

Considering the mortality of diphtheria in the US (0% over the last decade)

Why the fuck do you think that is?

I think the idea is that, if we just don't vaccinate the people who would have allergic reactions (or alternatively, only vaccinate the people who will get infected), we can have our cake and eat it too. The first one is good, to the extent that we can determine if someone will have a bad reaction before they get the vacination--but it isn't an argument against wide scale vaccination. The second is predicated on precogniscent doctors.

Mean, if I'm just propping up a couple of straw men then please correct me.

Questions that don't get asked are ones like, "Why did the Republicans filibuster a bill that would have paid for an agency to collect and publish excerpts from those journals and provide a single clearinghouse for whether studies had been done, how old they were, and their methodology?"

Or maybe, "Why did Republicans insert a section prohibiting government employees from mentioning or funding studies which have results or questions which contradict current congressional and administrative policies or written law?"

-Crissa

Crissa wrote: Or maybe, "Why did Republicans insert a section prohibiting government employees from mentioning or funding studies which have results or questions which contradict current congressional and administrative policies or written law?"

-Crissa

Drug war.

Doctors already do their best guess about if you're going to have an adverse reaction, and if they think you are going to, they don't give you the shot.

cthulhu wrote:Doctors already do their best guess about if you're going to have an adverse reaction, and if they think you are going to, they don't give you the shot.

In this day and age they shouldn't be guessing. My grocer can guess what adverse reactions I may have to something bad on his limited knowledge of me, but he cannot prescribe such things that would have them.

My whole life I have been allergic to penicillin, but doctors and nurse always get into arguments over whether I can take amoxicillin. The nurse thankfully always wins and something ELSE is prescribed that ISN'T based on or a derivative of penicillin.

They don't know what I am actually allergic to about penicillin, but some would risk my life on a guess.

FUCK THAT!

You went to 7 years worth of college, you better fucking get right! Be your own fucking lab rat.

Doctors that guess end up in court. They should end up in jail for homicide.

mean_liar, that a disease is usually nonfatal in children doesn't mean it's always so. Dunno about diptheria, but measles is usually described as nonfatal if you get it as a child, but it does kill a fraction via pneumonia and/or brain inflammation. Vaccines have the same risk, but it's 2-3 orders of magnitude lower I think.

If you try to make your child safer by exposing them to measles early rather than vaccinate - there are idiots who do this - you are trading a risk of about 0.1% that your child will die shortly afterwards for a presumed greater safety later in life. Since the lifetime risk of dying from measles is a lot less than 0.1%, this is a bad trade.

You had one of those, too, shadzar? When I went to the ER a few years ago, the doc asked me what I was allergic to, and then gave me penicillin anyway. When I asked him why he did it, he informed me that since I hadn't had an adverse reaction in a while, I must have grown out of it (or maybe I avoided it so I wouldn't have an adverse reaction?). I was sick for a week.

Doctors that guess end up in court. They should end up in jail for homicide.

Doctors don't have a crystal ball. They have a list of indicators that generally mean you'll have an adverse reaction, and apply that list of indicators with their own judgment.

What else do you want them to do? Be pre-cogitative? Somehow telepathically know that an otherwise very fit and healthy individual with a full vaccination record and no history of medical complications will have a severe reaction to a tetanus shot?

It's a pretty solid guess supported by an extensive body of evidence, but they don't get it right every time - it's impossible to do so.