I’m a PP (close family members anti vax). Among other things, I think it’s hard to wrap one’s head around the that doing nothing can be more harmful than doing something — particularly when we don’t see the diseases or their consequences in everyday life.

There’s also an element of wanting to spare your infant or child — a literal miracle, more perfect than anything a human could create on their — own from contamination. Humans are fallible and small. Nature, and children as an expression of nature (or God, if you’re the praying type, which many are) have an inherent perfection. So injecting something human-made into this perfection feels wrong, corrupting, to many.

And while I sort of understand — as a parent I too have the impulse to preserve the infant/child’s state of grace— I’ve also lived in countries that don’t have the benefit of vaccinations. I know that while nature is a miracle, it has its own forms of corruption and contamination, which can be swift, merciless, and cruel.

But it’s hard to see this when we are still (mostly) benefiting from herd immunity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And yet anti-vaxxer parents involved in recent childhood morbidity and mortality -- the child death, the child comatose on a feeding tube -- have said this outcome, the child's harm right in front of them, is preferable to vaccination. That they would still make the same choice.

Almost as if this is not really about the child at all, when it comes down to it. Or at least, people walking through this plethora of research and actual scientific, tested information are deliberately choosing to affiliate themselves with such people and ideas for their own reasons, then asking others to justify it for them. To praise or envy them, even. For valuing something about their choices even more than valuing the life and health of their own children.

Those parents aren’t swayed by math, statistics or science. In order to make sense of this horrible thing that has happened and to be able to live with themselves, they have to believe that it wasn’t their decisions that led to this outcome. They have to believe that the vaccine would have likely been worse, especially if things had gone well. Statistics is very hard for many people to understand for some reason.

At this time, it's not access to information. The information is abundant out there. There are countless websites which break this down in simple terms. If someone wants to follow science, they certainly can. And if it were about the science of it, the evidence they see would change their minds, if they are at all capable of understanding it -- I cannot believe it isn't.

But evidence causes them to set the jaw more firmly. At this point, it isn't about science, or the facts of reality, or what outcomes are most likely. It can only be about something else.

So when someone comes in, on the internet, once again asking the same questions, once again saying that "these questions have never been answered!" as they are surrounded by fields and fields of answers, and then asks coyly "why do you think I believe the way I do?"

Who cares?

I mean, really, what's the point? To serve as a mirror for someone to admire themselves in their unwavering commitment to harm others, to put others at risk which the measles cases are exploding among the unvaccinated around us?

What's the point?

Anonymous wrote:
And yet anti-vaxxer parents involved in recent childhood morbidity and mortality -- the child death, the child comatose on a feeding tube -- have said this outcome, the child's harm right in front of them, is preferable to vaccination. That they would still make the same choice.

Almost as if this is not really about the child at all, when it comes down to it. Or at least, people walking through this plethora of research and actual scientific, tested information are deliberately choosing to affiliate themselves with such people and ideas for their own reasons, then asking others to justify it for them. To praise or envy them, even. For valuing something about their choices even more than valuing the life and health of their own children.

Those parents aren’t swayed by math, statistics or science. In order to make sense of this horrible thing that has happened and to be able to live with themselves, they have to believe that it wasn’t their decisions that led to this outcome. They have to believe that the vaccine would have likely been worse, especially if things had gone well. Statistics is very hard for many people to understand for some reason.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

PP, I am the person you quoted. Others have answered you but I want to reply as well in good faith.

I'll start with my own story. When I started having kids in the early 2000s I read A LOT about autism and vaccines. I read about regressions in kids who lost their speech. I have a family member who works with kids with autism who was a full on believer that vaccines were the cause and I asked her to explain. I read some of the key books about the rise in new childhood epidemics that had accompanied the elimination of certain diseases through vaccination. And I followed RFK Jr, this gutsy environmental lawyer. I asked my doctors about the dangers of vaccines and was frustrated by their total dismissal of my questions. On the one hand, I was able to VERY QUICKLY ) see that the science did not show - no, it disproved! (very obviously, irrefutably! - a causal link between the vaccines and autism. On the other hand, I empathized with mothers who were asking questions and being treated like idiots. I was absolutely annoyed and irritated with doctors and discussed this pattern with all my many physician friends. I told them how dangerous the pat dismissals were because they were making enemies out of people asking legitimate questions that did not have clear answers. I have a close friend who write a book on the vaccine-autism debate and we had a big argument about this very issue. If I was super irritated, me, someone who was on the same side as the American Academy of Pediatrics and who, like the doctors, had gone to school until I was 30, how must younger, less privileged moms feel?

When two of my kids had challenges in their early years, you can imagine how worried I was (did I do something to make this happen?) and how much MORE I looked into these questions. I wanted to know if there was any way to help my kids and I had a motto: if no harm is done to the kid and the only sacrifice on my end is time or money, I'll do whatever I can to get my kids the treatment and intervention that could help. I tried a zillion different things with my children. I won't list them, but I promise you I have tried the cleanest diets and the weirdest therapies with the fullest effort and made them fun for the whole family.

When the answers are unknown, OF COURSE I'll explore and question and even try all sorts of solutions. But there are some studied and KNOWN facts here. It is not complicated, in fact it is very clear: vaccines do not cause autism. Also, these diseases harm, maim, kill people and not just the children in question but others whom they infect. These are crystal clear facts for anyone who actually seeks the truth. So, yes, I am extremely sympathetic and even empathetic toward the moms, but they are in the wrong here scientifically and ethically.

And yet anti-vaxxer parents involved in recent childhood morbidity and mortality -- the child death, the child comatose on a feeding tube -- have said this outcome, the child's harm right in front of them, is preferable to vaccination. That they would still make the same choice.

Almost as if this is not really about the child at all, when it comes down to it. Or at least, people walking through this plethora of research and actual scientific, tested information are deliberately choosing to affiliate themselves with such people and ideas for their own reasons, then asking others to justify it for them. To praise or envy them, even. For valuing something about their choices even more than valuing the life and health of their own children.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

NP. I think because when stuff happens to your kid (or you worry will happen to your kid), you act from a place of emotion. The known dangers become minimized and you hyper focus on stuff that you believe might be protective. So you ignore vaccines being lifesaving (because you don’t actually see kids with measles dying or having severe issues as the virus was more or less eradicated in the US). Instead you look at some family that has a child with a developmental problem and say “if there is even a chance my kid could be affected like this, I would rather take my chances with measles.” It’s irrational. But I think it comes from wanting to protect your child. If everyone behaved the way, we’d never have bridges or cellphones or GPS. The building of the modern world is premised on the math and statistics these parents reject for their own “gut feel” but it’s from a place of ignorance and not malice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Actually I don’t care why someone is “vaccine hesitant.” Go live away from others if you don’t want to get vaccines. Homeschool the kids, grow your own crops. That’s fine. But if you want to go to public school or fly on planes or go to hospitals or go shopping in person or be in the presence of others, you need to be a team member, part of which is getting vaccinated against highly transmissible, lethal diseases.

So is your answer that you don’t know? I understand you don’t care why someone is vaccine hesitant; I’m just interested to know what you know about them.

DP. I have anti-vaxxers my close family, I absolutely know them, and their reasoning. But (a) their ideas do not hold up under scientific scrutiny — which is why they aren’t worth repeating here or elsewhere, and (b) their ideas, when acted upon, make innocent people less safe.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Actually I don’t care why someone is “vaccine hesitant.” Go live away from others if you don’t want to get vaccines. Homeschool the kids, grow your own crops. That’s fine. But if you want to go to public school or fly on planes or go to hospitals or go shopping in person or be in the presence of others, you need to be a team member, part of which is getting vaccinated against highly transmissible, lethal diseases.

So is your answer that you don’t know? I understand you don’t care why someone is vaccine hesitant; I’m just interested to know what you know about them.

DP. I know that facts and science don't matter to them, because this has actually been studied. I don't really care if they are basing their beliefs on individual gut emotions, belief in fairies, or whatever. They will just have to live with the consequences of their actions, since -- as PP has noted -- there have always been people who reject reason about this, and talking to them just entrenches them for some reason. They aren't worth talking to, as it doesn't change anything.

Oh, well. Life is harsh.

This is so odd. You just want to fight and not talk. Probably not a healthy way to go through life.

Actually they are specifically saying they’re not interested in fighting. And a lot of us are probably old enough to have learned that some conversations are a waste of our limited time on this earth.

study of~100,000 children followed from birth to 5 years old, with extensive developmental assessments. No link to cognitive problems. Does it matter? Not for some.

It doesn't matter.

The most recent Cochrane review on the topic included 5 RCTs, 27 cohort studies, 17 case-control studies, 5 time-series trials, 1 case crossover trial, 2 ecological studies, and 6 self-controlled case series studies. Does it matter? Not for some. The vibes just aren't there, baby.

"When we are confronted with information which runs counter to our beliefs, we often become more entrenched, not less."

Try loving your children enough to vaccinate them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Actually I don’t care why someone is “vaccine hesitant.” Go live away from others if you don’t want to get vaccines. Homeschool the kids, grow your own crops. That’s fine. But if you want to go to public school or fly on planes or go to hospitals or go shopping in person or be in the presence of others, you need to be a team member, part of which is getting vaccinated against highly transmissible, lethal diseases.

So is your answer that you don’t know? I understand you don’t care why someone is vaccine hesitant; I’m just interested to know what you know about them.

DP. I know that facts and science don't matter to them, because this has actually been studied. I don't really care if they are basing their beliefs on individual gut emotions, belief in fairies, or whatever. They will just have to live with the consequences of their actions, since -- as PP has noted -- there have always been people who reject reason about this, and talking to them just entrenches them for some reason. They aren't worth talking to, as it doesn't change anything.

Oh, well. Life is harsh.

This is so odd. You just want to fight and not talk. Probably not a healthy way to go through life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

DP, but I'll try - with the caveat that I don't think such opposition is rational.

My first job out of college was in public health at the state dept. of health. I was an entry level worker on an infant immunization campaign. This was 1994. There was no widespread use of the internet, and prior to the Wakefield claims about the MMR.

We always had a small group of dedicated protesters at our events. At that time they were considered fringe and conspiracy theorists. Their objections were to the government forcing you to put something in your child's body. And the debunked thimerosal danger, and a bunch of other things that would be considered too fringe for today's objectors.

My point is that these people have always been with us. They were with us when we mandated seat belts. They were with us when we started cracking down on smoking. And drinking and driving. And in any space where they perceive a threat to their "rights." They will always search for the boogeyman hiding in the shadows because that's the way their mind works. The internet has allowed this mindset to spread far and wide and grab onto random facts to cement their beliefs and prove their case - to themselves.

I’m the person you quoted and the person who admitted that many of you would find my views on these issues unacceptable. Thanks for engaging. You seem like a well-intentioned person of good faith.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

Actually I don’t care why someone is “vaccine hesitant.” Go live away from others if you don’t want to get vaccines. Homeschool the kids, grow your own crops. That’s fine. But if you want to go to public school or fly on planes or go to hospitals or go shopping in person or be in the presence of others, you need to be a team member, part of which is getting vaccinated against highly transmissible, lethal diseases.

So is your answer that you don’t know? I understand you don’t care why someone is vaccine hesitant; I’m just interested to know what you know about them.

DP. I know that facts and science don't matter to them, because this has actually been studied. I don't really care if they are basing their beliefs on individual gut emotions, belief in fairies, or whatever. They will just have to live with the consequences of their actions, since -- as PP has noted -- there have always been people who reject reason about this, and talking to them just entrenches them for some reason. They aren't worth talking to, as it doesn't change anything.

Oh, well. Life is harsh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
PS: Because if that's what you want, why not offer it yourself, if you think you understand it? Or why not ask the people who, you know, actually hold the belief and would be in the best possible position of giving a good faith argument (if it is possible)?

I tried to answer, but it got deleted.

You answered why you were not asking it yourself? That was the sole focus of your response -- explaining why you yourself asked what you did?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

That's not what PP wrote.

It's hard to accept you are conversing in good faith, because this seems anything but.

So you seem to be reading two separate posts and thinking you’re responding to a single person. I am conversing in good faith; you’re just a bit confused!

Walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
PS: Because if that's what you want, why not offer it yourself, if you think you understand it? Or why not ask the people who, you know, actually hold the belief and would be in the best possible position of giving a good faith argument (if it is possible)?

I tried to answer, but it got deleted.

You answered why you were not asking it yourself? That was the sole focus of your response -- explaining why you yourself asked what you did?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Worth reposting:

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles.

- Roald Dahl

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/roald-dahl-lost-his-daughter-to-measles-his-heartbreaking-letter-on-vaccination-is-very-relevant-today/

Olivia Dahl died on November 17, 1962, at the age of seven. She died just one year before the first measles vaccine was licensed in the U.S. and six years before it became available in Britain.

How can we allow as a society people without the measles vaccine who have no medical reason not to be vaccinated to attend schools, fly on planes, and attend places with large gatherings such as Disneyworld? Currently only four states—California, Connecticut, Maine, and New York—prohibit non-medical (religious or philosophical) exemptions for school-entry vaccines.

I totally agree. Unless you have a medical reason, you shouldn't be able to go to school or be in any public place without vaccines. If we do that, herd immunity will protect those who have medical reasons as well as those too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunocompromised.

These anti-vax mothers should feel responsible - I know this won't happen in a court of law, but they should be blamed and acknowledge the responsibility - not only for the illness of their children but for every person that child infects, and every person those people infect. RFK Jr should and Trump should be held legally responsible for all these hospitalizations and deaths.

NP. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I’m not of your tribe, and I’m sure you’d be livid if someone you cared about had my views on these subjects. I’m genuinely curious about the following, and I don’t mean this rhetorically: if you had to, do you think you could articulate the reasons why some people suspect a connection between vaccination and developmental disability? I don’t mean an answer at the level of generality along the lines of “ignorance” or “anti-science,” but literally like a good-faith exposition of their position?

Correlation is not causation.
Just because a disability manifests “in tandem” with a vaccination doesn’t mean the vaccine caused the disability.

And then mothers especially are culturally sensitized to taking the blame for everything that goes wrong in a child. It’s natural to think you could have/should have made a better decision that protected your child. But watching your child die or become severely disabled after contracting measles is a choice too.

And given how contagious it is, it’s good public health policy to mandate that children be vaccinated against measles in order to participate in society. If you choose not to vaccinate your child, then you can’t participate in the modern American lifestyle with the rest of us.

I’m the person you quoted. So just to see if I’m understanding (and again this isn’t a rhetorical question), it’s your understanding that the sum total of vaccine hesitancy is an impression that there is a correlation between vaccination and a rise in developmental disability?

That's not what PP wrote.

It's hard to accept you are conversing in good faith, because this seems anything but.

So you seem to be reading two separate posts and thinking you’re responding to a single person. I am conversing in good faith; you’re just a bit confused!