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?

I'll take a stab:
Smallpox tended to be deadlier in the American colonies than in continental Europe, where innoculation was more controversial (trying to interfere with the will of God); royalty innoculating themselves and their own children helped get people to accept it there.

In the 1800s, diptheria epidemics were common. Rural cemeteries in the midwest often have stones with the names of 4 or more children to died within a short time of each other in the 1880s to 1890s. When ditheria serum, and eventually an actual vaccine, were developed plenty of people knew how devasting the disease could be. Tetanus was sometimes called 4th of July tetanus, because fireworks injuries led to tetanus cases around the 4th that equaled the number of cases the rest of the entire year. People had seen those diseases and the havoc they created.

Military use of vaccines probably also helped with public acceptance. And the midcentury polio outbreaks were so heavily publicized, and the vaccine campaign heavily promoted, nobody would question it. And public schools required it.

But then, fueled in large part by the religious right, homeschooling became legal where it hadn't been and became much more widespread. Easier to opt out. And if you were questioning what the government was teaching your children, vaccines were something the govt inflicted.

The 1976 swine flu had major effects as well. Nobody knew if it would be as bad as the 1918 flu but the earliest case--a soldier who got sick one day and was dead by the next--looked a lot like the 1918 epidemic. The decision to vaccinate the entire country was a difficult one to make, especially since a massive vaccine program would 1) inevitable have some side effects and 2) would inevitably by followed by coincidental medical problems and deaths that would have happened anyway,(besides which, if successful people would think there would never have been a serious epidemic anyway). The pharma companies needed to be indemnified before they would participate. Some cases of what were thought to be (but weren't) guillane-barre following vaccination led to monitoring for the disease (which on later analysis did not seem to increase at all due to vaccination but at the time was thought to be an effect in some cases). So then an entire apparatus--VAERS plus legal proceedings--had to be set up to deal with the onslaught of claims and to figure out which may have been due to the vaccine. Since VAERS is an open reporting system, people believe it is reporting actual side effects of vaccines rather than just stuff that happened after being vaccinated, or stuff claimed to have happened.

Then we had hep B for children, and people don't like the idea of something they regard as sexually transmitted being a reason to vaccinate kids. And the autism claims. We also have the mercury in dental fillings leaking over the the vaccines/autism "link". HPV vaccine being given to teen girls--offends Christian morals (govt is trying to get our daughters to have sex).

In the course of the decades, we learn about WWII soldiers deliberately exposed to radiation, the CIA LSD experiments, the Tuskegee experiments, Agent Orange, all the things government does not disclose when it's happening.

Another factor might just be that once we had effective antibiotics, deaths due to secondary infections from a particular disease dropped, so any disease became less dangerous.

Anonymous wrote:Our country continues to backslide under Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/well/measles-elimination-status-us.html

Meeting on U.S. Measles Status Is Delayed Until November
The decision to revoke the country’s elimination status would now likely come after the U.S. midterm elections, experts noted.

A highly anticipated meeting to review the United States’ measles elimination status has been postponed until November.

An international panel of experts had invited the United States to a meeting in April to determine whether the ongoing spread of measles would cost the country its status, a designation granted to nations that have not had continuous spread of measles for more than a year.

But U.S. health officials asked the panel, convened by the Pan American Health Organization, to delay the review until the organization’s annual meeting in November, said Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. He said the agency needed more time to analyze its measles data.

Losing measles elimination status would mark a grim and embarrassing moment for the nation’s public health: The United States achieved elimination status in 2000 after a nearly 40-year campaign to promote the vaccine, and has maintained that status every year since.

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?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, the rates of diagnosis of developmental issues like autism went up roughly around when countries had more money or assistance to invest in healthcare infrastructure, including vaccination. As those resources were becoming more abundant, the stigmatization of mental illness was going down, health literacy was going up, and there were more financial resources for things like early intervention in schools, so a diagnosis wasn't merely pointing fingers.

This isn't surprising to some people.

For others, they say things like "nobody has provided any alternative medical explanation!" as if this had not been discussed, and discussed ad nauseum.

Are you arguing that the rate of autism is actually consistent over time, but diagnostic criteria changing is the only reason we have more autism now?

Would you use that same argument on something like peanut allergies?

Hey, guess what a peanut allergy has that a clinical diagnosis does not?

So you're saying the rise in peanut allergies aren't real either? What on earth are you trying to say?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, the rates of diagnosis of developmental issues like autism went up roughly around when countries had more money or assistance to invest in healthcare infrastructure, including vaccination. As those resources were becoming more abundant, the stigmatization of mental illness was going down, health literacy was going up, and there were more financial resources for things like early intervention in schools, so a diagnosis wasn't merely pointing fingers.

This isn't surprising to some people.

For others, they say things like "nobody has provided any alternative medical explanation!" as if this had not been discussed, and discussed ad nauseum.

Are you arguing that the rate of autism is actually consistent over time, but diagnostic criteria changing is the only reason we have more autism now?

Would you use that same argument on something like peanut allergies?

Hey, guess what a peanut allergy has that a clinical diagnosis does not?

So you're saying the rise in peanut allergies aren't real either? What on earth are you trying to say?

Do you understand what the term "clinical diagnosis" means?

DP who is anti-measles and pro-measles-vaccination. I will admit that I don't actually know the answer to the question "what does a peanut allergy have that a clinical diagnosis does not?" I swear I'm not being bad-faith obtuse here. I'd genuinely like to know the answer, and to understand the bigger picture of what you're saying.

My apologies.

There is an increase in peanut allergies. There are probably multiple reasons for this, but the increase is real, as can be demonstrated in laboratory testing.

Autism is a clinical diagnosis. That means it is based on history and physical examination. It's a clinical judgment call, and the changing criteria make a big difference in diagnosis rate. You also may get two clinicians disagreeing, and unlike with a peanut allergy, there isn't an objective gold standard test to rule one way or the other. So I would not "use that same argument on something like peanut allergies" because it is a different diagnostic pathway.

I'm still having a hard time pinning down what you are saying. So are you saying that Autism is more or less constant in presentation over time, but because of more inclusive diagnostic criteria, the numbers are increasing?

If that is what you are saying, then I would disagree with that for a number of reasons. One being that if it were only increasing because of criteria, then the rate should increase more or less in stair-step fashion. Being that every change in criteria leads to a sudden reclassification of cases, and then stasis within that criteria. But that's not what we see with autism, we see the rate going up year after year, even when no criteria has changed between those years.

No.

I think I may have some greater understanding of whatever thought process is going on here, though.

Anonymous wrote:Diagnostic substitution explains a lot of the autism "epidemic."

We were told my son had autism when he actually had a language disorder and intellectual disability.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I agree with you. But there is one fact that's often omitted in these discussions. The overall quality of life, state of nutrition and access to medicine and healthcare and sanitation in many of these places where access to vaccination is also limited. Same was true in first world before the overall advancement in medicine, access to sanitation, antibiotics and many new antiviral medications and supplements.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, the rates of diagnosis of developmental issues like autism went up roughly around when countries had more money or assistance to invest in healthcare infrastructure, including vaccination. As those resources were becoming more abundant, the stigmatization of mental illness was going down, health literacy was going up, and there were more financial resources for things like early intervention in schools, so a diagnosis wasn't merely pointing fingers.

This isn't surprising to some people.

For others, they say things like "nobody has provided any alternative medical explanation!" as if this had not been discussed, and discussed ad nauseum.

Are you arguing that the rate of autism is actually consistent over time, but diagnostic criteria changing is the only reason we have more autism now?

Would you use that same argument on something like peanut allergies?

Hey, guess what a peanut allergy has that a clinical diagnosis does not?

So you're saying the rise in peanut allergies aren't real either? What on earth are you trying to say?

Do you understand what the term "clinical diagnosis" means?

DP who is anti-measles and pro-measles-vaccination. I will admit that I don't actually know the answer to the question "what does a peanut allergy have that a clinical diagnosis does not?" I swear I'm not being bad-faith obtuse here. I'd genuinely like to know the answer, and to understand the bigger picture of what you're saying.

My apologies.

There is an increase in peanut allergies. There are probably multiple reasons for this, but the increase is real, as can be demonstrated in laboratory testing.

Autism is a clinical diagnosis. That means it is based on history and physical examination. It's a clinical judgment call, and the changing criteria make a big difference in diagnosis rate. You also may get two clinicians disagreeing, and unlike with a peanut allergy, there isn't an objective gold standard test to rule one way or the other. So I would not "use that same argument on something like peanut allergies" because it is a different diagnostic pathway.

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?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, the rates of diagnosis of developmental issues like autism went up roughly around when countries had more money or assistance to invest in healthcare infrastructure, including vaccination. As those resources were becoming more abundant, the stigmatization of mental illness was going down, health literacy was going up, and there were more financial resources for things like early intervention in schools, so a diagnosis wasn't merely pointing fingers.

This isn't surprising to some people.

For others, they say things like "nobody has provided any alternative medical explanation!" as if this had not been discussed, and discussed ad nauseum.

Are you arguing that the rate of autism is actually consistent over time, but diagnostic criteria changing is the only reason we have more autism now?

Would you use that same argument on something like peanut allergies?

Hey, guess what a peanut allergy has that a clinical diagnosis does not?

So you're saying the rise in peanut allergies aren't real either? What on earth are you trying to say?

Do you understand what the term "clinical diagnosis" means?

DP who is anti-measles and pro-measles-vaccination. I will admit that I don't actually know the answer to the question "what does a peanut allergy have that a clinical diagnosis does not?" I swear I'm not being bad-faith obtuse here. I'd genuinely like to know the answer, and to understand the bigger picture of what you're saying.

My apologies.

There is an increase in peanut allergies. There are probably multiple reasons for this, but the increase is real, as can be demonstrated in laboratory testing.

Autism is a clinical diagnosis. That means it is based on history and physical examination. It's a clinical judgment call, and the changing criteria make a big difference in diagnosis rate. You also may get two clinicians disagreeing, and unlike with a peanut allergy, there isn't an objective gold standard test to rule one way or the other. So I would not "use that same argument on something like peanut allergies" because it is a different diagnostic pathway.

I'm still having a hard time pinning down what you are saying. So are you saying that Autism is more or less constant in presentation over time, but because of more inclusive diagnostic criteria, the numbers are increasing?

If that is what you are saying, then I would disagree with that for a number of reasons. One being that if it were only increasing because of criteria, then the rate should increase more or less in stair-step fashion. Being that every change in criteria leads to a sudden reclassification of cases, and then stasis within that criteria. But that's not what we see with autism, we see the rate going up year after year, even when no criteria has changed between those years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, the rates of diagnosis of developmental issues like autism went up roughly around when countries had more money or assistance to invest in healthcare infrastructure, including vaccination. As those resources were becoming more abundant, the stigmatization of mental illness was going down, health literacy was going up, and there were more financial resources for things like early intervention in schools, so a diagnosis wasn't merely pointing fingers.

This isn't surprising to some people.

For others, they say things like "nobody has provided any alternative medical explanation!" as if this had not been discussed, and discussed ad nauseum.

Are you arguing that the rate of autism is actually consistent over time, but diagnostic criteria changing is the only reason we have more autism now?

Would you use that same argument on something like peanut allergies?

Hey, guess what a peanut allergy has that a clinical diagnosis does not?

So you're saying the rise in peanut allergies aren't real either? What on earth are you trying to say?

Do you understand what the term "clinical diagnosis" means?

DP who is anti-measles and pro-measles-vaccination. I will admit that I don't actually know the answer to the question "what does a peanut allergy have that a clinical diagnosis does not?" I swear I'm not being bad-faith obtuse here. I'd genuinely like to know the answer, and to understand the bigger picture of what you're saying.

My apologies.

There is an increase in peanut allergies. There are probably multiple reasons for this, but the increase is real, as can be demonstrated in laboratory testing.

Autism is a clinical diagnosis. That means it is based on history and physical examination. It's a clinical judgment call, and the changing criteria make a big difference in diagnosis rate. You also may get two clinicians disagreeing, and unlike with a peanut allergy, there isn't an objective gold standard test to rule one way or the other. So I would not "use that same argument on something like peanut allergies" because it is a different diagnostic pathway.

Anonymous wrote: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.