Baby dies of whooping cough

vade wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why this anti-vaccination mentality is still prevalent. The autism link has been discredited over and over again.

In the Netherlands, there's a small group of fundementalist Protestants who believe that 'getting your kids vaccinated' is 'interfering with God's plans', because, you know, if your kid is meant to die of the measles, that's all there is to it. Of course, we'll disregard the thought that if God allowed vaccins to be invented/discovered, he'd want you to use them, because predestination > logic.
So yeah, there's a religious angle too.

Jay/Cris wrote:

if God allowed vaccins to be invented/discovered, he'd want you to use them, because predestination > logic.
So yeah, there's a religious angle too.

Yeah, see, I once asked a girl with a very religious, anti-gay mother something similar- if God allows people to turn out gay, surely he must be cool with it? She explained that from her mother's point of view, everyone has a bit of God and a bit of Satan in them, and being gay is the devil in them and something they need to overcome.

What I'm getting at is that Christians make a big point out of God giving people free will. Vaccinations could have been instigated by the devil. Of course, the whole bit with God giving you free will but being very clear on what you're supposed to do with it always gets under my skin- not only does he inform you what you are to believe, but he also wants you to want to believe it. So yeah, side rant aside, the existence of anything at all can be interpreted as what God wants for you or what God wants you to fight against.

Jay/Cris wrote:

vade wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why this anti-vaccination mentality is still prevalent. The autism link has been discredited over and over again.

In the Netherlands, there's a small group of fundementalist Protestants who believe that 'getting your kids vaccinated' is 'interfering with God's plans', because, you know, if your kid is meant to die of the measles, that's all there is to it. Of course, we'll disregard the thought that if God allowed vaccins to be invented/discovered, he'd want you to use them, because predestination > logic.
So yeah, there's a religious angle too.

One branch of my mother's family was very anti-vaccine back when the polio vaccine was developed. My grandmother, being a nurse and the mother of a polio victim, vaccinated the kids anyway and told them not to tell their grandparents. I'm not sure why this branch of the family was anti-vaccine--they weren't religious, having abandoned their religion when they fled the pogroms in Russia in the 20's (they were Jewish), and since their granddaughter had had polio as a small child and wound up with half her mouth permanently paralyzed, they certainly knew what polio could do. I do know the polio vaccine was a big deal--my dad said that he got his name in the paper when he got one of the first vaccines in his small town.

PendragonGirl wrote:

I'll just leave this here:

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Jenny McCarthy and her ilk are disgusting in so many ways.

Why doesn't it surprise me that Jenny McCarthy is one of those folks who thinks she's a super-speshul-awesome-Indigo-Child?

As a side note: Didn't we feature a website on GAFF that was run by one of these super-speshul-awesome-Indigo-Children, and her entire mantra was "anyone who doesn't agree with my stupid, uneducated opinions is an idiot. I'm 16 but I'm a supergenius who has solved all the world's problems"?

For god's sake, has America found Vaccinations to be immoral now?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

For god's sake, has America found Vaccinations to be immoral now?

Harley, the most current version of this movement originally came out of the UK. If you don't know what you're talking about, it might be best to inform yourself first (look up a fellow named Wakefield).

Jay/Cris wrote:

vade wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why this anti-vaccination mentality is still prevalent. The autism link has been discredited over and over again.

In the Netherlands, there's a small group of fundementalist Protestants who believe that 'getting your kids vaccinated' is 'interfering with God's plans', because, you know, if your kid is meant to die of the measles, that's all there is to it.

Are these people against safety belts and airbags, too? Do they ask for their cars to have their ABS deactivated?
Because, you know, if God meant your car to skid on an oil spill and hit a tree, your skull to crack open against the windshield and your brain to fall into the lap of the nice young lady having a sundae at the icecream parlor, making her faint at the sight of strawberry topping for the rest of her life...

Body horror notwithstanding, your comment made me go check whether the Amish vaccinate and indeed they do. However they have a high frequency, among other conditions, of Ellis-van Creveld syndrome (dwarfism with polydactilia, heart and kidney problems, and short lifespan) but refuse to take countermeasures for it (screening etc), accepting the birth of an affected baby as the will of God.

So, so far we have a patchwork of fundies against vaccines but OK with surgery, fundies against in vitro fecundation but in for defibrillation, fundies OK with life support but against surrogate motherhood, fundies accepting organ transplants but refusing gene therapy, and fundies okay with everything as long as it's delivered on a horse cart... anything I'm missing?

Apparently there are some individuals who are anti-vaccination because "they don't want to put anything into their kid's bodies that they don't have to have." She did get the major vaccinations for them because these were things she agreed they had to have. But not flu shots. Even knowing that the flu shot helps protect the people who cannot get vaccinated due to imunosuppression, as happens with transplant patients, among others. So apparently if they're not her kids? Fuck 'em.

Quote :

It's
not only autism... there are claims that the WHO has introduced human
corionic gonadotropin in the tetan vaccines to prevent pregnancies, and
some religious/pro-life groups active in Latin America will pound into
the head of young girls that if they get the tetanus vaccine they're in
for a life of miscarriages.

That will happen if they drink the water.

Cyberwulf wrote:

(here most people have had four by the time they reach college-age)

Do you people gargle with rusted nails?

My late sister Tina was one of the last kids to come down with polio before the vaccine became readily available. There honestly wasn't anything you could do for the patients (unless they progressed to the point where their chest became paralyzed and they had to spend the rest of their life in an iron lung). My mom took care of her at home, which basically consisted of heating sand bags on the heater and keeping her legs warm and covered. She lived through it, but her muscles were badly wasted, and at the age of three, mom basically had to do home physical therapy with her and teach her how to walk about.

You'd best believe when I got old enough to get vaccinated for polio, mom was right there at the head of the line with me.

Also, something they've just recently discovered; those who suffered polio as kids often have trouble later in life with muscle weakness when they get into their late 30s and early 40s. Tina had a lot of trouble with the muscles in her legs being weak and not being able to walk long distances or stand for long periods. So it's not just something that you get and get over it-it's something that will likely continue to effect you the rest of your life.

And Jay/Chris? My dad was Pentecostal, but he believed that God gave the knowledge to doctors to create vaccines so children didn't have to suffer unnecessarily. He never bought into the 'well, if the baby's going to die or be crippled, it's God's will' thing. Most of us kids were born before vaccines became common, but I got the boys vaccinated on schedule, because I can remember having measles and how miserable it was.

These people confuse and irritate me. I mean, why would you not protect your kid from that sort of thing?

On the other hand, stupid appears to be contagious. Which could very well explain it.

Rabid Badger wrote:

I can remember having measles and how miserable it was.

Good lord, I was three when I had the measles, but that misery certainly dug its way into my memory.

Jay/Cris wrote:

vade wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why this anti-vaccination mentality is still prevalent. The autism link has been discredited over and over again.

In the Netherlands, there's a small group of fundementalist Protestants who believe that 'getting your kids vaccinated' is 'interfering with God's plans', because, you know, if your kid is meant to die of the measles, that's all there is to it. Of course, we'll disregard the thought that if God allowed vaccins to be invented/discovered, he'd want you to use them, because predestination > logic.
So yeah, there's a religious angle too.

We have a group that's kind of like that in the US, in that they also don't believe in conventional medicine. They think that any ailment you have is from sinning, and that only prayer can cure you. If you aren't cured, that's because you're still sinning/thinking negative thoughts. Last I heard there was a debate about whether or not the children should be taken away from those families. They're known as the Christian Scientists.

vade wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

vade wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why this anti-vaccination mentality is still prevalent. The autism link has been discredited over and over again.

In the Netherlands, there's a small group of fundementalist Protestants who believe that 'getting your kids vaccinated' is 'interfering with God's plans', because, you know, if your kid is meant to die of the measles, that's all there is to it. Of course, we'll disregard the thought that if God allowed vaccins to be invented/discovered, he'd want you to use them, because predestination > logic.
So yeah, there's a religious angle too.

We have a group that's kind of like that in the US, in that they also don't believe in conventional medicine. They think that any ailment you have is from sinning, and that only prayer can cure you. If you aren't cured, that's because you're still sinning/thinking negative thoughts. Last I heard there was a debate about whether or not the children should be taken away from those families. They're known as the Christian Scientists.

My great-grandmother was a Christian Scientist. She refused all medical treatment until it was too late--and she only went to a doctor then because her kids forced her to. The doctor told them that if she'd come to him sooner, he probably could have helped her (even with 1930's medical technology being what it was), but she refused all treatment and died at age 58 of a combination of heart disease, hypothyroidism, and malnutrition.

vade wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

vade wrote:

I'm still trying to figure out why this anti-vaccination mentality is still prevalent. The autism link has been discredited over and over again.

In the Netherlands, there's a small group of fundementalist Protestants who believe that 'getting your kids vaccinated' is 'interfering with God's plans', because, you know, if your kid is meant to die of the measles, that's all there is to it. Of course, we'll disregard the thought that if God allowed vaccins to be invented/discovered, he'd want you to use them, because predestination > logic.
So yeah, there's a religious angle too.

We have a group that's kind of like that in the US, in that they also don't believe in conventional medicine. They think that any ailment you have is from sinning, and that only prayer can cure you. If you aren't cured, that's because you're still sinning/thinking negative thoughts. Last I heard there was a debate about whether or not the children should be taken away from those families. They're known as the Christian Scientists.

Oh yeah, wasn't there some story a while back about some Christian Scientists who refused to get their daughter's treatable cancer treated, and simply prayed over her as she died in pain?

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Quote :

Oh yeah, wasn't there some story a while back about some Christian Scientists who refused to get their daughter's treatable cancer treated, and simply prayed over her as she died in pain?

Christian Scientists refuse any sort of ordinary medical help at all. They won't have surgery, because they believe it's wrong to transfuse blood from one person to another. They refuse to get their kids vaccinated at all, and more than one child has died of a treatable disease while they stood around and prayed over them.

I hold the belief their children should be taken away and given to sane, rational people. A Christian Scientist kid caused a minor outbreak of measles at the boys school when they were in 3rd or 4th grade. Most of the kids were okay, having been vaccinated, but there were about a dozen whose parents were either religious nutcases or they'd just been to lazy to get their vaccinations done. Thankfully, nobody died from it, but it's just the thought that ANY parent would let their child go through that sort of pain and suffering and proclaim it 'The will of God' when, in most cases, they could get them vaccinated for free at the local Women and Children's clinic.

Too many times have I heard stories about how they refuse to go to the doctor, and easily curable illnesses have turned into certain death by the time they're forced to. But when this happened to one man in particular, I went from pitying Cristian Scientists to outright hating them. You know who might have lived longer, if he hadn't been a Christian Scientist?

Jim Henson.

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Are they better or worse than idiotic homeopathic idiots who think eating a leaf can cure cancer?

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Are they better or worse than idiotic homeopathic idiots who think eating a leaf can cure cancer?

About the same, I'd say. The issue is pretty much exactly the same: a dogged determination to believe, against all evidence to the contrary, something cheap and easily available can cure them just as, if not more, effectively than a difficult, expensive medical procedure which took years and millions of dollars to develop.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Are they better or worse than idiotic homeopathic idiots who think eating a leaf can cure cancer?

Don't be crazy! Eating the leaf would be too strong! You have to mix a single atom of the leaf with 4 gallons of water!

Fuck this homeopathic bullshit. Fuck it in the earhole.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Are they better or worse than idiotic homeopathic idiots who think eating a leaf can cure cancer?

Eating leaves would probably do more than what those idiots, in fact, do: eat little balls of sugar which supposedly have some infinitesimal amount of plant matter in them - the more diluted, the more potent, or some such bullshit. Supposedly, if you ingest a strongly diluted version of a plant which would give you the same symptoms as your illness when ingested undiluted, there is some canceling out going on. The dilutions usually used are so high that there is a snowball's chance in hell of there actually being something effective in your water or sugar pill. Homeopaths think that "water has memory" and remembers the plant they put in it before they dilute it all to hell - don't ask me where they got that idea. See the whole sad aria here. Considering that this hocus pocus was first thought up when people still thought illnesses were brought on by miasm/imbalance of the bodily humors, it should be absurd to think that people still pay beaucoup money for little sugar placebos (seriously, a small bottle of sugar pills can run you 50 bucks, according to a former high school acquaintance whose family bought into this shit) ... and yet, and yet...

So yeah, homeopaths are just about as fucking idiotic as Christian Scientists. The only difference between them is that the one morons use their sugar balls as a crutch to keep the faith, while the others outright pray instead of medicate.

Note, however, that un- or much less diluted plant matter is, in fact, often either a component of regularly prescribed and over-the-counter medication, and if not, the active ingredient still tends to be a chemical derived and/or refined from a substance originally found in nature. Plants are only useless if you dilute them with water in a 10^-60 ratio

Saleha wrote:

Note, however, that un- or much less diluted plant matter is, in fact, often either a component of regularly prescribed and over-the-counter medication, and if not, the active ingredient still tends to be a chemical derived and/or refined from a substance originally found in nature. Plants are only useless if you dilute them with water in a 10^-60 ratio

This. A lot of medicines were originally derived from plants, and some herbal remedies are actually very effective (I don't know of any I'd use to treat cancer, though; however, one herb, marijuana, is effective at treating some of the side effects of cancer treatment). Ginger helps an upset stomach. Aloe vera helps if spread on sunburned skin.

But only the clear goop on the inside. The yellow latex directly under the skin is an irritant and a laxative.

Guys I got a vaccine today and my arm hurts is it autism?

Saleha wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Are they better or worse than idiotic homeopathic idiots who think eating a leaf can cure cancer?

Eating leaves would probably do more than what those idiots, in fact, do: eat little balls of sugar which supposedly have some infinitesimal amount of plant matter in them - the more diluted, the more potent, or some such bullshit.

CONCENTRATION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY

Quote :

Supposedly, if you ingest a strongly diluted version of a plant which would give you the same symptoms as your illness when ingested undiluted, there is some canceling out going on.

They've taken one of the basic theories behind vaccination and warped it into magical fairy nonsense.