It’s not easy being a parent. On the one hand, a buxom, C-list television personality, backed both by anecdotal experience and fraudulent/discredited research, is telling you that vaccines absoposilutely cause autism. Scary. But on the other hand, Washington state’s embarrassingly low vaccination rate is actually killing babies:
Very young infants in our state are getting pertussis (whooping cough) at much higher rates than people of other ages. The rate of whooping cough in babies is nearly 10 times greater than the combined rate of all people of all ages in Washington. Already this year, 58 infants younger than one year old have been diagnosed with whooping cough. Twenty-two of them were hospitalized, including two that died. Of the 22 babies who were hospitalized, 18 were three months old or younger.
“Whooping cough is a serious illness, especially for babies who are too young to be vaccinated,” said State Health Officer and pediatrician Dr. Maxine Hayes. “Older kids and adults can help protect babies by getting the pertussis vaccine.”
Who to trust? Jenny McCarthy? Or reality?
See, here’s the deal. Infants younger than two months of age can’t be vaccinated for highly contagious pertussis. Yet up to 90 percent of them who are exposed to an infected person will catch the disease. And some of them will die.
That’s why our public health strategy is to vaccinate everybody who can be vaccinated, so that our most vulnerable are protected by herd immunity.
Refusing to vaccinate your children doesn’t just put your own babies at risk, it endangers all of them. So don’t be stupid. And don’t be a baby killer. Vaccinate your kids.
I don’t know, Goldy. Jenny McCarthy’s boobs make a good point. I think she said it best when she said “Boogity boogity boogity boo! Your kids are gonna get autism!”
She does have a great set there. God knows, I’ve fucked crazier women for less.
Good timing; my 4 month old got 5 immunizations today. She hated it, but by tomorrow she’ll be fine.
If, on the other hand, she were to ever get sick or worse because some asshole parent didn’t vaccinate their older child, I would flat out murder that parent without qualm or guilt. Your right to endanger your child ends at my child’s immune system.
I worked with a hippie back in the early 90s who for whatever non-Ms.-McCarthy reason decided to not vaccinate her kid against pertussis. In about 4th grade for the kid, whooping cough tore through his private school. All the non-vaccinated kids got it, as did about 30% of the vaccinated kids. This was presented to me as proof that vaccines were pointless.
At the time, it at least felt like idiocy that would be contained within the small percentage of the population that is both a hippie and rich enough to pay for fancy private school. Now though, the idiocy is everywhere. I’m re-upping my own vaccinations for a few things this year.
Where’s Sgt Doom and Spindles? Shouldn’t they be jerking each other off in this thread? And where’s KittenKoder? I bet she could lend them some moral support.
@3: God yes.
alight@4: AUGH! That is so crazy-making! Us pro-vacciners need to practice our arguments about herd immunity. If everyone had been vaccinated, the illness would never have gotten a foothold in the school, even if it’s less than 100% effective for each individual.
Also, it’s a fair bet the vaccinated kids had (on average) milder cases.
I’m just going to make this public now:
if some fuckstick who believes Jenny McCarthy and the tinfoil hat brigade’s anti-vaccine bullshit doesn’t vaccinate their kids, and one of those kids gets my kid sick, and if my child were to die from their belief in BULLSHIT?
I would attempt murder. I would fucking go after them with a cheese grater. Get your head out of your ass and think of someone besides yourself and how smart you think you are. How would you feel if your sick kid got my kid sick and my son died? Would you still sit up on your dreadlocked holier-than-thou horse?
BUT MOMMIES!
MOMMIE MOMMIE MOMMIES!
Thanks for hammering on this issue, Goldy. Dumbshits gotta be told, and, more importantly, normal people who might be on the fence gotta be told.
I don’t even have kids, and this nonsense makes me crazy. Why do people believe bimbo celebrities with zero knowledge over truckloads of scientists with real Ph.D’s and mountains of real evidence that vaccination works? I boggles my mind.
This shit makes me furious and sad. Death is not the only bad thing that can happen if a tiny baby gets whooping cough–brain damage is not uncommon. What sane parent wants to risk their kid’s brain to this stupid anti vaccine bullshit?
the problem of other people. they just don’t do what you want them to do sometimes.
People who don’t vaccinate must have sick kid fetishes.
@10: You do realize that it’s mommies who, the vast majority of the time, get their kids vaccinated, right?
Yall seen this one yet? Penn & Teller’s Bullshit – Vaccinations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhk7-5eBC…
sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good.
Thanks for this. My son has Aspergers and the anti-vaccination theory is infuriating to me. First of all, it’s not even true. Second of all, even if it was true, that means people who don’t vaccinate would basically rather have their kid dead than autistic. Seriously, why are people SO afraid of autism? It’s not life-threatening, it’s not contagious. It’s full of challenges, but these kids have tremendous strengths. I don’t get it.
But if we *must* wring hands about the rise of autism and possible causes, this theory about assortive mating (i.e., geek love) makes a lot more sense to me:
http://tinyurl.com/1oi
Vaccination is not just for the kids either; adults should be revaccinated about every ten years too. Whooping cough is pretty minor for adults, agreed; but the whole herd thing won’t work if we only vaccinate the kids.
And if you have a cough, particularly one that only strikes once or twice a day and you otherwise feel fine; but those episodes have you nearly vomiting. Keep away from the babies! You probably have whooping cough.
Heh heh, oh boy. Just to stay current, here’s a story from today.
http://cryptogon.com/?p=25354
Yes @18 – adults need to stay current on their vaccinations as well! Adults can get a pertussis booster shot along with tetanus and diphtheria – TDaP. And I can tell you from unfortunate personal experience that adults can and do get severe cases of pertussis, although normally it does hit children harder than adults. And my god, you don’t want anyone you know to come down with a bad case of whooping cough – it is a terrible, terrible illness. Can’t imagine having to watch a baby suffer from it.
You own a car? You drive one around? Does that mean that, if you accidentally kill someone who has chosen not to drive a car because they think it’s dangerous, that person’s relatives should get to kill you with a cheese grater? Or let’s talk about your hand-washing habits. Or all the Middle Easterners who are being turned into kibble with your tax dollars right now. You smoke pot? Do a little blow now and then? There are a few thousand dead Mexicans who’d like to talk to you about the larger implications of your personal choices. Hell, you’re an American — you wipe out a square mile of Amazon rain forest every time you buy a cheeseburger. But what REALLY gets up your ass?
These goddamn stupid hippies and their anti-vaccine kick. Because God knows the government and big drug companies have never pulled any henky shit on the public, or released a dangerous drug to the public and let people use it for years and years, or conspired to hide the negative health effects of any drug or, oh, I don’t know, like, tobacco or something. And Jenny McCarthy is the ONLY person who has questions about vaccines, and the ONLY reason someone would hold off on vaccinating, or refuse a certain vaccine, is because of concerns about autism.
Herd immunity. Give me a break. Every day the average Seattleite past a hundred homeless people that are basically just walking petrie dishes for drug resistant tuberculosis and MRSA, and does a million other things that take us one step closer to a zombie apocalypse — but you start talking childhood vaccines and suddenly every latte liberal with a BA in Art History starts spouting off about herd immunity. Christ. What a jape.
Lesse, a statistically improbable reaction to a vaccine or a highly contagious deadly disease.
I will never understand why people make any choice other than getting vaccinated.
Whooping cough is also life threatening and permanently disabling for adults or older children with immunodeficiency issues, including HIV positive and cancer treatments.
@15, Jenny McCarthy once offered her “mommy instinct” as explanation for how she knew vaccines had caused her son’s autism, and “mommy” protectiveness is behind a lot of the paranoia of her followers. I’m tired of “Mommy” being offered as qualifications for dispensing medical advice, is all. No disrespect intended to mothers; it’s not an easy job. It just doesn’t make you a doctor.
Most kids hate shots. As someone who’s given a lot of kids a lot of shots, I’ll tell you that most moms hate shots too. I’ll also tell you that it’s a sad, sad mom who sees her baby cough himself to death because she passed on shots. I also know moms who SWEAR that their child was not the same after they got vaccinations. Sometimes we provide a little anticipatory guidance (your child might be doing ____ now, and may be trying to _____ in the next couple months), and only then do people realize that their child isn’t meeting developmental milestones. The child gets a vaccination on the same visit, the process of getting the shot was a little traumatizing for both parent and child, the parent realizes that something isn’t right developmentally, and the vaccine gets blamed. It’s a temporal relationship, a fallacy.
Establishing herd immunity requires a sense of social responsibility. People have to accept a some risk in order to reduce the overall prevalence of a disease. It’s how we eradicated smallpox. It’s how we’ve almost eradicated polio (why almost? vaccine paranoia). Herd immunity can accommodate a certain number of non-vaccinated individuals (those who are severely immune compromised, have anaphylactic reactions to vaccine components, are too young, too old, too sick etc), especially if these individuals don’t act as vectors. In environments like day cares, schools, clinics, hospitals, movie theaters, malls, etc, you’d better vaccinate because everyone’s a vector. As someone who works in health care, I know I’m a vector. It’s my responsibility to vaccinate myself. I’m young and I’m healthy so if I get sick, I won’t get tragically sick. The flu is probably not going to kill me, but it might kill someone I give it to .
PS @alight- a 70% immunity rate isn’t so bad. It’s about the same as the flu vaccine, and with a critical mass of immunized individuals, it’s all that’s needed to prevent an epidemic.
Meh. Vaccines prevent nature from taking it’s course and thinning the herd in order to slow the overpopulation that is happening. Illnesses are just God working in mysterious ways.
There are some shots I won’t get. Like thimerisal-laden flu shots that don’t have the effectiveness of other vaccines. It’s clear that the evidence for the link between vaccines and autism is fake, bogus, made-up. I don’t get the argument for murdering other people who choose not to vaccinate their children though. It’s sort of hypocritical since you’re saying: “You’re so dumb that you have no faith in what I have faith in (yet am still afraid of the chance that my faith is misplaced)!” I mean, think of the children(‘s cognitive integrity)!
Interesting read, @17. Maybe being intelligent is an evolutionary dead-end. That means families like the Duggars will win at evolution.
@25 That’s an interesting point about the handouts and the shots. Many parents swear that their kid wasn’t the same after their vaccines, but when experts examine home movies taken before the vaccinations, there are clear signs that the kids were already not on the normal track.
Hey, Stupid Fucking Abortionists Baby Killers:
Stop Killing Our Babies!
oh…
sorry….
never mind.
You can’t say it enough. Thanks Goldy.
The danger of excessive vaccination during brain development:
the case for a link to Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
Russell L. Blaylock, MD
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org…
A compelling amount of research has shown that repeated stimulation of the systemic immune system results in first priming of the microglia in the developing brain, followed by an intense microglial reaction with each successive series of vaccinations. Because of the critical dependence of the developing brain on a timed se-quence of cytokine and excitatory amino acid fluctuation, sequential vaccination can result in alterations in this critical process that will not only result in synaptic and dendritic loss, but abnormal pathway development. When activated, especially chronically, microglia, the resident immune cell of the brain, secretes a number of inflammatory cytokines, free radicals, lipid peroxidation products, and two excitotoxins—glutamate and quinolinic acid. This evidence suggests that this central mechanism results in the pathological as well as clinical features of autism.
@32
That is not a compelling argument. It is a single argument by a crack-pot libertarian who used to be a surgeon.
What other scientist supports this dude’s theories?
What Judah said-mostly because my keyboard is too small to say it myself.
Also, if you don’t get your flu shot, you’re killing babies and grandmas in a far higher number than those that decide not to vaccinate.
I think we should move on to fluoridation of water. Let’s really get some panties in a bunch
What we need is a charitable organization that will pay a poor mother thirty dollars cash to get her child vaccinated. I bet it would help. And thirty dollars cash for everyone in her family that is old enough to get whooping cough vacinations. Get it started Goldy. Really. Think how many shots just sixty thousand could pay for. That could saves hundreds of children.
@34 Ugh. Besides an epidemic or pandemic situation, how is this true? You’re generalizing, which is what people like to do here, especially when lazy and being smugly pseudo scientific. Flu vaccines are ~70% effective, so it’s hardly a fucking polio vaccine and a toss of the dice to get the yearly update–I’ve studied this in great detail. I am not saying during epidemics or pandemics to avoid shots–especially for school age children and their parents or others who come in close contact. Let’s see, I don’t have children, I avoid contact with people who do have children and I am not a first responder. So that must mean I am killing babies and grandmas. Good job on your logic there!
And what if the vaccine doesn’t work so great, and that’s actually the problem? http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/09/19/…
McCarthy hasn’t been relevant since Singled Out. And they should be required to make people read (or maybe a video if they ain’t the readin’ type) about these things when they refuse vaccinations.
@39 Then you revise the vaccination schedule but more importantly, you still take the fucking vaccine because it’s better than the alternative.
don’t forget kids with leukemia or immune deficiencies that can’t take life-saving vaccines and depend on the rest of us to man up and provide them with herd immunity.
@36: “the point being, it is THE NUMBER OF VACCINE SHOTS ADMIISTERED TO babies prior to their first birthday that is the strategic and crucial number here, doodette!!!”
Psudoscience, plain and simple. you have no clue what you’re talking about and you’re making shit up out of thin air. There’s no evidence but a ton of goalpost shifting. You’re dumb as dirt, sgt doom. The number of vaccines people receive, as with every other factor, has nothing to do with autism.
Increased, targeted diagnosis is why more people “have” ASD. You people need to go back to jerking yourselves off about fluoridation and the communist menace like you did in the fifties.
When abortion-rights opponents call you a “baby killer” for not sharing their views, do you find that a convincing argument?
I submit that this post’s usage of the inflammatory “baby killer” tag will prove similarly ineffective at convincing vaccine opponents.
@43 ” You people need to go back to jerking yourselves off about fluoridation” Not to rain on your parade of overreactive nonsense, but I don’t like fluoridation either, since it has calcifying effects on other parts of the body. I don’t think we need to put waste products from the aluminum industry in our water. That’s all–I don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to, you know, not want to ingest poison.
Meh, epidemics come and go … this to shall pass.
You stupid pinhead. You do not even have a dog in this fight. I have three adopted children under my care they are all brothers. One of which we have had since he was 10 days old. I watched what vaccines did to this child with my own eye. Just days ago his twin 2 1/2 year old brothers were hospitalized due to respiratory distress after a TB PDD test. The examination reports determined this was from an allergic reaction to Tween 80 (ie- Polysorbate 80) which by the way is documented in the Annuals of Allergy and Asthma, 2005 vol 95 as a chemical additive know to cause this very reaction in some people. Polysorbate 80 in found many if not all vaccinations. I know have three children that have been effected by these injections. For me to read a stupid article written like this from some nubnut idiot, make me furious. My children will live the rest of their lives with this while your kids who, thank God did nit have a reaction go on with life. I cannot imagine anyone writing an article like this unless they were financially tied to the subject. As far as my unvaxed children puttings yours in danger, do the freaking vaccines work or not? If they work shut your freaking mouth your kids are immune you dumbass. Meanwhile my kids are jacked up from this stupid price of medical propaganda making pharma’s rich while my kids will struggle with a future. You make me sick. Stupid shit!
After reading the ranting and frothing, I’m sticking with my original statement; if you don’t vaccinate your kids, and they infect my kid when she’s too young for her shots, and something happens to her because of it, your body will never be found. I know thousands of empty acres where it could just… Disappear. Have a nice day.
@21 Judah,
Your analogy is backwards. The vaccinated and unvaccinated would be pedestrians, the infected would be thrown behind the wheel of a car that turns susceptable individuals into car riders as well upon impact. The vaccinated would block the cars and deflect them away from the unvaccinated (and other vaccinated as well). Not very real worldly, but more accurate.
Peace.
Nateman, So after reading the ranting and frothing and knowing my child reacts to these shot to the point one was hospitalized you telling me you don’t care what happens to my child. No matter what I should jab my kids to protect yours. Well kiss my ass you twisted piece of crap. Maybe if your so worried about getting some obscure disease you should go live in that thousands of acres by yourself. It is obvious you did not read a thing I said. My children could die from this injection due to anaphylactic effects. You don’t care who else dies as long as you and your kid are protected.
@50: Got it in 1, and I’m glad we’re on the same page. Like I said before, you have every right to endanger your kid’s life. You have none to endanger mine.
I have spent many years of my professional life formulating and controlling vaccines and have lectured on this subject to doctors and nurses for fifteen years. I do not advise people against vaccines, but I strongly advise everyone: “investigate before you vaccinate”!
Package inserts can be found in internet and they contain more information than one normally gets from doctors. The information there is from the manufacturers, authorised by health authorities. Search in Google for vaccine package inserts, then click on the vaccine name. http://vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts…