Well......

The same Government that is attempting to coerce everybody to get inoculated for some damn thing or another every few months is currently doing everything possible to reverse the eradication of the above-mentioned diseases by importing untold millions of 4th-world aliens who don't know enough to wash their hands after defecation.

So there's that.

Anti-vaxxers are nothing but one flavor of conspiracy kooks. Conspiracy kooks believe in conspiracy, not because of any facts. They believe in their particular conspiracy because they have decided to go over to the dark side of conspiracy. Conspiracy kooks could have every single episode or anecdote debunked by the persons or groups they recognize as the conspiracy authority on the subject and it will have only a brief consequence. They will drop those anecdotes for a short time and then return to using those same debunked anecdotes as if nothing happened. How do I know this? Because it happens with UFO and crop circles.

The "UFO witness" can be discovered with Styrofoam models of the UFO in his garage and 200 yards of fishing line. Or the "UFO witness" can be caught creating the UFO episode to sell real estate in Florida. After a brief period those "encounters" are always right back at the top of the list of best cases.

Conspiracy is 100% about the kook's mind and nothing, not anything, will cause them to doubt. In fact, debunking efforts only make they try harder to hold on to their fairy tale.

My children are vaccinated. I have examined the risks, and I believe that the rewards of vaccination are worth running those risks.

That being said, I think it's important to note that:

1 There are significant risks associated with vaccination;

2 Many anti-vaxxers object not to vaccination per se, but to mandatory vaccination.

I see their point. I don't want the government (at any level) to have the power to forcbily inject my childrem (or me) with anything.

Again: I have my children vaccinated as recommended by their pediatricians. I know my children's pediatricians very well (that is, I have established a personal relationship with them outside of ordinary clinical interaction) and I trust that none of them would knowingly inject my children with anything harmful. I will continue to have my children vaccinated against typical contagious diseases.

That being said: I do not see the point in criticizing anti-vaxxers. While I do not find their arguments against vaccination to be convincing, I do recognize that there are risks associated with vaccination, and even greater risks in allowing government to forcibly inject substances into people.

In the end -- as usual -- it is the little kids who pay the price for poor decisionmaking my adults. I feel for the suffering of the children of anti-vaxxers when their parents' decision to avoid vaccination causes them to catch infectious diseases. Still, their decision poses no threat to me or mine. My children are not going to catch measles from the kids who get it. If they want to gamble their children's lives on the chance that little Billy's doctor is going to shoot him full of Austism Germs, that's their business.

In other words, if we disagree with you, Gerard, we are ignorant Appalachians from the hills. Nice!

The anti-vaxxers have been caught faking anti-vaccine medical studies. The medical studies of vaccines show vast benefits and approaching-zero risk. The basis for anti-vaxxers comes from Hollywood celebrities and Women's magazine hysterics. There is more science to support vaccine effectiveness than lung cancer and smoking. The anti-vaxxers are the equivalent to the people that claim since their grandma smoked for 50 years and never had lung cancer smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. They trade apocryphal stories, when they aren't just making stuff up. They aren't hillbillies, they are more like followers of Malibu witchdoctors.

When you pin them down on one claim, like mercury is the culprit in the MMR vaccine they quickly surrender and change to another claim, it's the quick succession of vaccines that causes harm, when the first is debunked. This is typical and consistent with every other conspiracy theory. First claim the doubts are based on "evidence" and then immediately and temporarily jettison that same evidence once it's debunked. Once the debunking fades in memory pick right up with belief in the now debunked "evidence." One by one the claims of anti-vaxxers get debunked, and like Homeopathy, they retreat into ever more subtle "causes" thus explaining why no evidence can be found and anecdotes must be relied upon.

If anti-vaxxers hypothesis worked they could document their techniques, instead they are like witchdoctors waving incense and claiming the incense keeps under-bed monsters from appearing in children's rooms at night.

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347

Actually, Edaddy, it's only if one disagrees with me that one is an ignorant Appalachian from the hills.

Sounds like a claim for "settled science". How very comforting.

As if.

Are you not in the least troubled by reports the CDC was not able to keep under wraps, like
the Poul Thorsen case, the CDC revolving door with vaccine producers, OR the FACT that vaccination DOES NOT equal immunization?

If vaccines are SO SAFE, why are there groups unable to be vaccinated?

Have you ever bothered to read the manufacturer's package insert accompanying vaccine, particularly the warning/danger areas?

The belief that because SOME vaccines MAY indicate
a benefit does not mean all do. Nor does it mean ANY are safe. Sure, as drugs they've all been approved by the FDA, just as with Vioxx, Thalidomide, and more.

All safe according to the FDA.

Thank goodness St Ronald the Bastard "immunized" vaccine makers from financial harm!

itor