Hey, Americans...

[andygates]

What's with the vaccine-phobia?  Is it that you don't trust sciency-magicky-woo unless it's delivering cars, guns or porn?  Is it that you don't like being told what's good for you?  Is "herd immunity" a dirty phrase to a Rugged Individualist?  How 'bout 'civic responsibility'?  Did anyone teach anyone that the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'?

Tricky moral question for ten points:  If personal freedom is good, and your freedom to swing your first ends at my nose, how about your freedom to stay a seething sump of infection compromising general immunity in the population at large?  Or is that too fecking socialist a concept?

Comments

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify: the Brit antivaxers are almost all uneducated cretins who aren't making an informed choice, or woo-mongers whose objections are rational. They're mostly easy to spot. Yank antivaxers look like regular people.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

People are allowed to be a seething lump of infection as long as they stay out of infection range. Where infection is air- or water-transmitted, that means they are free to seek accommodation in some other biosphere.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

What dreadful board have you been inflicting upon yourself this time? Go read some SYB. That'll cheer you up.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Good point, well argued. Let there be rude animal minges! :)

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

I think the concept of herd immunity should get much more press - I didn't get it for a while so I'm pretty sure there are millions of nice, sensible mothers (and fathers of course) who think that a decision not to immunise their children with, say, MMR, will have no effect on somebody else's child who has been immunised.

But then I think that contraception should join fluroine in the water supply to make procreation opt-in rather than opt-out, so what do I know. (joke)

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Herd immunity is a funny one. We've got such good protection now against a lot of the diseases that used to hit people that it's hard to see the disease that's being protected against. "Nobody gets measles / tb / goatpox any more, why should worry about getting the jab?"

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

Somebody want to spoof some shampoo commercials?

"MMR? But your country doesn't have rubella...?"

"Take three vaccines into the shower? Not me..."

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

I think, in a lot of cases, parents believe the science but don't trust the pharmaceutical companies. They hear a bunch of anecdotes (and I think "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'" needs to be on a tee shirt) about problems kids have had with vaccines, and then reflect on the fact that the only people who are likely to have financed any kind of very large scale study on vaccines are the people producing them, and those people are not legally required to share their findings. And parents, very often (certainly in my case) have a tendency toward irrationality where their children are involved.

Parents hear "there is no scientific proof that the MMR vaccine has a causal link to autism" and remember how many years they heard "there is no scientific proof that smoking causes lung cancer," and "there is no scientific proof that second-hand smoke is hazardous to non-smokers," and "there is no scientific proof that human industry is having an effect on global climate."

So, not (always) a mistrust in science -- just a mistrust in the people paying for it and reporting its results. Granted, I've heard from people who think germ theory is a huge hoax, so it pays to stand back a little until you know for sure who you're dealing with.

In the interests of full disclosure: yes, we vaccinated Sarah -- but we waited until she was older than the standard schedule, insisted on single-disease vaccinations, and spaced them out.

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

I think I am in the boat with you. You likewise have said what I would say much more eloquently. So thank you Thudthwacker whomever you are!

When it comes time to vaccinate my sprog I thing I shall spread it out. Do it in a much smaller concentration of doses at one time. I've been vaccinated against most things. With the notable exception of TB which the US doesn't vaccinate for.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

"Vaccine overload"? Myth busted.

A one-shot dealio is best for getting comprehensive immunity by simply being far fewer time-sensitive appointments to screw up.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Germ. Theory. Deniers.

How?

I mean, that's got to be just trolling, surely? What next? Flat-Earthers?

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

I bet they exist still.

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

My experience is as a nurse, rather than as a parent. But most of the one's I've run accross that refuse vaccinations fall into a few categories.

The "it's a hassel and cuts into my *personal time* so I expect everyone else to immunize their kids so I can skip the social responsibility". (that's the one I see a lot of, but I live in a fairly rural backwards thinking area with a high level of generational welfare). These also tend to send their children to school, even when the child is ill with something contagious.

There's also several strains of religion that refuse vaccination, as well as other medical interventions, claiming religious immunity. We're big on giving lip service to religious freedom (provided it's some form of judeo-christian) which means you can use it for all sorts of excuses.

There's also a fairly good sized contingent that just feels suspicious about the whole thing. Most of the studies are funded by pharmaceutical companies, and we're accustomed to being lied to by corporations and our own government. (like the tobacco industry)

You should have seen the aweful stink thrown up when they wanted to make vaccination against HPV mandatory for tweens - young women. For some reason Americans are under the impression that if we don't educate our children about sex, or prepare them to be safe, that they wont ever think of it on their own.

Personally, I think just applying a mild topical anethetic cream 30 minutes prior to injection would eliminate much of the fuss. If there were less screaming kids and fewer needle phobic adults (that once were traumatized screaming kids) I don't think it would be such an issue. But doctors are stubborn and parents aren't educated.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Well, if you will hand your healthcare over to private industry, who's going to be surprised when they milk ya for profit? On which note, Obama was good tonight.

"Mandatory" is a magic word that's damn-near guaranteed to send a fair slice of Yanks into a crazy foaming conniption. It's hilarious.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

True. I always figured that if I wanted all of the US to adopt something, no matter how bizarre, all I'd have to do would be to rig up some minor kind of tax break and/or quick monetary return for doing so, and only very gradually tighten the rules and enforcement.

I'd make sure that initially, at least, a whole lot of people could feel/brag they were putting one over on the government, big business, or some other authority, by doing it half-assed.

For something like immunisation, though, I'd set it up so that even the half-assers would end up with kids who were _actually_ immunised.

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

I'd shy away from that sort of thing. American law is based way too much on precedent. Once you give someone the right to force anything on your body then they'll expand that right to other things. "Oh you wanted a new liver? Nope sorry we don't think you qualify." The government shouldn't be able to legislate health care like that. Health care reform great! Health care for the masses of working poor equally great! Telling me what to do with my body = fail.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Hmm. How about "Get vaccinated and we'll give you ten bucks" ?

ten bucks

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

I actually saw a simmilar idea at work. For the life of me I can't remember what vaccination it was for, but you got a small amount of cash and a free meal coupon (like a burger) from one of the local restaurants. Kind of along the lines of; donate blood and get a free pass to the movies. People did bring in their kids, and themselves, and grandma, and anyother pseudo-relative they could get their hands on.

Unfortunatly, they ended up with quite a good deal of fraud in the form of people trying to get immunized over and over. A friend of mine had donated his time to help, so my information is second hand. He told me it was a total zoo. I don't think he'd make it up.

They had one lady who tried to get her kids immunized 12 times over. All seven of her own kids plus four more she claimed were hers but were not. When staff caught on she'd already (at least) double dosed the lot of them and then pitched a shrieking tantrum when she didn't get her way. She tore up the little waiting area and scared a lot of kids. Then returned approximatly every hour for a repeat performance. Staff called the cops, but they either didn't show or showed up after the event then quickly left the scene, not wanting to get involved.

No good deed goes unpunished. Humans are disgusting.

Re: ten bucks

[andygates.livejournal.com]

They need to dip their fingers, like Afghan voters.

Of course this just highlights that the objection isn't to the vaccination, it's to being told what to do.

Re: ten bucks

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Huh. Maybe some kind of thing where multiple visits by a given person or child wouldn't confer any additional benefit... I'd initially suggest using SSNs in the US, but people who drag a bunch of kids back twelve times aren't going to blink at using fake ID numbers, and it might put other people off.

A once-off tax deduction isn't going to appeal to people who either don't pay tax or who aren't going to be filling in their tax forms in the next 48 hours.

Maybe something where people getting vaccinated get a semipermanent ink stamp lasting as long as the clinic was immunising people, and the related food provider stamping over the top of it in the same ink... but I can forsee kids having their hands scrubbed raw to try and erase the ink, or being told to wear a fake bandage/cast to cover the stamp.

An anasthetic skin spray which shows up on an IR or UV camera for a couple days even after showering/bathing? Maybe, although it brings to mind not only mutilation-level scrubbing but also screaming fits on being told they'd been IDed as already having come through once. Plus again with bandages/casts on the slightly smarter ones who figured out the spray was the culprit.

There really needs to be some kind of reward that simply does not inherently stack, and is simple enough so that even the entitlement royalty realise intuitively there's no point going back for seconds or trying to yell a second helping out of the staff.

Free entrance to only one particular movie on presentation of an inked finger springs to mind, but that's not really a wide enough net. It really needs to be some kind of universally appealing thing, reward, event, whatever, which there's also not much point doing twice (or at least twice in the same month, at least). And it can't change from one thing to another to try and get the most people in, as people who want more than one of the rewards will present themselves multiple times again. It can't be something that people could collect a hundred of and use over the next several months or years. It can't be something they can sell or otherwise easily exchange for value. It can't be something they can give away to the non-immunised. Ideally, it can't be something they can hoard and carry away, or indeed anything there was an actual physical limitation on.

Maybe it should be handled like voting - check someone's ID off a list of locals, give 'em their shot and their dollar/taco. Don't know how well that would work in the US, as voting's not compulsory there and anything resembling the government asking for ID could be viewed with suspicion.

Maybe just use ID/SSN/registration to get the ten bucks, but make the jab itself ID-less for those who want the vaccination but not the paperwork?

Hmm. Might not even be a bad idea for voter registration itself. Turn up to vote and if you're registered you get ten bucks. Might help boost voter turnouts. Of course, it'd run to about $500m a year, but in federal government terms that's a rounding error.

Re: ten bucks

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The UK / Japanese approach is to hammer it in as civic duty. Enough people are 'good people' to build herd immunity. The powers that be have a weight of authority here.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Ain't nobody nowhere that *tells* folks what to do. That's one of the myths of systems like the NHS. Have you been listening to Republicans again? ;)

What they will do is say "we won't do X unless you do Y" -- but Y is, medically, the best thing for you so non-compliance normally comes down to simple cussedness. And you could always go private, just like you could in the US. Of course, if what you want is something weird and dumb, you'll end up paying a lot of cash for it.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

...a couple of states have passed pandemic vaccination laws, but despite the hyperbole, they don't apply to H1N1. They would apply to something more deadly, like avian flu or some nifty cold-tolerant ebola. Emergency measures, in other words, and the legal niceties can be sorted out after the lives are saved.

[carldem.livejournal.com]

Science shows a lack of trust in God.

You wouldn't want God to be angry would you?
(he might inflict you with a plague or something)

So just best to keep away from science then!


- And when -that- makes sense, you'll have you're ;) answer :)