Jim Carrey tweets about CA’s ‘corporate fascist’ mandatory vaccination bill

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Over the past year (especially), California has faced several outbreaks of utterly preventable diseases. Diseases like measles, polio, mumps, rubella, all of which are completely preventable if you vaccinate your children. The anti-Vax people have found a home in California and they’ve grown and grown to the point where old diseases are now flourishing and causing major public health crises. So, California Governor Jerry Brown just signed a new mandatory vaccination bill, meaning it is no longer “optional” to vaccinate your children.

Why bring this up? As it turns out, Jenny McCarthy’s ex-boyfriend Jim Carrey is something of a true believer. Even McCarthy has distanced herself from her previous anti-Vax statements (that vaccines cause autism), but Carrey still believes. And Carrey went OFF on Twitter Tuesday night. Here are his tweets in order:

California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped.

They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol is no risk. Make sense?

I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-thimerosal, anti-mercury. They have taken some of the mercury laden thimerosal out of vaccines. NOT ALL!

The CDC can’t solve a problem they helped start. It’s too risky to admit they have been wrong about mercury/thimerasol. They are corrupt.

Go to http://traceamounts.com watch the documentary and judge for yourselves. If you really care about the kids you will. It’s shocking!

[From Jim Carrey]

The thing is… years ago, I did sometimes wonder if the anti-Vax crowd had a point simply about the mercury. Not that the vaccines “caused” autism (vaccines do not cause autism), but that the vaccine schedule might be too hardcore, and that the mercury levels might be dangerous. But in the years since then, I’ve been convinced by the real scientists who have assured the public that vaccines are perfectly safe, and the risk to public health is greater if you refuse to vaccinate your kids. It does feel like Jim Carrey and the anti-Vax crowd are clinging to their bad science and half-truths and it feels like the sooner we can make the anti-Vax people into a radical fringe largely ignored by the general public, the better off we’ll be.

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282 Responses to “Jim Carrey tweets about CA’s ‘corporate fascist’ mandatory vaccination bill”

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  1. Lilacflowers says:

    His message combined with that look he is sporting are not healthy for anyone.

  2. Esmom says:

    “It does feel like Jim Carrey and the anti-Vax crowd are clinging to their bad science and half-truths and it feels like the sooner we can make the anti-Vax people into a radical fringe larger ignored by the general public, the better off we’ll be.”

    THIS. Thank you.

    • LadyMTL says:

      This +1000

      I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that diseases that were practically eradicated a few years ago are roaring back because of idiots like Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy, and etc. (And yes, I called them idiots. Any ant-vaxxer is an idiot, IMHO.)

      Unless your child has an allergy to one of the ingredients, get them vaccinated! Gah.

      • Dhavynia says:

        I have an autistic child and even after he was diagnosed I still wanted my child vaccinated. I must admit though that the schedule is brutal and if that’s the issue with some you can spread it further so not all of them would be administered at the same time (for what I’ve heard) I didn’t know I had that choice which I would have done but too late for me. Nevertheless, I don’t regret him getting all his vaccines

      • Sabrine says:

        I hope nobody listens to Carey and McCarthy. They have caused a lot of damage with their anti-vax stance because it seems young mothers have clung to every word coming out of their asinine mouths. The McCarthy body count was up to around 1,300, although that was quite a while ago so it’s probably more now.

      • holly hobby says:

        I’m pretty sure these idiots were vaccinated when they were kids because their parents made them. Now they want to deny the next generation due to their “magical” thinking and since they are such experts because they read a false report.

        Maybe Jenna Elf-man, the stripper, Elle Horowitz and all those other deniers can leave CA.

      • K says:

        My son is autistic. He and his younger sibling get their shots right on time, and as they will both miss the rollout of the new Meningitis B vax over here, we’re paying for them to get them privately – which is not cheap. I read all the research as it stood 5 years ago. It is overwhelmingly in one direction. And actually, I find it incredibly offensive that my funny, kind, interesting little boy, who happens to have a brain which works differently to the norm, is seen as such a terrifying parental prospect that people would rather take their chances with potentially lethal diseases than run a minute (and now totally, categorically debunked, anyway!) risk their son might be someone like him. My kid is great. He’s nothing to use as a bogeyman, thanks.

        There is no effective medical intervention on the planet without risk. Simple over the counter pain meds can kill you, taken exactly as advised, if you’re freakily unlucky. But the benefits of vaccination outweigh the disadvantages so colossally that you now need to be just as colossally misguided to refuse them.

    • Crumpet says:

      Indeed. Bravo Kaiser. And there is NO thimerosal in the routine vaccinations given to children.

      http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/thimerosal/thimerosal_faqs.html#e

      • ol cranky says:

        thank you for pointing that out Crumpet

        Also, another fact the Anti-Vaxxers conveniently forget while venerating the reprehensible Andrew Wakefield (who violated pretty much every tenet of Good Clinical Practices, medical ethics & regulations covering clinical research, in addition to committing the grievous sin of poor study design) also made it clear he was completely against all vaccinations – he was quite in favor of people using the vaccinations he had a vested financial interest in

      • GoNatural says:

        That’s right. They’ve replaced mercury with Aluminum – which is a potent neurotoxin (like mercury).

        http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/01/27/mercury-in-vaccines-was-replaced-with-something-even-more-toxic.aspx

      • Kiddo says:

        Mercola might have more credibility if he wasn’t trying to hawk his own supplements and devices on that site, making extraordinary claims about their benefit.

      • hazeldazel says:

        yeah, I don’t get Jim Carrey’s argument because the FDA phased out thimerasal in vaccines YEARS ago. Like 10? years ago. Not that anti-vaxxers are using anything like logic in this argument.

    • Duchess of Corolla says:

      +1

      Anti-vaxxers are a danger to everyone! Like LadyMTL says, unless your child is allergic to the ingredients, get him or her vaccinated. And, make sure your own shots are up to date, too.

      • tigerlily says:

        Exactly. I am so tired of celebrities pretending to be experts. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing….

    • Courtney says:

      The medical truth is that adults are far, FAR more likely to be unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated vs children, even in areas with a higher percentage of “anti-vaxx” parents. A few years ago the adult percentage for Hep A was 12. And Hep A is much more serious in adults than children. The rates for Tdap, Hep B, and pneumonia are also sub 25%. And that is just the few the CDC was tracking.

      If you want to feel superior to anti-vaccine parents or score cheap political points, then I guess this law will be successful. If you actually care about having a better vaccinated society, you would focus your efforts on healthy adults. Studies show the majority of adults do not get booster, titers, or any of the vaccines that were introduced after they finished school. THAT’S the actual problem. This law is bullsh*t.

      • Kiddo says:

        Why shouldn’t it be both? Children, especially in schools, are some of the highest communicators in transference of disease between peers and then outward toward families and peripherals. Of course the same could be said for situations like nursing homes, etc. But people in nursing homes already typically have a number of diseases and lowered immunity to cope with.

      • Courtney says:

        @ Kiddo I do think it should be both. But as a nurse practitioner, I want those decisions to be between patient, parent, and practioner. I want us all to have the freedom to delay or selectively vaccinate, as I believe that is the best approach to take with “anti-vaxx” parents. Most adults aren’t vaccinated well enough to attend CA public school. I don’t think this law is going to be effective, expect to further divide people. If a unvaccinated adult can go to a state university, I don’t believe we can deny a younger student the right to their free public education.

      • Original T.C. says:

        I agree Kiddo, why no both? It blows my mind that I now know second hand of an adult who has whopping cough! Got it through his wife who works at a daycare. He never finished his vaccination schedule due to lax parents. Oh and the wife is now pregnant. Whopping cough in one of the richest countries on the planet in 2015. You bet your ass that I took myself to the hospital ASAP and had titters drawn up to verify that all my immunizations are up to date. I was clear. Though Doc recommended doing Hep B series because I do some volunteer work monthly at an elderly care home.

        Side note: even if these vaccines had mercury I would still get them. It’s not like you are being exposed to the mercury daily. It’s like a total of 10 days out of your 90 year lifespan. And I would rather have that than whopping cough, measles, etc because as an adult those childhood diseases are severe enough to cause death. IMO when people actually see family members or friends or their children suffering through these diseases, they will make tracks to get immunized!

      • Timbuktu says:

        Courtney, but most adults are NOT attending CA public schools, so… Children touch and lick a lot more things than adults do, children also cannot make their own decisions, unlike adults, so I completely understand why we, as a society, focus more on children and schools.
        And I’m sorry, while in theory, choice should be between patient, parent, and practitioner, there are quite a lot of parents making quite poor choices for their kids. I understand it’s a fine line, but I do not think it’s automatically always wrong for the state to step in.

      • Cait says:

        I get my Tdap faithfully every pregnancy.

      • A says:

        Actually, I don’t think adults can go to state universities without proving they have updated vaccinations. At least, this is how it is in Kansas. If you live in the dorms you have to have proof of having the meningitis vaccination, and ALL students must show proof of the 3 MMR vaccinations. Again, I’m not sure if all state universities are like this, but obviously some are, and hopefully more will be.

      • Timbuktu says:

        A,
        you’re right. And it’s not just state universities, I didn’t realize I was missing a booster until the day my semester started at a private university, and they wouldn’t update my enrollment status until I got the booster, which was all kinds of stressful because I didn’t realize what was going on until 3 pm or so, and I had until 5 (without a car) to get current, or I would have had to pay late registration fees.
        You also have to be current to become a permanent resident or citizen of the US. Which is kind of ironic, because apparently, natural-born citizens aren’t. 🙂

    • Sarah says:

      Yes. I do think that the vaccine schedule was adjusted somewhat – at least by some pediatricians. Perhaps not as a directive but I know our pedi would never give our son more than 4 shots in any one day and he spread out the schedule somewhat. He isn’t the only pedi I know who did that. The simple fact is, that if you feed your kid a tunafish sandwich, they are getting more mercury than in any vaccine.

      But what’s with Jim’s look? Is he really crazy now or is this for a role?

    • tforce says:

      Hi find it comical that when the anti-vaccine “studies” came out there were large amounts of support against vaccines, books written, articles written defending parents who didn’t vaccinate; celebrities being applauded for their anti-vaccine crusade. Now, the study as been debunked and everyone is calling the anti-vaccination people crazy. The power of propaganda is frightening. Disclaimer: I have never been anti-vaccine. I would implore everyone with children to get their child vaccinated, but if you don’t want to, please keep your kids away from the general public and homeschool them.

  3. MrsBPitt says:

    All I can picture is Jim, bent over, manipulating his ass cheeks, while talking about his anti-vac stance!

    • Lady D says:

      That’s about the level of respect I have for him too.

    • carol says:

      Whenever I see Jim Carrey, I can’t get his impression of an air dancer balloon man out of my head. I just picture him flopping around

  4. Kiddo says:

    In the United States, countries in the European Union and a few other affluent countries, thiomersal is no longer used as a preservative in routine childhood vaccination schedules. In the U.S., the only exceptions among vaccines routinely recommended for children are some formulations of the inactivated influenza vaccine for children older than two years.[11] Several vaccines that are not routinely recommended for young children do contain thiomersal, including DT (diphtheria and tetanus), Td (tetanus and diphtheria), and TT (tetanus toxoid); other vaccines may contain a trace of thiomersal from steps in manufacture.[8] Also, four rarely used treatments for pit viper, coral snake, and black widow venom still contain thiomersal.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal

    ^Maybe someone who actually knows can deny or confirm this.^

    • embertine says:

      This is correct, Kiddo. ORAC (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/) links to some good studies on vaccination. Especially the gigantic metastudy on MMR that the Danish did, which proves that MMR does not cause autism.

      • Kiddo says:

        It sounds like the mercury preservative is NOT included in the childhood vaccination schedule in the US. Wikipedia goes on to say that it is still included in childhood vaccinations in third world countries, since I guess appropriate storage is an issue and they had previously seen deaths, from bacterial growth in applications of vaccinations, that had no preservative. I was pondering whether they should just remove it ALL in the US to satisfy objections, but then I read how it seems to be the only additive that controls bacteria and mold without lessening the effect of the injection itself. Any reason why that one particular vaccine for tetanus, etc, still contains it? Is it a less stable combination, even if kept at proper temperatures, etc? Or is it about expanding shelf-life?

      • melodycalder says:

        Maybe not but the makers of the mmr are being sued right now after a whistle blower released documents showing they were out right lying about the efficacy of the mumps vaccine and that outbreaks were occurring in highly vaccinated areas to vaccinated people. The Canadian Huffington post did a article on it a few months ago. Interesting how our wonderful and balanced news didn’t talk about it. Or how Mexico put a stop on infant vaccines a while back after a village of children died or were in critical condition after receiving a batch of vaccines…. there are stories out there. These aren’t perfectly safe. It should be personal choice.

        Case and point, the vaccine injury fund in America. It has billions in it specifically to pay people injured by vaccines. No one is allowed to sue the makers directly, they are immune to liability. You file against this government fund. If you successfully prove your child died, then the most you will get is 250k. That is the value they assigned to your child’s life. Google it. You can read Financials, how many people file a year, what they file for, and who gets paid.

      • Kiddo says:

        melodycalder, since you provided no links to the Mexican deaths, no one knows whether the vaccinations were contaminated by bacteria and/or mold or whether they still administer vaccinations with the original full complement of Thiomersal versus the current levels in the US, or if all variables were the same.

        I’m not being a government apologist here, really, there are lots of things to complain about, but I’m guessing that the government fund was a trade-off in keeping costs down for production and sales of vaccines. Vaccines might otherwise be unaffordable to administer to the general population, if the companies took liability for harm, with juries awarding huge amounts. As it is, I think they are riding low on profit margin for the production. This is why there is no real advancement in antibiotics for resistant strains. It costs a fortune in R&D, and the profit isn’t there. Think about the lack of vaccinations coupled with the fact that most pharmaceutical companies want nothing to do with establishing new cures and treatments via antibiotics.

        I realize that is no consolation to anyone harmed by them, but projects like this are geared toward the greatest good to the largest numbers.

        As far as personal choice, you must consider and weigh the rights of the individual to the rights of the population. Case in point, a teacher, who decided not to be inoculated, gets sick and then passes a disease on to your kid while in school. How about a babysitter? Are you okay with that? Are you okay with the Amish kids getting polio and then handling food, that they serve to your children, at the farmer’s market, where they contract it? There has always been a balance of ethical consideration in individual/group rights in regard to public health.

        But I do agree that mainstream media should cover whatever side effects there are, so that if there are large enough numbers, the government can procure a different methodology. If the figures of adverse effects is significantly low, compared to the overall results, it may not make sense in a government mass public policy perspective or cost perspective to alter anything, because the next round of formula may also adversely effect the same percentage. It might behoove scientists to further study individuals in an attempt to proactively ID who might be vulnerable to harm with the administration, so that they can be selectively removed from the timeframe or program altogether, and some already are. That is a far better approach then everyone simply deciding willynilly what they FEEL like doing, at the risk of seriously injuring or killing large numbers of the population through illness.

        WOW, didn’t realize this was long, it took little time to write apologies.

      • cr says:

        @melody, the deaths in Mexico may not have been from the vaccines themselves:
        “these hospitalizations and deaths were not due to adverse reactions for vaccines. Rather, as has been reported in the Mexican press, they were due to bacterial contamination. In other words, these babies died of sepsis or were hospitalized for sepsis, not adverse reactions from a vaccine, and their symptoms were entirely consistent with an overwhelming bacterial infection.

        What I wonder now is this: How did this happen? Was there a problem with refrigeration after a multiuse vial had been used? It seems unlikely that this would account for so many babies being infected, because there aren’t enough doses in a multidose vial to infect so many children. It seems more likely that the fault occurred at the manufacturing plant, although it’s also possible it was a local storage issue that allowed bacterial colonization and overgrowth. Of course, this is all speculation on my part, given that we do not yet have any definitive evidence telling us what happened. Indeed, we don’t even know yet (as of my writing this last night) which species of bacteria contaminated the vials.

        Don’t get me wrong here. I am not in any way minimizing the tragedy that has occurred. Children are dead. Many more were hospitalized, some requiring mechanical ventilation. A full and complete investigation is required urgently to determine what went wrong and how these vaccines became contaminated with bacteria. That was the problem, not some general problem with vaccines inherent in their design that led to severe adverse reactions. It is a distinction that will be lost on people who so fear and distrust vaccines that they view them as inherently dangerous and useless, who are so eager to blame vaccines for every ill suffered by children that they will gladly leap on any story that they think they can use to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt about vaccines.”

        http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/14/no-vaccine-reactions-didnt-kill-several-children-in-mexico/

      • melodycalder says:

        Here you go. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/10/health/mexico-vaccine-deaths/
        The point is that their government puts a halt as soon as something happens, while our government doesnt, nor does our media even really report on it.

        Here is the mmr issue:
        http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_5881914.html

        Merck made 9.3 billion in sales last year from drugs, dont be fooled and think that this isn’t a for profit business.
        http://www.mercknewsroom.com/news-release/corporate-news/merck-announces-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2014-financial-results

        If this was ANY other industry accidentally killing people then there would be a MASSIVE recall. Instead, our government passed a federal law prohibiting lawsuits against drug makers over serious side effects from childhood vaccines. How is that right… and if they are so safe…. then why was their such a drastic need for it?

        I dont care if you vaccinate or dont vaccinate, but “the common good” and the majority of children dont have side effects are not good arguments to force everyone to comply.

        “I realize that is no consolation to anyone harmed by them, but projects like this are geared toward the greatest good to the largest numbers.” –And no, I dont think any child should be sacrificed for the good of the community. I dont believe in the government playing russian roulette with the lives of children who dont have a choice.

      • melodycalder says:

        Oh, and here is some light reading for you:
        http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html
        http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/vaccinetable.html

        $5.4 BILLION bucks in there to cover the manufacturers butt. 🙂

      • Kiddo says:

        melodycalder, that is precisely why the thiomersol has been kept in the vaccinations of other countries. The proper use or storage can not be guaranteed, but the use of the preservative is what guards against bacterial contamination. Ironically, the mercury preservative in those vaccines would have likely saved those Mexican children from death.

        “Merck made 9.3 billion in sales last year from drugs,” of course they did. I’m not saying they aren’t greedy, but I would bet that it is derived from other products and not the vaccine division.

        I’m sorry to say this, but by advocating a free-for-all, that IS advocating for Russian Roulette, in terms of catastrophic epidemic disease and death, in a society with no immunity.

      • MinnFinn says:

        melody,
        The consequences of your policy would be devastating. When the tipping point of unvaccinated U.S. residents is reached for a particular disease, it will trigger ongoing nationwide epidemics of that disease.

        Before the mumps vaccine, the U.S. averaged 150,000 cases of mumps per year. Cases declined thanks to the vaccine to 3500 cases in 2006 and about 1000 in 2014.

        Do you honestly believe that 150,000 cases of mumps in one year is a preferable outcome of Russian roulette than about 10 adverse reactions to the mumps vaccine?

      • MinnFinn says:

        melody,
        “I dont believe in the government playing russian roulette with the lives of children who dont have a choice.”

        The alternative is equally unfair to infants who don’t have a choice. Infants have to wait a few months for some of their vaccinations. Anyone unvaccinated by choice is playing russian roulette with newborns who have no choice.

    • Crumpet says:

      It is true. I linked to the CDC above.

    • cr says:

      And here’s a more in depth look at the ‘whistle blowers’:

      Supporting the claim that data was falsified:

      Two former employees of Merck say data was falsified. They say they told their supervisors, who then conspired to hide that fact. They describe a set of facts in elaborate detail in their complaint. We don’t know what will come up during fact finding and what the result will be.
      While not mentioned in the decision or the complaint, the employees may have documentary evidence supporting their claim.
      The major professional textbook on vaccines (Vaccines: Expert Consult – Online and Print, 6e (Vaccines (Plotkin/ Orenstein)) see page 435) mentions that “The effectiveness of mumps vaccines determined in field studies (Table 22-9) is lower than efficacy determined in clinical trials. Effectiveness of a single dose of the Jeryl Lynn strain of mumps vaccine (given as a monovalent vaccine or as trivalent MMR) under conditions of routine use is approximately 78% (95% CI, 75%-82%), compared with 95% or more demonstrated in efficacy trials.”
      There have been several outbreaks of mumps in highly vaccinated communities.

      Evidence that refutes the claim that data was falsified:

      The heart of this is that there is no evidence that vaccine effectiveness is, in fact, lower than described. In fact, there’s evidence against that.

      The number of mumps cases is still very low. Before the vaccine, the United States had over 150,000 cases a year. The outbreaks reported now are in the single thousands – the 2006 outbreak had 6500 cases total, and the 2009-2010 about 3500. With respect to the 2014 mumps outbreak, the CDC stated that “from January 1 to August 15, 2014, 965 people in the United States have been reported to have mumps.”
      There is more than a little evidence suggesting that the problem – if any – with the mumps vaccine is waning immunity, rather than ineffectiveness when given. This evidence includes most of the outbreaks in question occurred on college campuses, i.e. long after immunization and not among school children, which supports waning immunity, rather than initial low effectiveness, as the problem.
      Other evidence supports the claim of waning immunity as the likely culprit rather than lack of effectiveness.
      Also, the major textbook, Vaccines, states that “such estimates may also be indicative of waning of immunity, which is not a factor in controlled clinical trials with a relatively short follow-up period.” (See Page 435.)
      Waning immunity is an issue. We don’t want a vaccine that leaves people exposed to mumps in adulthood, when complications may be higher. But if that’s the problem,

      It’s solvable even without tossing out the vaccine – you can add a booster dose.
      More importantly for our purposes: it does not support the claim that data was falsified. And the evidence for the waning immunity claim is pretty strong.
      http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/merck-mumps-motions-whistleblowers-the-actual-story/#disqus_thread

      • melodycalder says:

        That article is from a year ago, the court case is still ongoing,unfortuately, it is not that cut and dry.
        From June this year: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/health-vaccine-idUSL1N0YQ0W820150604

        “Attorneys at Constantine Cannon, who represent the scientists, asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Lynne Sitarski of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to compel Merck to respond to their discovery request, which asks the company to give the efficacy of the vaccine as a percentage.

        Instead of answering the question, the letter said, Merck has been consistently evasive, using “cut-and-paste” answers saying it cannot run a new clinical trial to determine the current efficacy, and providing only data from 50 years ago.”

      • Kiddo says:

        That’s fascinating, melodycalder, it will be interesting to see the efficacy studies from the other competitive companies, in the antitrust suit. The government remains interested in the outcome, but has not filed, itself.

      • MinnFinn says:

        This case is interesting in part because
        1. the whistleblowers have a financial stake in the outcome — they get 25% of any fines levied against Merck
        2. effectiveness data from Merck’s research studies to predict effectiveness before the vaccine was approved is being challenged with about 8 years of the vaccination being used exclusively in the U.S. and actual mumps infection rates

      • Kiddo says:

        I wonder, though, if competitors have better rates, but definitely it would have had to have been a much smaller sample. Merck and other companies are not beyond reproach, in my opinion.

  5. Elisabeth says:

    I’ll error on the side of caution and get my medical advice from my doctor and not Ace Ventura

  6. Mia4S says:

    Ugh, the thimerosal thing again. Jim, you’re embarrassing yourself…more than usual. This nonsense has been indulged for too long. Bravo Califonia. Don’t like it? Home school.

    • MediaMaven says:

      Children that are home schooled still end up in public situations – the measles outbreak happened at Disneyland – the happiest place on earth! 🙂 Just get the damn vaccines.

    • Alice says:

      And go live in a coomune, far, far away from rational people. Keep your infectious diseases to yourselves. On the other hand, you’re exposing your innocent children to unnecessary risks for your cuckoo beliefs. Child abuse, maybe?

    • Courtney says:

      Statistically, it’s adults who are the real vaccine problem. Immunity to some diseases begins to wane as early as your 30’s and studies show the majority of adults do not get boosters, titers, or vaccines that were developed after they finished school. The Hep A rate for adults was 12% in a CDC study from a few years ago. Even though Hep A is more serious in adults than children. This is a red herring people.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        Then we need a simultaneous campaign to help adults stay up to date. The thing is, adults can be educated / educate themselves and have the power to do things to aid their health. Children are completely dependent on adults to make informed decisions for them. Vaccination needs to be understood and undertaken throughout the life span.

    • pinetree13 says:

      Yes, the form of mercury found in fish (typically methyl-mercury) is more harmful than the thimersal form and in much greater quantity…but the government still recommends feeding your kids fish because the omega 3’s benefits outweigh the risks in moderation.

      Most vaccines don’t have it, but even if they all did, the body can process and eliminate (albeit slowly) the trace amounts of mercury. Do anti-vaxxers abstain from all seafood as well?

  7. yael says:

    it’s always disappointing when someone you enjoy as an entertainer says something that proves he’s an idiot.

  8. embertine says:

    Vaccination is only mandatory if you are sending your child to public school. If the school is run by the state, the state gets to decide. If you send your kids to a private school, the school gets to decide. If you don’t follow the state’s rules, you don’t get state benefits. This stuff is not hard.

    if these people want to reverse this law, they need to start examining the science properly, and not spouting off like a bunch of uneducated lunatics. Of course, if they actually knew how to read science publications properly they wouldn’t be anti-vaxxers, so….

    • nicole says:

      Yes, I came down as well to point out that they aren’t even really mandatory, just if you want to send your kid to public school. If anti-vaxxers want to cling to these misinformed beliefs they can do so by home schooling so that they aren’t endangering all the other children by spreading disease and decreasing herd immunity.

    • Jaygee says:

      This is not true. The new law requires any child starting a new school, public or private, daycare or preschool or grade school, must be up to date for their age with vaccines. The only way around it is actually to homeschool. Read the bill last weekend because I have a two year old and am expecting a new baby and both will be in daycare.

      • embertine says:

        OK, I had understood that privately owned schools could decide for themselves. Sorry if that’s inaccurate.

      • sauvage says:

        But that doesn’t make sense! Even when homeschooled, children (hopefully!) still will go out and be in public places, use public transportation etc. Just make it mandatory as in: everyone who is not allergic to an ingredient has to get vaccinated, period. If you can’t afford it, the public healthcare system will support you to make sure that every US citizen is protected.

    • Courtney says:

      If law makers actually understood science, they would understand that it is far, FAR more likely for an adult to be unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated vs a child. If there is a vaccination crisis, it’s in adults, not children. I’m a fully vaccinated FNP, and against this law.

      • Starrywonder says:

        Yeah we get it. You don’t think that kids should be vaccinated and adults are really the issue here. And actually most adults (upper and middle class) actually do get vaccinated. The main problem is the lower to poor classes who after their initial vaccinations often don’t go to the doctor’s for boosters and whatnot.

        The reason why it is so important for kids to be vaccinated is that kids along with the eldery do not have robust immune systems so if a kid gets the measles they are more likely to die from it than an adult.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        Again, vaccination throughout the lifespan is important, but children depend on adults to make informed decisions. When adults are misinformed and put children at risk, the government steps in. It’s as simple as that.

      • Courtney says:

        @Starrywonder

        If you think most adults do get vaccinated, you don’t get it. The numbers are under 25% for Hep A, Hep B, Tdap (because it requires boosters), pneumonia and shingles. The only one of the six in the CDC study that was over 50% was tetanus. That is not most adults.

        Measles, chicken pox and Hep A are all typically worse for adults than children.

        Adults are the issue because math and science, not because I think so.

        *I am fully vaccinated because I am a health care worker. My child is fully vaccinated. My husband is not because I don’t make his health care decisions.

      • MP says:

        Does the normal children’s vaccine schedule include Hep A, Hep B, pneumonia and shingles in the US? I’m asking because over here it doesn’t. If you want those you need to get them yourself and most people don’t. Actually the pneumonia vaccine has probably been added to the schedule a few years ago but adults don’t have them. I don’t have any of those vaccinations and I consider myself fully vaccinated.
        Only people who travel a lot or have a high risk job take hepatitis vaccines over here, yet we are a very low risk Hep country.

      • Timbuktu says:

        I still don’t get how “adults are not vaccinated and it’s bad” is an argument for not vaccinating children.
        If you think we need a campaign to educate adults about keeping up with vaccines – by all means. But sounds like you’re suggesting throwing our hands up in the air and saying “well, since they won’t keep up with it, then why bother even starting?”.

      • Courtney says:

        @MP, all except shingles and it can be very different from country to country. Here HepB is usually started within 24 hours of birth.

      • Courtney says:

        @Timbuktu

        Many of the comments have suggested unvaccinated children should go live on a commune, etc. I don’t want people to have a false sense of security that once we deal with these anti-vaxx parents the world will magically be a safer or more vaccinated place. Myself and my child are both fully vaccinated, btw. I think there are much better ways to deal with unvaccinated kids. Taking away the right to a free public education seems like a drastic overreaction.

      • K says:

        MP, where are you from?

      • MP says:

        @K
        I’m from Finland.

  9. Another Heather says:

    Your thinking mirrors mine. Even though I am married to a pediatrician who of course preaches vaccines, when I brought my kids in I wondered if the antivaccine people had a point just because it was so many shots- was it really necessary? I did also think that people had the right to decide for themselves. However, I too have become convinced that the science is completely right on vaccines and that people who don’t baccinate are hurting others

    • Absolutely says:

      I do think the schedule is absurd. I think there needs to be more breaking up over time. Some places will try to give your kid 5 vaccines at one time. And just because they don’t cause Autism doesn’t mean that people don’t have adverse side affects. My kid ended up with a rare dermatitis with fevers that didn’t go away for about 6 months directly after his 4 month shots.

      I’m in no way anti-vaccine, but I do think they try to bunch them in too quickly on such underdeveloped immune systems. There are also quite a few more than when I got them in the 70’s.

      • sensible says:

        This! My child was vaccinated, but in a spread out schedule. I even tried for her to get chicken pox the old fashioned way like I did in the 1970’s….but there is none around these days So she had to eventually be injected. I was very uncomfortable with the suggested schedule. Mostly due to my husband having hearing loss from too early MMR reaction.

      • Crumpet says:

        There are multiple studies that show infants immune system can easily handle multiple vaccinations. Their immune systems are exposed to literally hundreds of antigens every day as it is – every time they put something in their mouth, their immune systems have to respond.

      • Absolutely says:

        But that still doesn’t keep them from adverse side effects. And there are side effects, they are just downplayed. Again, I’m not an anti-vaccine person. I just think we overdo it with some of them and don’t study the side effects enough because of the good they do.

      • Courtney says:

        In the 80’s I got 10. The schedule has 36 now. The vast majority of adults are not getting the 26 injections they need to become fully vaccinated under today’s schedule. And the effectiveness of the ones they did receive begins to wane as early as your 30’s (depending on the vaccine). Adults are unfairly benefiting from the herd immunity gained on the backs of infants and children.

        If I hear one more person say “my parents got me vaccinated”, I am going to scream. If the last time you had a vaccine your parents were still making your medical decisions THEN YOU ARE NOT FULLY VACCINATED! And these are not “childhood diseases” either! Hep A, Hep B, pneumonia, chicken pox, etc are transmitted by adults too! Many of those diseases are actually much more serious in adults than children.

      • Erinn says:

        Absolutely – but the thing is – if those side effects are coming from a reaction to a specific vaccine, they’re going to get them regardless of how spread out it is.

      • Timbuktu says:

        Courtney, if you’re a nurse, you should also know, that in the 80-s, vaccines were also more aggressive than they are now, so the overall impact today is probably more mild even though we have more vaccines.

      • Steph O says:

        @sensible PLEASE do not try to give your kids chicken pox in lieu of the vaccine. Kids who have had chicken pox can later get shingles, and that is no joke. It’s incredibly painful and can kill older or immunocompromised people.
        It blows my mind what people are willing to risk in order to avoid some vague concern about “too many” vaccines. If children’s immune systems couldn’t handle the current schedule, we would know by now, with all the vaccines being administered.

      • Jadzia says:

        Even plain old chicken pox is no joke. I have 3 kids who are vaccinated against it, and 2 younger ones who aren’t (the youngest was born in France, where they don’t vaccinate against c/p; the second youngest was so young when we moved here that she hadn’t had her c/p shots before we left the US).

        I have never had the chicken pox and had no idea how bad it can be. It hurt, seeing my babies so miserable when they were sick with it and feeling like I could have prevented it.

  10. Norman Bates' Mother says:

    I lost any last tiny bit of respect I had for him. I knew he was with Jenny McCarty for a long time but I never knew he was actively supporting her delusions. Was he previously open about this? It’s one thing when the regular John Doe does it and the other when someone famous drags their naive followers who’d rather listen to their uneducated ramblings than the actual scientists, with them. We had the same problems with various outbreaks in Poland and I blame it mostly for two dumb, rather famous musicians who organized a public anti-vax campaign in every possible magazine and breakfast show and after that the number of people refusing to vaccinate their children suddenly increased multiple times – from barely any to so many that it became dangerous.

  11. littlemissnaughty says:

    These people are f*cking dangerous and it’s not just the U.S. Apparently, Germany has had measles outbreaks as well and it makes me furious. Don’t these parents have anyone in their lives who is old enough to remember the bad old days when these diseases were still commonplace? Have they ever seen people suffering from long-term effects of polio?

    Where is the common sense? Find a middle ground. I don’t know the schedule in the U.S. but the one that is standard in Germany seems rather sensible. Yes, science makes mistakes and miscalculates. For example, since the late 90s babies aren’t vaccinated against tuberculosis anymore (in Germany, no idea about other countries) because it turned out the vaccines were crap. Vaccinate the children, damn it.

    • Sixer says:

      My mother’s brother died of whooping cough in infancy. My father’s sister died of scarlet fever in infancy. People are STUPID.

      • littlemissnaughty says:

        Nobody in my family on either side died, thankfully. But my mother’s uncle suffered from serious long-term effects from polio. My father – born in 1940’s Greece – and his siblings had every one of these diseases except polio. There were no vaccines, there wasn’t even food. Which made it worse of course and it’s a miracle none of the died. Not only are they not merely childhood diseases, they can kill, paralyze, have serious long-term effects and these viruses don’t just go away. Decades after my dad had chickenpox, he got shingles. I wasn’t born yet but my mom says she could barely look at him, he was in so much pain. I’m not saying vaccinate against chickenpox at all costs. I had them and I’m fine. But what is so hard about seeing the bigger picture and asking yourself WHY earlier generations were so focused on getting rid of these diseases? Yes, people are stupid.

      • Carmen says:

        Doctors recommend that everyone over 60 who has had chicken pox should get a shingles vaccine. I’ve seen older people suffering from shingles and they went through absolute hell.

    • embertine says:

      We in the UK had the same, littlemiss, a nasty outbreak in Wales that left one young man dead. And all because of MISTER Andrew Wakefield and his thirst to sell a his own vaccine patent. He’s on the short but select list of people I would cheerfully push into traffic.

  12. Burgher says:

    Jim, please go back to publicly creeping on Emma Stone… That Is more entertaining public embarrassment!

  13. Sixer says:

    It’s nuts. We do still have a few anti-vaxxers here in the UK, but not that many. However, we had a measles outbreak in Wales that was blamed on a concentration of anti-vaxxers a couple of years back. WHO say you need 95% coverage for elimination of disease. We’re at 92%-95% (they count the individual vaccines separately here).

    What’s the % in California and/or the US as a whole?

  14. khaveman says:

    Science is a b**ch, ain’t it? Sorry, but we don’t need a bunch of kids carrying diseases many laboratories and scientists worked hard for many years to wipe out/tame. Let’s not go backwards into the Stone Age. Modern America needs modern health programs. And it protects kids, so no brainer IMO.

    • Courtney says:

      As someone with a science background, that argument bothers me. Science and medicine are not infallible and are always evolving. The list of things we thought were safe at one point and now know better is a mile long. Anything we now know to be harmful (x-raying pregnant women’s abdomens for example), we once thought were safe until a lot of people were injured or died (in that example, the rise in pediatric cancers).

      If you were arguing that cigarettes were safe 60 years ago, you would’ve been correct as far as we knew at that time, but you wouldn’t have been *right*.

      • Esmom says:

        I don’t think khaveman said the science and medicine aren’t evolving. In fact I’d argue that she implied that it evolved to the point of eradicating a number of deadly diseases, which are making a comeback because of ill-informed anti-vaxxers. Do you really believe children shouldn’t be vaccinated? And why?

      • Courtney says:

        I do believe children should be vaccinated (mine is!), but that the decision should lie with the patient, parent and practioner. Especially because of what I do for work, I think it’s very counter productive to belittle parents who are questioning. The “anti-vaxxers are dumb because science” argument isn’t getting us very far.

      • Kiddo says:

        Enacting a law to protect OTHERS and, not just ”your” (meaning in general, not you) kid, is not belittling, It is setting standards. People can be exempted for certain medical conditions. People can arrange to scatter vaccinations, working in concert with doctors before they interact with others. The government enacts all kinds of laws that make people adhere to standards for everyone and not just what one person feels like doing. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be signs about restaurant workers washing their hands, or the health department investigating food born illness, because, well, people just wanted to what ever they wanted to do with their own hands and why should gov’t tell them what to do?. If you don’t wish to enjoy the benefits and adhere to standards in a very public environment, that helps to create a healthy atmosphere where you will be impacting others, then make that decision, but not for others. Keep the kids home-schooled. You are making a decision for others as to what their child can be exposed to. If a child is considered someone who can’t medically handle vaccinations, and you just didn’t feel like it, then you are making medical decisions (exposure to risk) for someone else and their child, by opting out. Plenty of schools already have the ability to send a child home if they are sent to school sick. This is the same kind of authority that seeks to accomplish a proactive stance before any child can get diseases that require them to be sent home.

  15. BengalCat2000 says:

    Omg, please STFU and Google images of children with these diseases! When these asshats start losing their children that $ can’t pay to save, then these obstinate Tools may finally get it.

  16. OSTONE says:

    Hilariously sad that you only needed a playmate and Ace Ventura for a ton of people to be 100% convinced vaccines are “evil” and is all “big pharma” behind it. Mind-blowing!

    • boredblond says:

      He’s still drinking the old kool-aid she left behind..

    • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

      There’s a lot of stuoid people in the world with idiot blowhards on the left and right.

    • holly hobby says:

      Don’t forget Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) and Kristen Cavalari Cutler! They spout that s—t too! All on my s—t list.

  17. Mary says:

    I have a cousin that is pretty anti-mainstream medicine. To my knowledge, her children are in fact vaccinated. However, she posts links upon links on Facebook about the government conspiracy to kill off all of the anti-vax people. And when news came out about the CA bill, she ranted on and on about it. The funny thing is, most of the links are to sites that are not even reputable news outlets. I just don’t understand people like that at all. If you come at them with facts, they just spout jibberish.

    • aenflex says:

      Kinda like creationists.

      • Duchess of Corolla says:

        Exactly! No foundations in reality at all.

      • Crumpet says:

        Now, let’s not drag religion into this! There are many Christians (myself included) who understand science well enough to know that evolution is a fact. We do not see creation and evolution as being mutually exclusive. Unfortunately we are drowned out by the silliness of the anti-facts creationists.

  18. Kate says:

    Vaccines do have risks, some quite serious (autism is obviously not among them) and for some children the vaccine schedule is too much. I had a very bad experience after a round of vaccinations as a child, and so did one of my children. My doctors and my children’s doctors never really went over risks, side effects etc. I was aware though, and when my child ended up in hospital for a week, while awful, it wasn’t a huge shock. I can easily see how parents who aren’t aware would be terrified and angry if faced with that, and how that could lead to them and others latching onto misinformation.

    Vaccines are absolutely amazing, essential things, but they aren’t perfect things or 100% safe things. I think part of the reason the anti-vaxers have become so prevalent is because we’ve gone too far telling people how great vaccines are, so all discussion of side effects and nasty reactions gets shut down as being ant-vax propaganda. People who have genuine concerns or negative experiences just get told they’re idiots. The conspiracy theorists are only emboldened by everyone circling the wagons to defend vaccinations. They get louder and regular people start turning to them because when they turn to us they’re treated like drooling morons.

    I completely sympathise with the desire to be angry with anti-vaxxers, but it achieves nothing. They just turn away even further. Wouldn’t it be better to have proper discussions about the pros and cons of vaccines, to educate people about what they actually are, what they do, how they work, instead of just shouting that they’re awesome and anyone who doesn’t think so is an idiot?

    • Duchess of Corolla says:

      I do think that education is the best way to deal with the anti-vaxxers, though I think it will be very hard to get some of them to open their eyes. Probably both sides of this argument would do well to take some deep breaths, and then try to discuss the topic rationally.

    • guest says:

      I absolutely agree with you Kate. It never hurts to keep the discussion open. I live in Canada and have a niece who is an RN. She vaccinates her children but spreads the vaccines out more instead of so many at once especially at such a young age. People tend to call anyone who doesn’t think like them an idiot. This only makes a bigger divide between people. Not everyone who disagrees with you is an extremist. I agree some are but not everyone is.

    • littlemissnaughty says:

      I only call people idiots if in fact I can’t talk to them because they throw conspiracy theories at me. If I lived in the U.S., I would seriously question why my baby needs to be vaccinated against any form of hepatitis at such an early age. I had the Hep A/B vaccination at 16 because my dad caught Hep B in the hospital (lovely). It HURT. But I once admitted that to an anti-vaccination nut and she immediately yelled “SEE! And now think about how bad all these others vaccines probably are.” Um, no. I don’t want measles or scarlet fever, thankyouverymuch.

      Disagreement is one thing. Let’s talk about it. Or better yet, let’s ask a medical professional. But as soon as someone thinks big pharma is out to kill babies, I’m done. I can’t help but be angry with them, they’re putting children in danger. And not just their own, which would be bad enough.

      • Slow down there says:

        There is no scarlet fever vaccine. Scarlet fever is a strep infection treated with antibiotics.
        And the OP Kate is correct in explaining some of my feelings. I have honest concerns (read a package insert, really look into adverse reactions) and have been met with nothing short of hatred, bullying, and name-calling. I’ve lost friends over this because people get SO rabid about the issue, so I’ve learned to keep my mouth closed. I don’t know why I’m even doing this now.
        If you believe in science so much then we (people like me) should be able to get our questions answered and not just swept under the rug while being called idiots.

      • littlemissnaughty says:

        “There is no scarlet fever vaccine. Scarlet fever is a strep infection treated with antibiotics.” I meant mumps, sorry. But even so, that is what you focused on first?

        I’m not sure if you think we disagree here because it sounds like you think we do but if you read what I wrote, we do not. But if someone told me they are strictly anti-vaccine, I don’t know why I should even have a discussion. There’s NO common ground to start from. And I don’t believe it’s the people who advertise vaccines who are to blame here. I have never heard of a doctor who refuses to hear parents’ concerns. If one does, find a better one. This whole thing started with one quack who made things up. He made it up for god’s sake.

        I don’t call anyone who is willing to have a serious discussion an idiot. Someone who listens to a so-called doctor who wrote a fairy tale instead of a paper? Yeah, sorry.

      • MinnFinn says:

        slowdown there – If your doctor does not patiently and respectfully answer all your questions about vaccine risk data, I hope you shop around for someone who does.

        It’s good to exchange ideas and ask questions of friends, family and online about this important issue and I’m sorry you have been berated. But an M.D. is the only person who has sufficient education to properly answer your questions so don’t bypass that person as they should also be the one who influences your decisions about vaccines more than anyone else.

      • Slow down there says:

        Ten years ago when my first was born the pediatrician questioned and threatened me when I asked simple questions (and at that point still fully vaccinating but I was only asking for a delayed schedule that would have her completely vaccinated by like age 4). I knew I needed to find someone who could have a civil conversation with me, so I left that practice almost immediately. Soon after, I found a local family practice doctor that completely respects my decisions. We’ve had a number of lengthy conversations on the topic throughout the years. She (and the other doctor in the practice) has said that they support vaccination 100%, but it all comes down to the risks you are willing to take on. We’ve worked together for years as a team when it comes to my children’s health. When my daughter was hospitalized at 19 months (no vaccine available for the illness she had) my doctor was in my corner telling the nurses to back off of me. She fights for me and my choice.
        Re: LittleMiss… if you admit to calling people you disagree with idiots, then maybe you should get the facts straight when you go to make a point. A mistake/misspeaking is one thing (I get it), but there are people out there that think there’s a scarlet fever vaccine (and other completely false things), and they’re the ones calling me the idiot (please, I’m not saying *you* called me an idiot, yet, lol). I really don’t like name-calling. It accomplishes nothing but disrespect while closing minds.

      • boredblond says:

        There are no easy answers because there are no absolutes when it comes to drugs..I was given oxycontin after a surgery, and in minutes all my alarms went off, and nurses slapped an oxygen mask on me..you don’t know how something will affect you until it does..but sometimes you just have to go with the odds and the science

      • littlemissnaughty says:

        @ Slow down there: Again, we were not disagreeing so I’m not sure what your issue is. Except “name calling”. If you truly, honestly do not think that there are idiots in this world, please, cast the first stone. These people I’m talking about don’t disagree on opinions or on details. They’re not willing to talk or educate themselves or form an opinion based on facts. They basically run around and tell us that science and research and pretty much the entire world of (western) medicine is full of it. They know better because … well, I don’t know why. If somebody, in this day and age, had been shown all the evidence that we live in fact on a planet but was adamant that it is actually flat, you would not think they’re an idiot? Really? Because you’re too polite? Fine, you’re nicer than I am. But if someone who knowingly and willfully puts other people at risk like that can do it without consequences for themselves? I do not need to be nice. At all. Their minds couln’t possibly be closed further on this issue.

        And btw., name calling isn’t the only way to be rude. I don’t mind you telling me to “get my facts straight” when I already explained that I misspoke. Because rudeness doesn’t immediately offend me. But if you’re this sensitive to it when it’s not even directed at you, you may want to abandon the notion that only name calling is impolite.

      • Slow down there says:

        1. Oh, of course there’s idiots out there. Idiots, idiots everywhere! I just don’t engage with them. I stay in my closet and I smile and nod and say things like “oh, I’ll keep that in mind!” (plastered smile on my face) when I absolutely have to talk to an idiot.
        2. Are we talking about the shape of the Earth or vaccines? (Let’s not talk about either! LOL)
        3. Name-calling over vaccines has personally affected me for years, so yes, I am sensitive to it. My SIL doesn’t want to have a relationship with me while she and her friends name-call me online. I’ve seriously lost friends over this. I know this has *nothing* to do with you. I’ve just personally dealt with a lot of crap through the years and I’m just so over being called an idiot (again, not by you!)
        4. Sorry if I was rude, it wasn’t my intention. I felt like I explained myself with the surrounding text that it really isn’t about you, personally.

    • mitop says:

      good comment. One of my friends is a doctor and she too spread the vaccines out more. If you look at different countries (Canada, France, England, etc.) and compare them to the US no two countries have the same vaccination schedule.

    • cr says:

      “Vaccines are absolutely amazing, essential things, but they aren’t perfect things or 100% safe things. ”
      This is true. And in On Immunity, Eula Biss points out that out, but also points that humans don’t do risk assessment very well, the risks of vaccines vs. the risk of not getting them. I understand being sympathetic/empathetic toward parents who are worried about the effects of vaccines: reactions, schedules, etc. But there is also a point to which, without evidence to back them up, should they be able to has this much effect on public health.
      And there’s also a question of how persuadable anti-vaxxers are :

      So as a rational person, you might think it would be of the utmost importance to try to talk some sense into these people. But there’s a problem: According to a major new study in the journal Pediatrics, trying to do so may actually make the problem worse. The paper tested the effectiveness of four separate pro-vaccine messages, three of which were based very closely on how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself talks about vaccines. The results can only be called grim: Not a single one of the messages was successful when it came to increasing parents’ professed intent to vaccinate their children. And in several cases the messages actually backfired, either increasing the ill-founded belief that vaccines cause autism or even, in one case, apparently reducing parents’ intent to vaccinate.
      Click here for more on vaccine-dodging parents.

      The study, by political scientist Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College* and three colleagues, adds to a large body of frustrating research on how hard it is to correct false information and get people to accept indisputable facts.

      http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effect

    • Courtney says:

      The current schedule is crazy. Practioners should be having a more two sided conversation about vaccines with their patients, if we want to a) provide quality care and b) restore patients faith in vaccines.

      It doesn’t take long to ask about family history with allergies, vaccine reactions, health of a the child, and any issues during pregnancy. Or to explain adverse reactions and what to watch out for, or that the best way to protect your child is to make sure you and the child’s caretakers are actually fully vaccinated as well.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        It would be great if doctors gathered family vaccination records for all members and shared copies with parents. I wonder if part of the problem in the USA is the split between pediatricians-for-kids and GPs/internists for adults.

        Electronic records could also improve this situation if they develop a standard visual interface to help spot the gaps in the vaccination record.

        Someone get on it!

    • Kiddo says:

      Good comment Kate. I stated above that I thought the adverse effects should be covered more in the media (hopefully by someone who fully understands and can articulate) and that studies should be conducted to ID the population who is most likely to suffer adverse side effects.

  19. Dez says:

    Jim Jim Jim…you might look into the plastics that are used for baby bottles instead of this. Plastic changes its property when heated and seeps out BPA. The U.S. Finally has gotten with the program a few years ago and banned it but is not heavily Inforced, thats why we have BPA free plastics but who knows what other chemicals are being produce other than BPA. Jim corn has been modify to the point that is not good for you, wheat bread also has been modified its not Jesus wheat bread….cows, chicken etc. I could go on forever about this jimmy. Anyone that has taken a toxicology or biology class in college is aware of all the crap that hurts us that are in every day foods and things we use to store, cook these foods with. Bottle water is the enemy Jim not vaccines.

    • Crumpet says:

      Just about everyone of us has a BPA load because they have been so widely used in so many things (and still are).

      “The 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found detectable levels of BPA in 93% of 2517 urine samples from people six years and older.”

      https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/

    • pinetree13 says:

      Yeah but there aren’t many known plastisizers. In fact, the only alternative widely used in “BPA free” products is bisphenol-B. Which they actually are now starting to think might be WORSE than BPA. So basically, you’re just as screwed with BPA free. All you can do is use glass instead where you can but that leaves us out of luck on a lot of items. Even magazine pages and receipts contain BPA. :S

      • Kiddo says:

        Pinetree, some of the glass and can items are rinsed with plastic as well. PBS did a horrifying story on this a few years back. One result was the feminization of male frogs.

  20. Belle Epoch says:

    The “corporate” angle is big with anti-vaxxers. They are PARANOID and think immunizations are all a plot to make Big Pharma rich. Babies ARE dying of these preventable diseases, but it always seems to be some poor family exposed to anti-vaxxers, who truly don’t give a da*n if YOUR child dies. They are terrifying in their ignorance and entitlement.

    PS Mexico has mandatory vaccinations for the whole country!

    • Duchess of Corolla says:

      I knew someone who truly believed that the government was trying to control people through the use of vaccines…as though they were some sort of mind-controlling substances. It is amazing what some people believe, and how powerfully they cling to those ideas.

    • Faith says:

      The amount of times you try to explain to someone how vaccines are important, in the UK part of our exams we had to study the MMR vaccine and its affects, and the effect Dr Wakefield left after spreading so much bullshit. You try to explain this to someone and you’re suddenly on Big Pharma’s side.

    • pinetree13 says:

      I would like to point out that ‘big pharma’ would make a lot more money on your vast consumption of different drugs if you were to contract some of these diseases (pain killers, anti-virals, anti-inflammatories, etc) then they would make off the one measly vaccine.

      If it was all about money ‘big pharma’ wouldn’t push vaccines at all.

  21. MinnFinn says:

    I suppose California will not be sharing its data on what percentage of outbreaks arise from in-school contact. I know pockets of CA have low vax rates due to bad science propaganda, but the U.S. needs a lot of improvement in educating and making vaccines readily available to our newest immigrants. That’s because the behavioral risk data indicate that international travelers (tourists and more so legal immigrants who recently visited their native country) are a significant source of outbreaks.

    • RobN says:

      I agree with you about the info for immigrants, but many of the anti-vaccine pockets in CA are actually among the wealthiest and most highly educated groups. Wealthy suburbs around San Francisco and LA have incredibly low rates. There was a local news story a few months back that compared the rates to areas of Africa, and we had lower rates.

      My mother had polio, and likes to point out that one good polio outbreak will change this conversation forever. A few kids in the modern equivalent of the iron lung and people are going to see this differently.

      • MinnFinn says:

        IKR! It’s a crazy world where certain people with resources for superior health care and education about health latch onto pseudo science.

        Sorry to hear about your mother. People like her should do some PSAs that target the anitvaxers. My neighbor is late 60’s and she has polio. She got sick from one of the last outbreaks which I think was mid 1950s here in the US.

    • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

      I know that immigrant does not always mean Latino or Mexican but since you’re speaking immigrants in California I just want to say Mexico specifically has required vaccinations. They have a higher rate of vaccinated people than we do. This isn’t immigrants.

      This is conscious uncoupling good ol’ flaxseed and sunshine Mothers at the upper level of economy and education. These are women with resources who are convincing themselves of the narrative that allows them to not vaccinate their kids.

      • MinnFinn says:

        Yes. I should have included more info in my original post. The biggest factor among tourists and immigrants bringing preventable diseases into the US is a recent trip to Asia or Africa.

    • Who ARE these people? says:

      In Ontario, Canada, a public-health nurse told me that newcomers are the first to line up for vaccinations. Many have seen the consequences in their home countries of inadequate public health programs. And most of them are educated people, too, due to the nature of the Canadian immigration program.

  22. Boston Green Eyes says:

    Just curious – if I was vaccinated as a child (many, many moons ago) would I be susceptible to these diseases? I don’t have any immunity problems and am very healthy.

    • El says:

      There have been studies that show immunity can decrease with time for both vaccinated individuals and those who contracted the disease. I think it varies by disease and is linked to us reducing the disease so that he immune system is not exposed to it again. DTAP is recommended every 10 years.

      • Boston Green Eyes says:

        I’m allergic to the DTAP vaccine. I got the shot when I was 16 and broke out with hives. Now I can’t get vaccinated. I was bit by a dog around 12 years ago and the hospital and the CDC kept going back and forth with each other to see what should be done. They decided that I wouldn’t get the shot as a dog bite doesn’t usually make one susceptible to tetanus. God forbid I step on a nail or get a really bad scratch from an outdoor cat!

    • NUTBALLS says:

      BGE, They don’t really know when the protection wanes so they try and play it safe by saying every 10 years or whatever the schedule is. Interestingly, some diseases like chickenpox are actually more harmful to teens and adults than they are with children. If you get chickenpox as an adult, you’re more at risk of being hospitalized — it’s harder on the body.

      I tried to expose my 3YO son to chickenpox the old fashioned way so he’d get the full-set of antibodies (which you don’t from the vaccine) and he must have already been exposed since he was sucking on lollipops from girls with open sores and didn’t show one sign of disease in the weeks that followed.

      Chickenpox is the one I see as more a money-maker for Big Pharma than a necessary-for-public-health vaccine. It keeps parents from taking a week off of work, but most kids can handle chickenpox just fine and they don’t need boosters later if they get the disease outright.

      • MinnFinn says:

        Nutballs – What did you consider when you decided that exposing your child to chicken pox was better than the vaccine?

        Having chicken pox guarantees the possibility that a person could later have shingles. About 1/3 of adults get shingles.

        The chicken pox vaccine guards against chicken pox and also getting shingles later on.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        And people approaching age 60 can consider the shingles vaccine. Its effectiveness isn’t yet 100% and it may be best injected cold from the fridge like a nice cold beer, but it at least is found to mitigate the symptoms of shingles.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        Minnfinn, not necessarily. Any exposure to the varicella virus that leaves it latent in the nerve cells (natural or otherwise) will increase the risk of acquiring shingles. Thankfully, there’s a vaccine that’s very effective against shingles.

      • MinnFinn says:

        nutballs – Do you have any links for your info?

        CDC says this:
        the risk of getting shingles from vaccine-strain VZV after chickenpox vaccination is much lower than getting shingles after natural infection with wild-type VZV.

        and

        shingles vaccine – reduced the overall incidence of shingles by 51% and the incidence of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) by 67%

        Given this data, by opting in to chicken pox, you increased your kid’s chance of getting shingles if we factor in the current efficacy of the shingles vaccine.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        Minnfinn, you are assuming that the CDC is not under the influence of politics and ideology like every other government institution. There are billions of dollars at stake when it comes to vaccines and pharmaceutical companies have as many reasons to ensure that their vaccines are mandatory.

        My question for the CDC is what is the proof that the vaccine leads to lowered risk of shingles? Do they reference studies that reasonably conclude that it’s safer than acquiring the antibodies through the natural process?

        I ask this because the vaccine was introduced only 20 years ago, so there wouldn’t be any solid scientific data to affirm the statement that the risk of shingles is lower with the vaccine. The kids who have received the vaccine wouldn’t be old enough to prove it’s effectiveness against shingles since shingles hits seniors primarily. Those who are getting shingles would be old enough to have had chicken pox as a child. Since the risk of shingles increases the older you get, the fact that we are living longer would account for the higher percentage of shingles cases as well.

        I’m not against vaccines, but I’m very wary of using unnatural processes to deal with diseases that are not particularly serious. The human body has an extremely complex immune system that is made to deal with disease. If nutrition, hygiene and sanitation are appropriate for good health, the body will actually get stronger by encountering many of these pathogens, not weaker. This is one of the problems with our hyper-cleansing these days — we’ve actually made ourselves more susceptible to disease by not exposing ourselves to germs.

        I don’t think there’s easy answers to this and I hear the arguments on both sides and understand the fears that can fuel each. Good parents want to do what’s right by their kids and for a small minority, there is concerns about putting synthetic materials into their young, developing children and they don’t feel it’s worth the risk. At the same time, most feel the risks are far outweighed by the benefits and are understandably angry at said parents reducing the herd immunity and increasing the risk of outbreaks. It’s a passionate subject and I did what I felt was right by my son and if he doesn’t acquire it naturally in the next few years, plan to give him the varicella vaccine due to the risks of complication if he gets chickenpox as a teen or adult.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        1st US measles death reported today in a woman who was not elderly. She did have other health problems, but she died of measles. These diseases are not “not particularly serious” for all who get them.

        As for “unnatural processes” to help prevent disease, vaccination is one of the most natural things in biology. You expose someone to a bit of disease antigen to stimulate the immune system to produce sufficient antibodies to prevent the development of full-blown disease. Whether the vaccine is live or killed, we still inject natural proteins into people to help them produce the antibodies that will protect them in the future.

        Polio and smallpox didn’t come from people being hyper-hygienic. They came from polio and smallpox viruses that hopped into human hosts. Queen Elizabeth I had smallpox — and folks back then were none too clean.

        Measles, mumps and rubella circulated freely in times when children ran around and played in the dirt and ate all kinds of things off the floor.

        The shingles vaccine is not given to infants or young children; it is given to people in late middle-age so 20 years is plenty of time to track its effectiveness in a prospective study. In addition, its release for use in humans is preceded by clinical trials which are preceded by laboratory research, first “bench science” developing the vaccine in the lab, then testing it in infected lab animals. This is what Jonas Salk did with the polio virus and the man and his team deserved every bit of love that they got.

        TLC should atone for showing the Duggars by returning to its educational roots and broadcasting programs explaining how viruses and vaccines work. Every damn night for a year.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        It’s well known that measles is a more serious disease in adults than in children, as is the chickenpox. Unless a child is immunocompromised, it is typically a mild disease. Since we’re talking specifically about children, my comments were about them in particular.

        I disagree with you that it’s a “natural” process. There are synthetic components and the way vaccines interact with the immune system is different than when confronted with the viruses naturally. I’m not saying it isn’t worth doing, but it’s certainly not a natural process. We’re using science to intervene with a very complex system that we don’t understand inside and out, so there are risks that have to be weighed. In today’s environment of eating whole, natural, organic foods and taking the less invasive approach to our health issues, such as chiropractic or acupuncture, it doesn’t surprise me that some are taking that approach with their kids’ health in seeking to boost their immunity and do fewer or vaccinations or delay or space them out a bit.

        Shingles is recommended here in the US for those over 60 because the longer the varicella virus stays latent in the cells, the greater the risk of getting shingles. While those younger can and do get it, they are the minority which may be why we don’t see a push for those of us under 60 to get it as of yet.

        I think I’ve made it clear in my various comments that I’m not against vaccination, but do understand the concerns of parents who don’t want to be forced into doing something that does have risks associated with it. I don’t think it causes autism, but the fact that the US Gov’t set up the vaccine court in anticipation of vaccine-related injuries tells me those risks are real.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        I forgot to mention that the way in which your body encounters the pathogen is not natural either. There is a different immune system process when the pathogen is injected directly into your bloodstream than when it’s brought into the body via one of the orifices, as pathogens usually are introduced. The process “short-circuits” the full immune system response which may help to explain why you can still get the disease even if you’re immunized against it.

        Again, not railing against vaccines, just that it’s not a natural process. The fact that I have a smallpox vaccine scar and that it was eradicated worldwide in 1980 speaks to the vaccine’s effectiveness, I think.

      • MinnFinn says:

        nutballs -To recap. My question was how did you decide your child would be better off with natural chicken pox plus an elevated risk of shingles later in life vs chicken pox vaccination with lowered risk of shingles later in life?

        And I think your answer is
        1. you don’t trust the CDC’s politically and big pharma tainted research data that the chicken pox vaccine reduces the incidence and severity of future shingles cases
        2. “naturally” acquired antigens to chicken pox are better than those acquired from the vaccine
        3. you do trust certain research data re: effectiveness of certain vaccines but not chicken pox

      • Absolutely says:

        What nut is saying is that there is no concrete data yet to determine whether the chickenpox vaccine in childhood prevents shingles later in life. The vaccine has not been around long enough to determine that data, since shingles usually happens past the age of 60. I’m not even 40, and when I was vaccinated they didn’t have that yet. I don’t think it was around until the 90’s? So we do not know yet if these 20 something’s are going to have a decreased risk of shingles. I’m sure it’s the theory, but it hasn’t been proven.

        I believe her point was also that chickenpox is not a typically fatal or even high impact disease in a normal child. Not like measles or polio.

        I haven’t vaccinated my child for hep b. They aren’t at risk for it. Why am I going to give them unnecessary vaccines? My child already medically stumped their doctors with a reaction to 4 month vaccines. I did the ones that were necessary. I’m not doing the voluntary ones.

    • Courtney says:

      The vaccine schedule in the 80’s called for 10. It’s now 36. Basically the only fully vaccinated adults over 30 are health care workers and some international travelers.

      • Starrywonder says:

        Oh my goodness not true.

        All soldiers are fully vaccinated as are most people who work for the U.S. government. It’s a requirement for most jobs.

        Also most college age teens are since a lot of schools do require you to submit your shot chart prior to starting university.

      • Courtney says:

        @starrywonder

        From CDC study a few years ago:
        64.2% up to date on tetanus
        20% pneumonia
        14.2% Tdap
        12.2% Hep A
        34.5% HPV
        20.1% shingles

        Since the effectiveness of vaccines begins to wane in your 30’s, even a current shot chart would not be enough to prove full vaccination in older patients.

  23. Prim says:

    My children are vaccinated. My son regressed into Autism at 21 months. I don’t believe it had anything to do with being vaccinated. There are however, many many parents of children with Regressive Autism that firmly believe they lost their children to Autism because of vaccination.

    These parents will never vaccinate any other children they may have and they will fight against vaccination in every way possible.

    Until the cause of Regressive Autism is discovered, this situation will not change and there is nothing you can say that will change the mind of a parent who believes their child has been vaccine-injured. I know because I know many of those parents.

    • NUTBALLS says:

      I know people with autistic kids who didn’t begin vaccinating until after 3YO or not at all. The fact that autism tends to show itself after 18 months — right at the time they’re getting a bunch of vaccinations — contributes to the confusion of cause and effect, imo.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        Right on. Autism appears at a particular key stage in brain development, when kids ordinarily start showing more sophisticated social communication and fuller pragmatic language. But it’s likely that the problem in the brain is already there, latent until the processes that it impairs start to develop.

    • Scarlet Vixen says:

      I am friends with a couple that convinced me when I was pregnant with my son to not vaccinate because “vaccinations cause autism.” This was before that theory had been debunked, and they showed me several websites/articles that supposedly proved their point. This was my first child, I was naïve and feeling overwhelmed with all the mommy advice, and I hadn’t been vaccinated as a child due to my parents’ religious preferences, so I was convinced (I did change my mind after a few months and did a ‘delayed schedule’ so my son was fully vaccinated by school age). Fast forward several years, and they now have FIVE unvaccinated children who ALL have autism and a myriad of other conditions. Have they changed their minds on vaccinations? Nope. Vaccinations are still evil (as are processed foods, bottled water, pasteurized milk, gluten, etc etc etc). And these are well-educated, intelligent parents who genuinely mean well as parents. I don’t get it.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        Both sides use fear to push their agenda. The biggest advance in eradicating serious diseases wasn’t vaccinations, but improved sanitation, hygiene and nutrition which is why vaccines are critical in nations that don’t have a good public health infrastructure in place.

      • Kiddo says:

        Handwashing and hygiene infrastructure and knowledge were all well under way when polio became an epidemic.

      • cr says:

        Vaccines vs. hygiene:

        “Vaccines didn’t save us! After all, death rates were declining years before the vaccine, and they were declining for the diseases that didn’t even need a vaccine!

        Death rates.

        Here’s the problem. It’s not surprising that death rates were declining before introduction of the vaccines. Medicine was improving. More importantly, supportive care was improving. For example, take the case of polio. Before the introduction of the iron lung and its widespread use, for example, if a polio patient developed paralysis of the respiratory muscles, he would almost certainly die. The iron lung allowed such patients to live. Some even survived in an iron lung for decades. No doubt improved nutrition also played a role as well. However, if you want to get an idea of the impact of vaccines on infectious disease, take a look at this graph from the CDC of measles incidence, not death rates:”

        https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/vaccines-didnt-save-us-intellectual-dishonesty-at-its-most-naked/

        http://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccine-myths-debunked/

  24. Skyblue says:

    My uncle had polio as a child and for as long as I knew him he used crutches to walk and my cousin’s ex husband had mumps as a child and was left sterile from it . No, neither man died but vaccinations could have prevented the devastating long term effects. Vaccinate!!!!!

  25. Giddy says:

    Anti-vaxxers are the current equivalent of a flat earth society: ignoring all scientific evidence and doctors’ advice. It particularly angers me because my older brother had polio when he was five years old. It was before I was born, but I have heard the stories, and know that he was one of the “lucky” ones who was able to come home after spending three months in a polio ward in the hospital. After years of painful physical therapy my brother was able to walk normally. I don’t have the words to express my disdain for the anti-vaxxers. I consider it child abuse to not protect their own children and criminal to endanger others.

    I live in Austin, and just this week a large pediatric group announced that they would be dropping as patients all children whose parents refused to get them vaccinated. They felt it was not right to expose their other patients to the unvaccinated children. If more doctors would take this stance this foolishness will end. As for Jim Carrey, the day I would follow any washed up celibrity’s medical advice will never come.

    • MinnFinn says:

      Good for the doctors taking a stand. That should be a standard of care that patient advocacy groups will probably have to drive. You’ve given me the idea that I need to ask my own clinic if they have such a policy. And now that it’s possible to use DNA analysis to determine who was the source of an outbreak, there is the potential for a patient to sue their doctor if they catch a preventable disease from a sick antivaxer in the waiting room.

      If enough people put pressure on their healthcare providers to disclose their policy for protecting vaccinated patients from the antivaxers, perhaps things would change at a faster pace.

    • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

      I’d love it if more things like that happened.

      People can believe whatever stupid thing floats their boat and yes sadly some people’s kids will die from their parents ego and arrogance. That doesn’t mean we as a society have to allow them to harm others because we don’t want to outright call ignorance for what it is.

    • renee28 says:

      When I was in elementary school I had an older teacher who suffered from polio as a child. His legs were severely deformed and he struggled to walk even with braces and crutches. I don’t know why anyone would want to risk bringing that back. It’s not some minor illness.

    • Courtney says:

      Those doctors are terrible at being doctors! As a FNP, I should demand all my patients get the flu shot or I’ll kick them out. That would a) not go over well and b) make me a shitty FNP. A schedule that is rigidly imposed, treats all children and vaccines as if they are the same, and is carried out by those who would demean, bully, or kick out a patient are doomed to fail.

      • Giddy says:

        I don’t agree. These doctors are considering the good of their patients and protecting them from unvaccinated children. They did make an allowance for children who could not have vaccinations for medical reasons. This ban applies to patients whose parents claim they don’t want vaccinations as a matter of conscience or religion.

      • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

        So talk to your doctor about it, make arrangements to see if it can be spaced out, read case studies to see what actual science tells you about the nature of current vaccin administration.

        You however want one flaw in the system to be an excuse for why you shouldn’t have to adhere to something that saves lives as well as want other people who do value their health not to try to protect it. It doesn’t work that way. If a parent does choose and adamantly believes that they don’t want their child vaccinated in spite of anything a doctor tells them then the doctor has to make the tough decision to pursue public health over parent ego. Doctors don’t just treat the perfectly healthy kids. Hospitals are already tough for immune compromised kids without knowingly letting them be around the unvaccinated.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        How is practicing good evidence-based medicine bullying or demeaning?

        Why don’t you care as much about childhood vaccination as you do about adult vaccination?

        Let’s give kids a chance to grow up to be healthy adults first.

  26. mitop says:

    I don’t get anti-vaxxers. however my friend, a doctor, says that she’s pissed at her profession because they let the autism-vaccine study even get published in the first place.

    the same people who published the autism-vaccine study later came back and said, “sorry we were wrong before. BUT you can trust us NOW.”

    it’s like WTF all around.

    • cr says:

      When I first read the article, the fact that the sample size was only 12 children was a warning sign. Never mind his own biases.
      How it got accepted and published in The Lancet is still a mystery.

    • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

      Yeah they really screwed themselves on that one.

  27. Jaded says:

    I’m a 62 year old who within the last few years came down with pertussis (adult form of whooping cough) and shingles (adult form of chicken pox) and in each case had to sequester myself from the world for 2 weeks on major meds, very ill and in terrible pain. These and many other preventable diseases are much more dangerous for adults and especially the elderly. This happened because vaccines tend to wear off once a person hits about 50 AND because these diseases are making a come-back due to the anti-vax nutters.

    So thanks to the idiotic fringe faction who refuse to vaccinate their kids – you are responsible for the current resurgence of completely preventable diseases.

    • Courtney says:

      You got it because you were no longer immune. Like most adults because no one is getting boosters, titers, or new vaccines. Immunity starts to wane as early as your 30’s. But keep blaming the small minority of anti-vaxx parents when statistically we know the problem is people just like you: unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated adults, the real “anti-vaxxers”.

      • Jaded says:

        Courtney, I was NOT unvaccinated or poorly vaccinated. Immunity starts to wane in later years, not your thirties. Furthermore there have been unprecedented outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, polio, etc. among schools and religious communities in Canada, where I live, spreading into the general population. Many of these children are not vaccinated, and as worldwide outbreaks escalate, travelers are bringing these diseases into a vulnerable general population. I cite several articles here proving my point:

        http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/b-c-measles-outbreak-reveals-vulnerability-of-unvaccinated-children-1.2585457

        http://www.cdc.gov/mumps/hcp.html

        http://www.wakehealth.edu/Health-Central/NMR/Adult-Immunization/

        Please get your facts straight before blaming people like me for the outbreaks.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        Un-vaccinated or poorly vaccinated adults aren’t “anti-vaxxers,” they are more like “under-vaxxers” likely due to lack of awareness/under-education, changing doctors, lost or unclear records, doctors who don’t think about it or take the time, etc. But this is a separate issue from the problem of un-vaccinated children.

      • Starrywonder says:

        Do you read anything are or you going to keep trying to cloak things in that it’s adults that are the problem and kids need to run around totally unvaccinated since that is the kind of logic that I really love with anti-vaxxers.

      • renee28 says:

        You keep saying the same thing over and over again. Clearly, you think under vaccinated adults are the only problem here. I don’t know where you live but adults are often reminded to get boosters where I live. It’s also required for a lot of professions. I’ve had several myself.

      • holly hobby says:

        Courtney-

        I’ve been reading all your comments ad nauseum and really adults and children are two separate issues. This bill is about children avoiding all those diseases that used to happen in my parents’ era (polio, mumps, small pox). Not about undervaccinated adults. I’m sorry but I don’t see a surge of adults getting these diseases in the workplace. The Disneyland debacle affected CHILDREN. That’s what this bill is intended to prevent – the deaths of CHILDREN.

        Yes you tell us you’re qualified to spout what is akin to an anti-vax stance because you’re a “nurse practitioner.” However you must be in the minority because I’ve spoken to many medical professionals and not one suggests what you are saying.

    • Who ARE these people? says:

      Sorry to hear you got so sick. Yup, it seems the needles never end. Here’s the recommended schedule for adult boosters from the NIH.
      http://nihseniorhealth.gov/healthscreeningsandimmunizations/recommendedimmunizationsforadults50/01.html

    • Courtney says:

      I’m a FNP at look at charts all day. And the CDC says the adult population is not meeting vaccination goals. And I’m fully vaccinated as is my child. And I’m not anti-vaxx, just pro common sense. Blaming a small percentage of anti-vaxx parents when the vast majority of adults are not up to date does not make sense. The sheer, verifiable numbers support this. Focusing the vaccine conversation on children will not help anyone.

      • Giddy says:

        Except that this particular vaccine conversation is about children. You are the only one who insists on trying to make it about adults.

      • Courtney says:

        I’m making it about adults because that is statically where the problem lies.

        It’s as bad as talking to anti-vaxxers. No amount of data will convince people that adult vaccination rates are low enough to cause concern and that despite the rhetoric, children’s vaccination rates are still very good.

      • Jaded says:

        Courtney, the problem does not start with adults, Statistically it starts with unvaccinated children who are vulnerable to all sorts of contagious diseases that make their way around the world due to the ease of international travel. All it takes is one person infected with rubella entering another country for it to spread to children whose parents have the misguided idea that inoculations are evil. A vaccinated adult is safe until about 50 then needs revaccination. A child without vaccines is a walking time-bomb for decades. Please stop blaming adults for this.

  28. Kathy says:

    Heres the thing that fries me. There are a few children that are injured by vaccines. But the vaccine makers are not held liable and instead the families go to vaccine court. I get that they have to weed out the fakers. But the stories I’ve heard and read about just how those families get treated horribly and have to fight for every item…it’s really upsetting. The children are already damaged by something that everyone keeps saying is perfectly safe and to have to constantly fight for treatment to be covered and get stalled, ignored, rejected (for something as simple as diapers)…it seems very wrong.

    I wish this would be highlighted so reforms could happen.
    http://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/12/22/us/politics/ap-us-vaccine-court.html?referrer=

    • wr says:

      No one’s claiming vaccines are perfectly safe. When my kids were vaccinated I was given a list of possible side effects. There’s a risk of side effects when vaccinating yes. But it’s far more dangerous to not vaccinate. I almost died from measles when I was a baby and had to be hospitalized. The doctors said I was lucky to survive. I was too young to receive a vaccine when I caught the disease. People who don’t vaccinate to protect their own kids from rare side effects are creating greater dangers for their own kids and everyone else.

    • Jelly says:

      A thousand percent vaccines aren’t totally safe. I knew a little autistic kid whose parents settled quietly out of court with the vaccine company. This happens all the time. Like the hallucinations my infant nephew got after one of his boosters that were nightmarish and violent. Luckily, he was fine after a couple of days. We should be changing the formula and making them safer – not having this idiotic “anti-vaxer” debate. The middle road, people! Its not just the (now ‘lowered’) amount of mercury, its the aluminum, the bits of still-active disease and the animal dna in vaccines too. Where do you think all this dementia is coming from? We don’t know, but there’s a strong aluminum link. All of this directly shot into the veins of a completely vulnerable human being. Would you shoot ‘just a tiny bit’ of coffee, soda pop or cheeto into your 6 month old? The schedules should for sure be amended, its too much, too young. I’m pro-vaccines, but not the way we do it now…

      • Nanea says:

        Have you ever eaten a tunafish sandwich, Jelly? There’s your strong aluminium link.

        Vaccines are injected into the muscles, not into veins.

        Oh, and science doesn’t do middle road. It’s either yes or no.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        The whole point of “still active” disease is that it stimulates an immune response that is sufficient to prevent full-on vulnerability to the disease. No, we don’t inject children with tiny bits of coffee or cheetohs because those are not antigens.

        Biology class people, biology class.

    • NUTBALLS says:

      The government puts the financial burden of vaccine – related injuries on us, not Big Pharma. A portion of the cost of each vaccine goes into this fund.

      I’m not anti-vax, but I am concerned that Big Pharma lobbyists are using fear to sell their products — products that are unnatural and make them a sh*t load of money. They’re not being held accountable for problems that arise from vaccinations and parents are pressured into more aggressive vaccination schedules. Parents should have the option of weighing the risks and benefits as not all the diseases being vaccinated are serious, life threatening ones.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        Much as I detest the profit-taking of Big Pharma, it’s not making big bucks off vaccines. They do it because they have the infrastructure to make vaccines in the quantities needed in a controlled environment, that’s about it. Hate them for other reasons, but not for this one. We can’t make these vaccines on our own in our kitchens.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        Actually, we don’t know the profit margins because they do not publish them. R&D, manufacturing, trials to test efficacy, and distribution costs for specific vaccines and drug products are not public. Analysts peg the profits at anywhere from 10% – 40%. I do know that their profit margins are high like they are in Big Oil, so yes, the few companies making vaccines do have monetary reasons to see them made mandatory.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        And seat-belt manufacturers have a vested interest in car manufacturers being required by law to install seat belts. So? They still save lives.

      • Absolutely says:

        I’m with you, nut. There needs to be more research in how to make them safer and accountability when things go wrong. I’m sure there are a lot that are not reported as well. My child’s wasn’t. Luckily his reaction went away after about 6 months, but other children aren’t so lucky. And no one will ever admit (especially doctors and big pharma) that vaccines can cause adverse reactions. It always seems to be a “coincidence”.

  29. hellena says:

    Have you read the article at Buzzfeed? Carrey used the picture of a autistic boy in one of the tweets, without any knowledge of the family! And he has a disease that caused his autism since birth – what is not really in line with Carreys “arguments”. This is despicable.

  30. EM says:

    He’s off his trolley. No, this isn’t on. We’re not living in the dark ages. Anti vaxxers rely on herd immunity [via other vaccinators] for their children to get by while ranting about the evil of vaccinations. Hypocrisy on steroids in other words.

  31. El says:

    Many people concerned about mercury don’t make the distinction between the form in the environment (methylmercury) which is very toxic and the breakdown product in thirmosol (ethyl mercury) which is less toxic and breaks down more quickly leading to less buildup.

    • Dez says:

      Farm raise salmon has a lot of mercury because it’s used to preserve the meat. So many of us go to our favorite restaurant and order the salmon and odds are its farm raised. People intake toxins everyday and don’t know it. Just crazy.

  32. good buddy says:

    After one vigorous round of vaccines, my son developed a drooling problem. He drooled for years. I won’t give him vaccinations anymore until they remove toxic mercury from vaccinations! He is right about the movie, Trace Amounts. I am not anti vaccination, I am against the Thimerosol they needlessly put in. A certain number of people get bad reactions and then you are blamed for being a faulty person, not that there was something toxic in the shot.

    • Jelly says:

      I know – my nephew had terrible nightmares and hallucinations after a vaccination that lasted the whole night.

      • Absolutely says:

        Mine contracted a dermatitis with fevers that’s never been documented in infants, and only rarely in children, and even then over 7. Most who get it were elderly women. Had the pediatrician, dermatologist and a specialist stumped.

    • Erinn says:

      http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228#tox

      Only 5 out of 30 of those vaccines listed contain thimerosol. A bunch never contained it to begin with.

      • Kiddo says:

        You know what has mercury? Energy-saving lightbulbs, Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). Where was the outrage about this? And this is mercury-mercury (methylmercury), not ethylmercury

        wiki:
        Concerns based on extrapolations from methylmercury caused thimerosal to be removed from U.S. childhood vaccines, starting in 1999. Since then, it has been found that ethylmercury is eliminated from the body and the brain significantly faster than methylmercury, so the late-1990s risk assessments turned out to be overly conservative.[4] Though inorganic mercury metabolized from ethylmercury has a much longer half-life in the brain, at least 120 days, it appears to be much less toxic than the inorganic mercury produced from mercury vapor, for reasons not yet understood.[4]

  33. waitwhat says:

    California is ridiculous…parents should be able to make their own decisions regarding their children’s health. I live in Texas and many, many parents are allowed to send their kids to public school without getting vaccines if they sign up for an exemption, and we have no issues. My son is elementary age and there have never been outbreaks at his school. CA really is turning into an Orwellian society.

    • Who ARE these people? says:

      No issues…yet.

      When the March of Dimes-funded research stopped polio, would you say that was an Orwellian society?

      When vaccinations prevented smallpox, was that Orwellian?

      Texas is not a state renowned for supporting population health.

    • Giddy says:

      In 2013 there were cases of whooping cough in 124 counties of Texas. One situation related to a north Texas megachurch was especially dire. The pastor of Eagle Mountain International Church had encouraged his followers to not vaccinate their children. In the counties closest to that church more than 800 cases of whooping cough were reported. Then 15 members of the church came down with measles after an infected visitor exposed them. After that the pastor began urging his flock to get vaccinated.

    • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

      Fascism. Orwellian. 1984.

      Buzzwords of the uninformed. To be frank you can do whatever you want with your child till it becomes a public health issue. If you kill your child, so be it, it’ll be up to the system to decide whether to charge you with negligence or etc.

      If your ignorance results in another child’s illness or risk of death then your ignorance has to be curbed.

    • holly hobby says:

      Texas also tried (more than once!) to put up a law that will make mothers carry dead fetuses to term. See: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/04/24/texas-house-proposal-force-people-carry-term-non-viable-fetuses/

      So your point is?

      Texas is the last state I would look up to for health guidance.

  34. The Eternal Side-Eye says:

    Add to that the man used a picture of someone’s crying autistic child to bolster his ignorant arguments and the family has demanded he take down the photos because their child has a form of autism caused from birth.

    Why can we not out idiots in a pen? Grrr.

  35. Christine says:

    You know what killed 31 and infected 801 Californians in 2014? Not measles, but mosquitoes infected with West Nile Virus. Orange County recorded the highest number of cases, with 263. The Disneyland Measles outbreak sickened 147 people in the U.S., including 131 in California. There were no deaths.

    Where is the public outcry and alarmist news reports on the growing mosquito population? Where is the bill requiring you to drain standing pools of water & the use of mosquito repellent? After all, West Nile Virus is actually killing people & there’s a way to prevent it so shouldn’t that be mandated as well?!? Perhaps OFF mosquito repellent should also contribute to Senator Pan and he’ll start campaigning for them.

    The scariest part of this bill is the open-ended mandate allows the legislature to add any additional vaccines they deem necessary at anytime. Regardless of your vaccination stance you should be concerned about that! Vaccines are important, vaccines save countless from horrible diseases but your parental rights are slowly being taken away. That is my issue with this new law.

    My Assemblymember Rocky Chavez has issued a statement regarding SB277 that I encourage you all to read. Regardless of your stance, you have to admit the anti-vax crowd won’t go away without a fight. Lawsuits are coming. This is an unnecessary fight that will cost California.

    • Kiddo says:

      There are always tons of reports about West Nile, and if the population of infected mosquitoes reaches an extreme degree, sometimes the gov’t WILL CROP DUST and spray, and yes, you have no choice if it happens over your residence or area. West Nile, however, is not communicable between people, it is an environmental hazard, it can not be controlled in the same way of fighting person to person disease through immunization. I would imagine in extreme cases, like with droughts, the government can fine you for not exercising due diligence in keeping up your property. But you can have mosquitoes traveling a distance from your property from a tiny puddle in the street. It is much more difficult to get control over. However, you aren’t inviting mosquitoes to share space with people, rolling the dice of, “are they affected or not, let’s let ’em into the school room”.

    • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

      So what other parental rights are being taken away?

      • Christine says:

        I guess my statement “your parental rights are slowly being taken away” is incorrect. You parental rights concerning specific medical procedures have been taken away.
        IMO, the state mandating a medical procedure to receive the right to a public education is a slippery slope.

      • soxfan says:

        The word “public” here sums it up, don’t ya think??

      • Christine says:

        The right to a public education in California is a fundamental right fully guaranteed and protected by the California Constitution. That constitutional right is exactly what the non vaxxers will using in their lawsuits against California. BTW, SB277 mandate includes private schools as well.

      • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

        Except when these lawsuits to to court anti-vaxxers won’t have any legitimate reason they can argue about why they’re choosing not to vaccinate.

        Especially in the face of a public health issue which is growing and causing medical damage. We’ve legislated against people being able to drink and drive because their actions pose a danger to others, if it must go to court this will end the same way and become needlessly restrictive to counter against people’s poor decision making.

    • Christine says:

      I’m not saying they would win a lawsuit, just that they are coming. They’ll argue vaccines pose a danger to their child and their constitutional right to an education is being violated. I haven’t seen it addressed but wonder if a vaccine injured child could sue the state for injuries, after all, the state mandated they receive this vaccination.

      This is bigger than vaccines are good/vaccines are bad debate. It’s about Californians constitutional protected rights. Driving drunk is not a constitutional right.

      • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

        There’s already a court to handle the issues of vaccine injured, you’re throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.

        Again, people can’t have it both ways. If it’s a constitutional right to seek education then you need to be able to fulfill basic health requirements that keep other children from being endangered. I see this argument a lot in people complaining about gay marriage as well and the court legislating it’s existance.

        In a perfect world this wouldn’t be an issue but sadly propaganda and misinformation have clouded and disturbed what should have been a basic safety keeping process. Similar to those angry about state’s rights being taken away we’ve reached a point where we have to curb parental rights because it’s becoming a public health issue.

        The truth is I don’t care about the rights of parents to ignorantly and stubbornly put others at risk. What solution do you have for those parents who’s child is injured by an unvaccinated child.

        If they can’t be vaccinated by law then perhaps we should allow lawsuits to be filed against those parents?

      • Kiddo says:

        But no one is being denied the right to attend school. If you can prove vulnerability to adverse side effects of vaccines for your child, the law will inform you that exemptions already exist, within the framework of the health initiative, for your child not be included. The burden of proof for those opposed, simply because they want choice, will be that vaccines are dangerous for the vast majority of the population, but scientific studies, opinions, and statistical analysis will not bear that out in their favor. If it did, then it would challenge the program altogether, for everyone.

  36. Getreal says:

    why should my children be exposed to serious diseases because you don’t want to vax your kid? It’s not fair on a basic level. If you want to make decisions that endanger YOUR kids, whatever. You need to keep them away from other kids who DONT KNOW they aren’t vaxxed. Why should my child, or my baby at home who is too young to vax, suffer?

  37. Kiddo says:

    Let’s put it this way, are people who are against vaccines okay if we simply disassemble the public heath initiative entirely? In that way, no one should get vaccinated because maybe none of us want to. That seems fair, right? If it’s one person’s choice then it could be everyone’s choice. Since it’s a matter of risk, why should anyone take it, if they don’t feel like it?

    • Kiddo says:

      ‘health’

    • Christine says:

      Should we put it this way instead?
      In that way, everyone must get vaccinated because some of us want to. That seems fair, right? If it’s one person’s choice then has to be everyone’s choice.

      My example of West Nile was more a number comparison than an outcry to mandate mosquitoes and their breeding grounds. And no, I don’t think our local news covers West Nile like they did the Disneyland measles outbreak.

      I’m in no way arguing the use or effectiveness of vaccines. I am arguing that SB277 takes away parental rights and sets a precedent of government mandated medical procedures.
      I also have an issue with Senator Pan and others receiving money from Merck and other vaccine manufactures. And lastly, California is going broke. Countless lawsuits are coming and this will be an ongoing battle.

      • Who ARE these people? says:

        How about mandated newborn screening for things like inherited, potentially fatal metabolic disorders. Does that take away parental rights too?

        When it comes to medically effective screenings and vaccinations, why do we pick and choose? Few people had a problem with vaccinations until a greedy English doctor wrote a fraudulent journal article about his bogus medical study that appealed to self-righteous, scientifically misguided mothers and prototype American conspiracy theorists. An article that was promoted by a Playboy Bunny/cable TV host who had no evidence vaccines caused her son’s (maybe autism, maybe not) problems, during a period in which autism diagnoses were on the rise and definitive answers were not yet available. It has been a perfect storm of ignorance.

        Before this perfect storm, our moms and dads were just so grateful for widespread vaccination programs.

      • Christine says:

        I wouldn’t consider newborn screenings taking away a parental right although California does allow parents to opt out citing religious reasons.

        I can’t see there being any risks involved with a screening. There is an admitted risk of vaccination injury though.

      • Courtney says:

        My body, my choice shouldn’t just apply to women.

      • Kiddo says:

        So what is the answer to my question? You take no issue disbanding the entire health initiative?
        And it’s totally cool if NO ONE gets vaccinated? Everyone else’s body, everyone else’s choice.

      • The Eternal Side-Eye says:

        http://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonwells/measles-kills-first-person-in-us-in-12-years#.qxYDwrMeeP

        Except your personal choice effects other people’s lives and other people didn’t volunteer to die for your choices. We have an interest in the greater public health and since we’re not using science as a reason for avoiding vaccines there is no real reason to accept the risk posed to others.

        If you’re drinking and driving we arrest and punish you too regardless of ‘my body, my choice’

      • Kiddo says:

        I think there is some degree of choice, isn’t there? Home schooling.

      • Christine says:

        I’m not against vaccines so I cannot answer your question. I vaccinated my kids on a delayed schedule & we had all required shots before kindergarten. I have no problem with my kids sitting next to an unvaccinated child in class.

        To repeat myself from above….
        I am arguing that SB277 takes away parental rights and sets a precedent of government mandated medical procedures.
        I also have an issue with Senator Pan and others receiving money from Merck and other vaccine manufactures. And lastly, California is going broke. Countless lawsuits are coming and this will be an ongoing battle.

      • cr says:

        @Courtney: “My body, my choice shouldn’t just apply to women. ”
        I’ll take logical fallacies for $100, Alex.

        @Christine: regarding lawsuits, well, they’ll try, but they haven’t had much prior success.
        http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120950/courts-have-upheld-governments-constitutional-right-vaccine-laws

        If the bill becomes law, California will become only the third state in the country to deny exemptions based on religious convictions. The other two are Mississippi and West Virginia.

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/26/the-california-assembly-just-approved-one-of-nations-strictest-mandatory-vaccine-laws/

        And if that’s the basis of your objection, it’s a flimsy basis.

      • Christine says:

        @cr, the bill has become law and goes into affect the 2016/2017 school year. Again, B277 takes away parental rights regarding a medical procedure that carries risks. It sets a precedent of government mandated medical procedures to obtain rights that are covered by the California Constitution.

        One may agree with this particular set of mandates but what about the next one or the one after that? It has to start somewhere.

    • Courtney says:

      I am not against vaccines. At all. I am fully vaccinated. My child is fully vaccinated. But I absolutely disagree with placing barriers that would prevent any child from getting the free, appropriate education every child is entitled to. Supporters of the bill might think trading freedom for security is a fair trade, but it’s folly, with the number of un/poorly vaccinated adults.

      • Annie says:

        Entitlement at the risk of the greater good is the problem. Why should all suffer because the few refuse proven medical treatment? I have a hard time believing you are a real medical professional- your arguements are lacking any sense or evidence-based practice. And here’s a news flash- if children don’t get vaccines, they won’t follow up with them as adults- see how that works?

  38. iheartgossip says:

    Um. What the heck happened to Jim Carey. He’s looking like a homeless ding bat, spouting off nonsense on a street corner.

  39. Mandy says:

    Can I just go a little off topic and suggest to anyone on here who didn’t get their chicken pox vaccine and got chicken pox, to go get your shingles vaccine! I’ve had it twice in the last year and it is pure hell.

    • Who ARE these people? says:

      Hubs and I had it … thankfully we were okay. My injection site hurt for a few days but I knew what it was. His was fine.

      Tetanus shots can be even worse, but imagine that pain multiplied and spread throughout the body (+ lockjaw).

      Thanks for posting. Shingles will become more of a “thing” with the aging of the baby boomers. Vaccine seems to be peak effective if you get it around age 60.

      • Mandy says:

        I wish the vaccine for chicken pox was around when I was little. I was born in ’84 and my mom along with others would have chicken pox play dates to try to get me infected and naturally immune to it. Never caught it. Then by the time the vaccine came out in ’95, we thought I never would. Nope. Caught it at 12 and it was horrendous. I seriously wanted to die. Being a parent now, I can’t fathom knowingly putting my kids at risk for it or any virus and watching them suffer like I did, or worse.

      • Mandy says:

        Sorry I should have been more specific. I’ve had shingles twice in the last year.

    • NUTBALLS says:

      My Mom got it when she was 65 and it flares up from time to time. She’s a tough ol’ broad and her experience was bad enough to convince me to get mine by the time I’m 60.

      • Mandy says:

        I just read that people under 50 can’t even get the shingles vaccine. Thats ridiculous. People can go blind or deaf from it. And its not just the elderly getting it, anymore. I got it at 30. At the very least, people should get the chicken pox vaccine if they’ve never had chicken pox so they don’t even have to worry about shingles in the future. I had a pretty mild case from what pictures Ive seen on the internet and still suffer terrible pain in my nerves like Im having needles rain down on me.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        Mandy, you’re not immune to shingles if you get the varicella vaccine. There is no scientific evidence to that fact since the vaccine has only been around for 20 years. They’d have to conduct a large scale study which looked at the rate of shingles among those that were vaccinated. If a study of that nature is currently underway, there will be good data for decades.

        As I noted above in #22, that statement by the CDC that your risk of shingles goes down cannot be substantiated with hard science. Not yet. It doesn’t mean that getting the vaccine as an adult isn’t a good idea though. If you’re an adult and haven’t had chickenpox, then you need to weigh the risk of complications from adult-onset chickenpox vs. getting the vaccine and having risk of getting shingles later, which also has a vaccine. You could be fine either way.

        While seniors usually get shingles, I’ve known several women who got it in their 30’s, so I’ve wondered it adults should be getting the vaccine earlier than the recommended age of 60.

      • cr says:

        @NUTBALLS:

        “Disease Protection

        In a clinical trial involving thousands of adults 60 years old or older, Zostavax reduced the risk of shingles by about half (51%) and the risk of post-herpetic neuralgia by 67%. While the vaccine was most effective in people 60-69 years old it also provided some protection for older groups.

        Research suggests that the shingles vaccine is effective for at least six years, but may last longer. Ongoing studies are being conducted to determine how long the vaccine protects against shingles.”

        http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/shingles/vacc-need-know.htm

        https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=shingles&Search=Search

      • Mandy says:

        But if people get immunized against chicken pox, the likelyhood of getting shingles goes way down.

        Although the FDA hasn’t evaluated the effects of the vaccine on shingles, Krause believes that “in the long term, if you can prevent enough people from getting the wild (natural) type of chickenpox, you’re likely to see a beneficial effect on the incidence of shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia. But it may take several generations for this to happen.”

        People who have had chickenpox (varicella zoster) in their youth can develop shingles (herpes zoster) in later years. During an acute attack of the chickenpox virus, most of the viral organisms are destroyed, but some survive, travel up nerve fibers along the spine, and lodge in nerve cells where they may lie dormant for many years.

      • Mandy says:

        My last comment totally backs up what you said. I agree with you. Preventative measures are paramount. Even if not 100% guaranteed.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        cr, I wasn’t arguing against the shingles vaccine. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for those who have either had the chickenpox or been immunized against it. The virus remains latent in the nerves and the risk of shingles is there. The shingles vaccine appears to be effective against the disease, but as you’ve pointed out, it hasn’t been around long enough for us to know what the long-term effects are. That’s the risk we all take when we immunize.

        Mandy, your CDC quote doesn’t have any solid scientific evidence behind it. The point I made above in #22 is there has not been enough time to study the long-term effects of the varicella vaccine to know if the risk of shingles actually goes down. It sounds good, but I want proof since we get lied too a lot by our government and there’s conflicts of interest at play here.

        Just look at what they’ve been telling us about eating a low-fat diet for the past 20-30 years, which caused a flood of carb/sugar-rich products into the food supply and all the health problems that have continued to plague us since then. Heart disease (the big baddie back then) is now joined by metabolic syndrome as a major health crisis. That recommendation by the USDA wasn’t supported by science either and was a catastrophic failure — all because of politics. The studies that would have shown this were simply not funded, because they were out of step with the political environment of the day.

        My biggest concern is that we’re mucking with the immune system, a system they really don’t understand well. The more we learn about immunology, the more we realize we don’t really understand it. It’s enormously complex. While I support immunizations in general, I won’t be at all surprised if decades from now, a link between them and the rise in auto-immune disorders will be found. Vaccinations don’t engage the immune system in the same way that a natural exposure to the disease does, but because the political climate is to show their benefits, the government isn’t funding research to show how they may be harmful to some or all of us. There is so much politics at play, that we can’t really trust all that the CDC says.

      • Kiddo says:

        Attenuated vaccines do indeed engage the immune system, because the actual pathogen is contained in them.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        Kiddo, I didn’t explain my comment in this thread as I did at the bottom of #22. There is a different immune system process when the pathogen is injected directly into the bloodstream than when it’s brought into the body via one of the orifices, as pathogens usually are introduced. The process “short-circuits” the full immune system response that would occur if it was encountered naturally.

        Ideally, we’d introduce these viruses the way they normally would be encountered, but since they’re trying to keep the body from actually coming down with that particular disease, they have to by-pass the normal process. I get why they do it, but the immune system response isn’t necessarily the same. The difference in response means boosters are needed when in the case of chickenpox and measles, if you contract the disease and develop the full antibody response, you’re immune for life. That’s my preference for diseases that are mild in children. But I respect those that would prefer to go the vaccination and booster route.

      • Absolutely says:

        I’ve actually been thinking the same thing about auto-immune diseases.

  40. Tara says:

    Why are so many comedians so screwed up?

  41. Elizabeth says:

    It’s always a smart idea to let a comedian tell you how to raise your children!!!!! Some celebrities should just stay off twitter.

  42. The Eternal Side-Eye says:

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonwells/measles-kills-first-person-in-us-in-12-years#.qxYDwrMeeP

    Fun fact for those choosing not to vaccinate. You don’t live in a magical bubble of your own, you interact with and effect others and other people are effected by your choices. The fair thing to do would be to publicly acknowledge your status as unvaccinated so others can make an informed medical decision as to whether they want to interact with you and risk their health. You can’t have it both ways to suit yourself while others can die for your carelessness.

  43. Caz says:

    Maybe those who are anti-vax would like to have polio themselves. vaccines are created for the right reasons.

  44. idsmith says:

    I have a family member who is deaf. They believe it was caused by his mother’s exposure to someone who had measles while pregnant. So yeah, it’s pretty dangerous to others when you don’t vaccinate.

  45. Barbara says:

    A woman died today in Washington state, the results from being exposed to an unvaccinated person

    • NUTBALLS says:

      I read about that too. Measles is like chickenpox in that its effects on children are usually mild, but much more severe in an adult.

      • Kiddo says:

        A friend of mine had brain swelling as a result of chicken pox in childhood and had to be hospitalized.

      • NUTBALLS says:

        That’s awful, Kiddo. Statistically, that’s rare among children. But if a child has a compromised immune system, it’s been known to happen. If there was a way of knowing which kids are most at risk of adverse reactions to vaccines, I’d be more comfortable with the CA law.

        Those who have known kids who’ve had adverse reactions to vaccinations (seizures, nerve damage, encephalitis) would naturally be wary too. Even if the risk is small, they know if it happens they’re living with a “condition” for the life, Some parents aren’t willing to risk it. It’s easy for me to see how fear would lead them not to vaccinate.

        I don’t let my 8YO go wandering off in the store because of Adam Walsh. One day I will, but not yet. If I lose him the same way (regardless of the low risk of it happening) I’ll never forgive myself. Fear is a powerful thing that influences even a overly logical person like myself.

      • pinetree13 says:

        You know what is really common with chickenpox in kids? Kids scratching them! Every friend I have has chicken pock scars. I have TONS of them and I HATE Them. I wish their had been a vaccine when I was little. I have noticable scars on my arms, stomach, neck and chest. My mom tried to prevent me from scratching but I was 3 and she couldn’t monitor me at all times. So even if you argue that serious effects from chicken pox is rare, it’s still a nasty disease all kids are better off not getting.

    • GPSB says:

      Yup, first person in twelve years. And if they came into contact with anyone with a compromised immune system (unable to be vaccinated) or an anti-vax nutter with unvaccinated children, they are all at risk too.

  46. Steph O says:

    I live in the Central Coast (north of LA), and an infant in town died of the whooping cough at 3 weeks old shortly before the Disneyland outbreak. That infant contracted pertussis from an unvaccinated adult. I can’t even imagine how it must have felt to lose such a young little baby to something so preventable.
    My daughter was born at 31 weeks and spent a long time in the hospital. Shots are really no big deal for babies, they’re pissed for a minute, maybe they get a little fever later, and then it’s fine. I’ve seen my child struggle weakly to breathe, trying to fight the ventilator, too exhausted and weak to manage anything beside a silent scream. Don’t let them be put in such an awful situation because of a completely preventative disease. VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN.

  47. Neil says:

    You see, Jim, you can still be funny. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.

  48. ukbound says:

    There is some amazingly faulty reasoning going on here. If your child is vaccinated, and vaccinations do actually prevent the disease, then having someone else not get a vaccination should not matter to you. YOU would be protected.

    It is a basic civil right to decide what is injected in your body. You want desperately to believe vaccines will protect you. You believe the people who have a huge financial interest in vaccines. The people who pay for the research usually get the results they want from the “research”. It is obvious that no matter what is said, people have made their minds up.

    Whether you believe in vaccines or not, you do not have the right to force me or anyone else do to it, because you think you know best. What if I tell you that I believe you should not be allowed to take antibiotics? I don’t believe you need them, I have a better alternative. I say, you cannot take them. How would you feel about that?

    Think for yourselves and make your own decisions.

    Your ancestors fought for the right to be free of tyranny, you are so quick to give that up.

  49. Jerry Brown is a f@@k@ng dictator!

  50. Laurinha says:

    My younger sister is severely autistic. She is totally non verbal and really is one of the most severely autistic person I have ever met. This was NOT caused by a vaccine. I believe this was something that she was always predisposed to genetically and was triggered by environmental factors (imo)
    I also have worked with children for ten years, after seeing a small unvaccinated child suffer with whooping cough (this child suffered much worse from whooping cough than the vaccinated children who also caught it) I implore parents to please vaccinate! I also ended up catching it, even though I’m fully vaccinated and it was horrible for me as an adult! For the minute risk something could go wrong, to see a child suffer with a disease that is preventable is just wrong!

  51. Laurinha says:

    @ ukbound
    Would just like to point out, as I stated in my previous comment I work with children and I am fully vaccinated. I caught whooping cough from an unvaccinated child as did several other children that were vaccinated. Granted non of us got it as bad as the child that was unvaccinated, I firmly believe that if that child had also been protected none of us would have caught it. The unvaccinated child suffered very badly and to see a small child cough till they turn purple and struggle is absolutely heartbreaking. Therefore in my opinion if you choose to not vaccinate your children it Does affect me and everyone else. Even if we are protected! Herd immunity is lowered because of that decision. if one person decides not to vaccinate and that child catches a preventable disease everyone else, even if vaccinated has the chance to pick it up. We just won’t get it as horribly as the unvaccinated person will.

  52. GPSB says:

    And this week, the first person in twelve years has died of measles. Thanks, anti-vaxxers! People with compromised immune systems appreciate all you’ve done to increase the risks to their lives.

  53. Kim says:

    I didn’t think that the unabomber had an opinion on vaccinations ?!?

  54. Michelle says:

    Please tell me that Jim is filming a Ted Kaczynski Unibomber movie with this look!

  55. Pompasaurus says:

    I am someone who has had bad reactions to vaccines, and they have gotten worse over time. I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I do think that vaccines, like any kind of medical treatment, can affect a person negatively, and that medical history should be taken into consideration when advising getting them done. I personally don’t want to get any more vaccines, based on what has happened to me, and I wonder how many others have bad reactions as well?

  56. Cheryl says:

    This isn’t just a medical conversation or a scientific conversation, it’s also an ethical conversation. Whatever ethical stand people are most comfortable with (herd immunity vs individual harms) results in bolstering our feelings with medical and scientific supports. Most of us do not have a nuanced understanding of these fields and how these fields represent themselves in public discourse. Neither position should default into yelling at the other side and dismissing the whole subset of the population holding that ethical view as “crazy”.

    • Who ARE these people? says:

      Parents during the polio era had no ethical problems whatsoever vaccinating their children, and would have thought today’s parents who do not vaccinate to be terrible, neglectful parents who put their own children and others at risk. The ethical shoe was on the other foot.