Forty states saw rises in parents citing religious or other personal concerns for not vaccinating their young children.
The number of kids whose caregivers are opting them out of routine childhood vaccines has reached an all-time high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday, potentially leaving hundreds of thousands of children unprotected against preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.
The report did not dive into the reasons for the increase, but experts said the findings clearly reflect Americans’ growing unease about medicine in general.
“There is a rising distrust in the health care system,” said Dr. Amna Husain, a pediatrician in private practice in North Carolina, as well as a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Vaccine exemptions “have unfortunately trended upward with it.”
Nature is wrong.
A species CAN regress.
Kinda odd to think technology, the thing meant to propel us further, has a lot of uses to hold some people (a lot) back
The idea that evolution is always progress is incorrect.
It’s more like a random walk where adaptable changes are more likely to continue and maladaptive changes are more likely to die out.
But we live in a society where we artificially keep maladaptive humans alive to reproduce, and even tend to have them reproduce at a higher rate than the members of society that are most adaptable.
In theory this could be an issue if we were going to depend on adaptive changes to human biological and environmental developments for continued success.
In reality, it’s not going to matter as within a generation we’re going to have effectively infinitely scalable AI which is more adaptable than the average human and will offset the growth in maladaptive humans relative to adaptable.
Which will still not matter, as within a century the various debts we as a species are taking on will likely have inescapable consequences that doom us all, at best our cultural legacy living on with the continuation of AI that is adaptable to the environmental hellscape we leave behind.
Non-random survival of randomly varying replicators, according to Richard Dawkins.
People misunderstanding evolution constantly always confused the shit out of me lmfao.
Of course species regress. It’s how extinctions happen lmfao. Also 95% of evolution is what women of the species think looks good enough to bang. Sometimes that means you mean drown when it rains lmfao. Looking at all of you snub nosed monkeys and traumatic enseminators.
I think it is just evolution in action with kids unfortunately paying the price. There are many parental Darwin awards being readied.
Social regression is necessary for genetic evolution. Some of us will not make it to find out.
They warned about these people back in the 1930s and we didn’t listen.
Religious exemptions need to be banned outright throughout the United States.
Actively withholding your child from receiving vaccines should be grounds for losing custody.
The first amendment protects them here. However, it does not automatically grant them access to government services such as school and welfare. Our focus shouldn’t be so narrow that we forget to protect the people who children are incapable of being vaccinated. So denying these people access to school or government facilities is always an option we should look into.
The first amendment protects them here.
That depends on the court, and on how broadly the relevant rule is written. It’s a hell of a claim to say that my religion must exempt me from laws that apply to others, and that’s exactly the sort of claim being advanced when we say that our religion requires us to not do [things that our religion says nothing about].
A relevant precedent, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, reached in 1905 regarding the constitutionality of compulsory vaccination law, held that individual liberty is not absolute and that the public interest can justify narrowly subjecting it to the authority of the state. (note that this ruling was narrowly about public health authority and its enforceability, and the stakes of the dispute were that if Jacobson didn’t want to be vaccinated, he would be made to pay a fine and nowhere was child custody ever questioned)
The Court held that “in every well ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand” and that “[r]eal liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own [liberty], whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
Personally I agree there shouldn’t be religious exemptions on vaccines, that the only cases that justify non-vaccinated kids attending schools would be medical justifications, not religious ones. Allowing non-medical people to carve unscientific loopholes in best public health praxis because they feel like Jesus or Cthulu (neither of whom said to not get vaccines) wouldn’t want that basically means, if you extend that reasoning to its logical end, that when I say I have a religion and I tell you it means that law cannot apply to me or else it violates 1A, that no law can be consistently made to apply to anyone. …and when it can’t be made to apply to everyone equally, expect it to be applied, forcefully, to people of the wrong faith, or of the wrong race, or of the wrong caste.
A lot of these anti-vaxxers would be fine with not educating their kids.
OTOH, a bunch of them would just want to educate them at some sort of vaccine-free school or something, which they would presume would get government money. As long as they don’t get money…
Sadly, I would guess that a challenge against religious exemption would be decided against on first amendment grounds by SCOTUS.
Which is madness. If we’re at the point where abortion can’t be found in the federal Constitution, then vaccine opt outs shouldn’t be derived from the first amendment.
You could have just said you don’t understand the first amendment. What exactly do you think the freedom of religion part is about?
Ritual sacrifices of animals and humans are banned in the US in spite of that. Seems fair to ban “religious exemptions” to vaccinations on the same grounds. There’s really no strong theological basis anyway for saying no to vaccines.
People shouldn’t be able to just say “it’s my religion” and get a free pass on anything and everything. If we want to keep the exemptions, then we should require theological basis and proof of “sincerely held belief”.
What if my religion mandates killing everyone over the age of 60?
Could I get away with it because of freedom of religion?
Vaccine exemptions should not exist at all unless a physician (MD or DO, not a naturopath or chiropractor) cites a reason why the vaccine should not be administered.
There are many unscrupulous MD/DOs that will happily compromise their morals for a quick buck. In my opinion they should lose their license, but it usually takes a while and they can do a lot of damage before then.
You can’t keep the determined from self harm. All you can do is hope a few roadblocks will deter the half-hearted.
You missed a few letters there
Shit, you’re right. Edited.
What are we to do when a parent brings in a paper covered with Bible verses?
The sad reality is you can get away with saying whatever stupid bullshit you want as long as you add “because God says so” at the end of the sentence. It’s the ultimate thought terminating cliche.
If someone commits a murder, “God told me to” is not a valid legal argument. They’ll still be prosecuted. This should be the same. People can practice their religion however they want until it starts causing suffering to others.
God told me to
Yeah, we also need to bring back sanitariums.
Starting quoting Greek and Hebrew at them?
That means I’d have to learn Green and Hebrew.
I don’t know why Christians don’t
Wait shamans are calling themselves physicians now?
Another pandemic, let’s goooo!
nooooOOOOOO
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Vaccines are actually one of the parts of the US healthcare system which works well. There is no excuse for vaccine skepticism other than stupidity.
Vaccines work too well for their own good in some respects. They are so good that most people don’t remember the bad old days when these diseases ran rampant. People think “measles” and say “so you get some sores for a few days and then fully recover, no biggie.” They hear “whooping cough” and say “you just cough for a bit, so what?”
Too many people don’t recall the horrors these diseases inflicted. I count myself among those who don’t recall first hand, but I’ve read enough accounts to be thankful that I haven’t had to experience this.
Also, the anti-vax movement started small. They stopped getting shots and the world didn’t end. This was actually because everyone else was still supplying herd immunity, but they spun it as “see how you don’t need vaccines?”
As more and more people joined, the herd immunity started to falter. Now, it’s breaking down entirely and diseases once thought gone are making a comeback tour.
And all because these people would rather trust someone online with no medical experience, but who tells them what they want to hear rather than actual doctors.
When I was in highschool there was a girl in my class whose religion forbade basically all medicine and she had a really bad case of whooping cough.
It was awful, I remember feeling really terrible for her she sounded like she was in a lot of pain and discomfort every day. No kids should be forced to go through that
Right wing propaganda?
The opioid crisis? Opaque costs for anything?
This is like saying you don’t trust your municipal tap water because of fracking in Kansas.
When you ask the price of anything at a hospital or even a pharmacy, even simple things like how much a tetanus shot costs, you’re usually met with a “the insurance usually covers it” in the US. Or “it depends”. You’ll only know how much it costs after everything is done.
For those wondering genuine reasons to support this statement, remember the horrific things the US government did to black people and native Americans.
The CIA and such were having a field day doing whatever unethical shit they wanted.
Tuskagee experiment? (Giving black people syphilis) https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study
MK Ultra? (Drugging black people with cocaine and mishrooms) https://chacruna.net/cia_research_exploited_black_americans_mkultra/
Mass sterilization of Native American women: https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/
It goes on and on. Yeah, we have good reason to distrust the US Government. Unfortunately, we also have lots of reasons to trust them as well. This isn’t a post “gubbmint bad”. This is just “we can understand why some people think the way they do because of the actions of others”.
This isn’t a post “gubbmint bad”.
Oh, but it IS.
What would ‘trustworthy’ look like? Kinda like now. What are you doing? Still distrusting. Why try to be trustworthy if it’s a no-win equation?
Maybe creating a health care system that won’t force you into bankruptcy if you break a leg?
This is a huge part of it. The money is so big it gives them a motive and a reason for people to be suspicious.
I mean I think they are wrong. But not everyone is going to agree and go along with rational thinking.
Too many people ignore the fact that the government isn’t 1 entity, but several. Each division has its own goals, and some of those divisions care more about the people they’re supposed to serve than others.
I think distrusting pharmaceutical companies and being skeptical of excessive tests is very different from distrusting medical science. I don’t have to trust my health insurance company to know that vaccines are on solid evidence and safe to get.
If it’s a new vaccine? I’ll apply more skepticism, but that means looking into it. The explanation of the mRNA method for COVID was very transparent and supported by university academics. It was novel and quite impressive.
Plus, just in general, you need to be wary of side effects. I’m way more cautious about new medications after going through the gambit with psychological medications and their side effects. As I get older, more health procedures become elective vs necessary (e.g. hair regrowth products), and it’s important to think critically about it.
I distrust the medical system too… But there is no alternative, so while I choose not to use it when I don’t absolutely need it, my kids are vaccinated and I’m sick right now and I take the medicine my doctor gave me. If a legitimate alternative came, I would go for it, but it doesn’t exist.
I trust it, but only as far as I trust anything else. I want evidence and reasoning. If I’m being recommended a procedure that seems fishy, I’m going to get a second or third opinion. I’m going to use reputable sources to research it.
The old company I worked for had a saying in the engineering department, “Trust but verify”. I think it applies really well here.
It can’t possibly have any relationship to morons like Florida’s Surgeon General citing bogus claims and vaccine efficacy denialism could it?
Those bogus claims weren’t stupid, they were malicious.
However you classify them, they are deadly to many people.
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Charging for a child’s health care should result in a prison sentence.
Charging for
a child’shealth care should result in a prison sentence.Most vaccines are free for people who need them
The pharmaceutical companies just give them away out of the goodness of their hearts?
They probably use their massive profits from private insurance claims to subsidize their patient assistance programs, so yes they do give them away, but not out of the goodness of their hearts.
So… actually that’s not the case. They’re only free at the point of sale. The government buys them. They’ve made money on every single one.
There is a rising distrust in the health care system
I blame all the bullshit fees and tests that hospitals, pharmacy companies, and medical insurance companies have joined forces to do to milk more money out of ppl. Ever since the health care system started to chase profits instead of caring for people, this distrust was bound to happen.
People know that the health care system is trying to make money off of you, not take care of you. So they don’t know which medical advice to trust and which medical advice was given in order to make money.
This.
It is easy, and justified to blame Trump for being anti-vax to have gotten as mainstream as it has…
… but that was only able to gain traction in the first place because people are being offered the choice between healing and going broke.
At some level, conscious or not, this is the masses rebelling against a system that has actively harmed them.
Unfortunately, the outlet for this rebellion actively harms them and is decidedly not in their best interests. It’s going to take at least a generation to rebuild that trust, and our medical system is going to fight tooth and nail to keep that trust ruined in the name of maximum profits,
That’s the only way I can sympathize with anyone who decides not to vax their children. I still do but I can understand the reason not to for this reason. I personally don’t think it’s gotten as far as to be detrimental to my health to still trust the vaxxines but I can see it becoming like that one day. It’s amazing how evil and complicit people will become in the face of making more money.
This study won’t answer the question of if this applies to other countries, but I expect it would. Covid sure brought a lot of anti vax people into the limelight. Yet none of the issues you mentioned are a problem in my country. That’s all free (except for the hospital parking).
I do distrust them to properly submit claims to my insurer. Otherwise I don’t have a lot of issues with providers. They may be prone to order “unnecessary” tests but I genuinely think that comes from a desire to actually help people [without regard for their finances].
Big pharma can absolutely choke on its own shit however.
I hate these articles that give no contextual numbers. What was the exemption rate before? The article doesn’t bother to tell us.
I remember how I felt about antivaxxers a decade ago. Drove me crazy, people making bad sweeping decisions based on gut feeling and fear instead of trying to understand the medicine and how it benefited them. I often tried pretty hard to convince the ones I knew personally to reconsider.
Nowadays I just try not to get yelled at for my opinions while I watch things fall apart.
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I feel bad for the immunocompromised and the children who can’t make their own choices. I don’t feel bad for the nutbag parents who will see their children suffer with preventable diseases. I’ll even likely chuckle when I hear of a death.
This is a self correcting problem…the stupidest will fall to give their offspring the chance procreate.
I wish it were that simple.
With fewer people vaccinated, herd immunity is weakened. As I understand it, this means even vaccinated children will come into contact more frequently with infected people, thereby increasing the chance that even vaccinated people get sick.
Not only that, but more disease spreading means more chance that the disease could mutate and render our current vaccines ineffective.
Imagine if a vaccine resistant polio or measles started spreading. Sure, you’re vaccinated against the diseases, but the virus just laughs as it sidesteps your protections and infects you anyway. People refusing vaccines* endanger all of us.
* The exception to this rule are people who refuse for legitimate medical reasons. For example, if they are allergic to the vaccine components or have immune system issues. They should be able to legitimately refuse and the rest of us would protect them with our immunity.
Not only that, but more disease spreading means more chance that the disease could mutate and render our current vaccines ineffective.
This is exactly what’s happening with COVID
Herd immunity doesn’t exist until a high enough percentage of the population is inoculated, so if you can’t realistically hit that threshold it’s worthless to the community to try and get as many people as you can.
Also, herd immunity only works when the vaccine prevents you from transmitting the disease to others in the first place.
I know this article is about vaccination in general, but many people are going to view it especially in the context of the covid pandemic—so it’s important to note out that the covid vaccine does not satisfy either of the above requirements. Whatever the value may be of achieving herd immunity in any other case, it unequivocally does not apply to covid. I’m not implying that you were saying it did, btw, just advising people—especially the vehement, single-minded detractors and defenders both—not to treat vaccines as if they’re all the same.
False, in every respect and point. 🤦
Care to explain? Basically every trustworthy source I skimmed through supports their argument.
Also, if you ever want proof that someone is a brainwashed, right-wing shill, just look for the phrase “THE covid vaccine”. Because in their mind, there is only one. Not over a dozen different ones that actually exist. Hell, in the USA alone there’s at least 4 different original-strain covid vaccines, not including the new bivalent vaccines.
But no. “THE covid vaccine”. 🤦
Honestly this is the one thing I can unquestionably agree with you on lol
For a simple start, he doesn’t understand the difference between a virus / bacterium/etc and what a disease is.
Nor does he understand what a vaccine is, or what it does.
Nor does he understand that every pathogen has a different rate / volume of transmission, acts differently on different people in different conditions and so on.
This is all right-wing, anti-science propaganda that we saw far too much of in 2020. This false idea that “if it isn’t a magic 100% force field then it doesn’t work at all”.
It’s all BS to get stupid people to do nothing and become petri dishes for bugs. Nothing owns the libs like trying their hardest to do nothing and die off. Or something like that.
For a simple start, he doesn’t understand the difference between a virus / bacterium/etc and what a disease is.
Nor does he understand what a vaccine is, or what it does.
Nor does he understand that every pathogen has a different rate / volume of transmission, acts differently on different people in different conditions and so on.
I don’t see how he says that because he specifically mentions how every vaccine is different, which is true. The first mRNA vaccines are way more effective than prior flu vaccines, for example. That intuitively seems important for defining the ratio needed to achieve herd immunity.
This is all right-wing, anti-science propaganda that we saw far too much of in 2020. This false idea that “if it isn’t a magic 100% force field then it doesn’t work at all”.
It’s all BS to get stupid people to do nothing and become petri dishes for bugs. Nothing owns the libs like trying their hardest to do nothing and die off. Or something like that.
The only statement that I could consider false is that not meeting the “herd immunity ratio” is “useless.” This obviously isn’t true on a personal level, but on a community level in the context of herd immunity, it seems to be true based on my limited knowledge. Every source I’ve looked at says that the US as a whole has not reached herd immunity, especially since the newer COVID variants are spread more easily and thus require a higher proportion of people vaccinated.
I don’t think this person is spreading misinformation or right-wing talking points. It seems that they have knowledge but can’t effectively express it in a way that isn’t misleading to a lay person. This (personally) seems like a widespread issue within STEM and not some comment made out of malice. There seems to be a huge disconnect between medical or scientific goals as well as public messaging that supports said goals
EDIT: I wanted to mention his comment about vaccines still allowing the spread of disease. He isn’t saying that the vaccines aren’t effective, but it does mean that you can carry a pathogen to someone else who isn’t vaccinated. Vaccines aren’t a silver bullet, even if they’re really good.
That intuitively seems important for defining the ratio needed to achieve herd immunity
Sure, if you ignore everything and anything about the viruses themselves. Like incubation time, ability to survive outside of hosts and so on and so forth.
Everything you’re talking about is absolute garbage.
Every source I’ve looked at says that the US as a whole has not reached herd immunity
Which isn’t relevant to what numbnuts said.
his comment about vaccines still allowing the spread of disease. He isn’t saying that the vaccines aren’t effective
But he’s implying it. He’s spreading right-wing anti-science propaganda verbatim. This is the same copypasta they’ve been spreading for years. It has the thinnest varnish of plausibility, but really, it’s complete bullshit.
Vaccines aren’t a silver bullet
They absolutely are, but that doesn’t make them the magical forcefield that those maga lovers insist they be.
A vaccine just has to make us be able to reduce the ability of a virus to spread to below a certain point, and we win. It just takes longer. But Mr. Needs-Ritalin-Cocain-and-Caffeine-in-the-morning can’t wait that long, so it fails. I mean, the least effective vaccines we came up with at the start were far more than enough to “win”.
Oh, and by the by, it’s these assholes who are why we have freaking whooping cough and measles back. We almost wiped them out, but no, the little death worshippers want to bring us back to the dark ages.
I have concerns about your statement that achieving herd immunity is worthless when failing to reach the threshold. Is there not a distinction between herd immunity within a household or school and herd immunity within a city or state or country? Shouldn’t the “population” be in the context of communities with close and frequent interactions?
The basic premise is that the community needs to be inoculated enough so that any breakout doesn’t have enough viable hosts around to jump to and dies out before it can gain momentum among a wider population. This benefits others in the community who are still vulnerable for whatever reason and is a legitimate argument for why people should care if other people get vaccinated. If the threat is dire enough it could even be argued that others should be forced against their will. The costs of implementing herd immunity can be quite high, as well as the benefits—but for us to begin even thinking about whether it’s worth paying, we must be sure we can realistically achieve it.
If the level of inoculation among the population is too low the virus will spread. That’s what’s important—that’s why it’s all or nothing. The fact that it’s slower, or that it won’t overwhelm hospitals as quickly, is so trivial in comparison as to be inconsequential. The only thing that matters is that it’s still there. Fast or slow, it will still infect the entire world, and the vulnerable won’t be safe.
Given all of the above, it goes without saying that a vaccine that only stops a virus from making you sick but doesn’t stop it from spreading is next to useless when it comes to herd immunity—that much should be obvious. I would think it should be obvious too that the covid vaccine is one of such a type, but if you’re interested in arguing that here or elsewhere—or anything else for that matter—please know that ridiculing and dismissing others because you think they’re so obviously wrong and incapable of being saved, is in fact the only thing preventing anyone from trying to fix it.
The fact that it’s slower, or that it won’t overwhelm hospitals as quickly, is so trivial in comparison as to be inconsequential. The only thing that matters is that it’s still there. Fast or slow, it will still infect the entire world, and the vulnerable won’t be safe.
Is there not a huge distinction between “not infected” and “safe”? Hospitals that aren’t overwhelmed will be able to treat patients more effectively, so it should be way safer to have a slower spread of disease as it allows more patients to get better care.
You also didn’t entirely address my point. If you need 90% of a population to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity for a disease, and 90% of an elementary school is fully vaccinated, how are the remaining 10% not protected if school is the only real place they go out and socially interact?
And they’ll take a lot of vulnerable people with them in the process.
Religious extremist (to the point of not accept vaccines at least) potentially extinguishing is so Darwinistic…
If only they didn’t spread diseases to others, that would be true, but they are also going to kill a lot of innocent people this way.
This. If it doesn’t spread then it can’t mutate. Vaccines for things like smallpox are highly effective but they’re not 100% and as the disease mutates the effectiveness goes down.
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Joe of the Men of Rohan, ally to the King of Gondor.
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