It is increasingly obvious that the hysterical scaremongers among the pro-vaccinists are either pharma propagandists or probability-challenged:
Inquisitive Mind @livebeef
Your decision to not vaccinate your children puts my children’s health at risk. You are the worst kind of person.Vox Day @voxday
Your decision to drive your children in your car puts their health at much greater risk. You are an even worse person.Vox Day @voxday
Deaths from measles in last 10 years = 0. Automobile deaths in last 10 years = 383,542Vox Day @voxday
Deaths from measles in last 10 years = 0. Deaths from bicycles = 6,770. ONLY A MONSTER WOULD LET KIDS RIDE BIKES!Inquisitive Mind @livebeef
What the hell is WRONG with you people? (Posts scary propaganda cartoon.)Vox Day @voxday
We’re just not idiots like you who embrace totalitarian government because someone said BOO! Measles deaths in 2014 = 0Inquisitive Mind @livebeef
Do you not understand what the concept of “almost eradicated” means? Look up the death count it used to have.Vox Day @voxday
I have. And most of the deaths stopped long BEFORE widespread vaccine availability. You are misinformed.Inquisitive Mind @livebeef
Prove it.Vox Day @voxday now
Measles deaths dropped 91.5 percent by 1960, 2 years BEFORE vaccinations. You are misinformed.
In the unlikely event that anyone is interested in the actual historical facts of the matter:
In 1962, immediately preceding the licensure of the first measles vaccines in the United States, when measles was a nearly universal disease, Alexander Langmuir described the medical importance of measles to the country and put forth the challenge of measles eradication. Although most patients recovered without permanent sequelae, the high number of cases each year made measles a significant cause of serious morbidity and mortality Langmuir showed that >90% of Americans were infected with the measles virus by age 15 years. This equated to roughly 1 birth cohort (4 million people) infected with measles each year. Not all cases were reported to the public health system; from 1956 to 1960, an average of 542,000 cases were reported annually. By the late 1950s, even before the introduction of measles vaccine, measles-related deaths and case fatality rates in the United States had decreased markedly, presumably as a result of improvement in health care and nutrition. From 1956 to 1960, an average of 450 measles-related deaths were reported each year (∼1 death/ 1000 reported cases), compared with an average of 5300 measles-related deaths during 1912–1916 (26 deaths/ 1000 reported cases).
Note that even in the ABSOLUTE WORST CASE, which is a completely unvaccinated scenario with 90 percent infection rates that assumes absolutely no improvement in health care in 55 years, we’re talking about 450 deaths per year. Realistically, we’re probably talking around 200, given the advancements in medical technology. THAT is what all the pro-vaccine scaremongers are going on about. Americans would do better to ban bicycles, as they would save three times more lives per year.
The pro-vaccine propaganda is just more creeping totalitarianism, albeit one of bizarre appeal to the supposedly conservative and libertarian right. But it cannot be rationally defended on any material grounds, nor balanced against its infringements on personal liberties and human rights.
UPDATE: Sweet Salk, but the pro-vaxxers are stupid.
Utes Byfive @Utesbyfive
Natural immunity produces carriers: Typhoid Mary, Someone vaxxed can’t be infected. CANT FUCKING CARRY