Dear Anti-Vaxxers: Please Just Shut Up Already.

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This morning while scrolling through my Facebook feed, I saw a post by a Vet Tech friend of mine reminding us of the areas where Lyme Disease is prevalent, and to vaccinate our pets if we are in at risk areas.

Wait.  There’s a vaccine for Lyme disease?

And my dogs can have it, but my humans can’t?

So I looked into it.  And there used to be a vaccine against Lyme, developed in the early 2000’s amongst growing concerns that Lyme disease was becoming a very real and very scary public health concern.

The vaccine was kind of a cool one.  In really simple terms, it didn’t actually make the humans immune to Lyme disease.  It evoked a type of immune response that actually prevented the tick from being able to transmit the disease.  Basically, some antibodies would be swirling around in your blood, and when the tick bites you and starts to ingest your blood, these antibodies would bind to the infectious part of the bacteria in the ticks gut, making it unable to cross the dermis ( a skin layer) and infect the human.  It would usually take 2 or 3 doses to be most effective- and it was effective… about 80% on average.

That’s the Coles Notes version.  If you want to read more about it, here is the Oxford Journal of Medicine article. 

So what happened to the vaccine?  Well according to the above article and several others that I read, some people decided that the vaccine was causing a (Gasp!) side effect called autoimmune arthritis.   So the vaccine developers did some double blind studies and found that it actually wasn’t the case, the vaccine was safe and effective.

And then guess what happened?

The fucking Anti-Vaxxers got a hold of the story and started going to the media and suddenly the internet was flooded with stories of “vaccine victims” and all the horrors that this life saving vaccine was doing to the world.  Class action lawsuits were filed, the vaccine become more expensive to manufacture and defend than was worth it for the companies, and it was withdrawn.

And as usual, the allegations were based in sensationalism and pseudo-science and unproved hypothesis.  No matter what science disproved the theories or supported the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, hysteria won out again.

And now, I can protect my fucking dog from this horrible vector borne disease, but I can’t protect my children.

So, good morning, Anti-Vaxxers, and fuck you very much on this fine Tuesday morning.

Here’s the thing:  For a group that constantly screams ” MY CHOICE”  “YOU CAN”T MAKE ME PUT THINGS IN MY BODY”  you have taken my choice away from me. Why are you the only ones who get a choice?  WHO asked you to save people from things they don’t actually need saving from?

You know what I don’t what to put in my body?

Lyme Disease.  That’s what.

But I guess me and the kids will have to just take our chances this summer, because once again, you fucking know better.  Better than all the people who have spent their lives studying infectious disease. Better than all the doctors who want to prevent a potentially life altering disease that is difficult to detect early enough to treat and often difficult to treat.  A disease that can be effectively prevented with a decent vaccine.

And don’t tell me how it’s no big deal. How natural immunity is a thing.  We’re talking about a bacterial infection.  The kind that requires antibiotics to get better….if you catch it early enough.  For someone like me who has severe, life threatening allergies to a long list of antibiotics, that doesn’t make me feel very positive about how well I’d fare if I got Lyme disease.

So really, if you want to go ahead and continue not to protect yourself against a long list of preventable diseases, fine.  Go ahead and get sick.  Go ahead and risk disability.  Hell, go ahead and die, if that’s what having a choice means to you.

But stop taking away the choices of everyone else around you. Stay away from public places so you don’t accidentally pass on the measles to a baby too young to be vaccinated.  Don’t take the vaccines. Fine. It’s your body. But please just shut up long enough to allow the rest of us to make our own decisions concerning our bodies.  Whether or not I am vaccinated doesn’t affect you, so why fuck it up for me?

Stop getting in the way for those of us who believe in science and medicine and would otherwise have wanted to have the option of protecting ourselves and our children from things like Lyme disease.  Your choice has once again affected MY ability to choose what’s right for my family.

This is such bullshit.

At least my dog will still be ok though.  Thanks for letting the dogs live.

 

 

Hot On The Titties: The Vaccination Debate Just Took A Turn For “DO IT”

en.wikipedia.org

Maybe I’m a bit of an asshole for just never letting this topic go, but this new research coming out of the Mayo Clinic is pretty astounding.  It’s actually pretty similar to a project I once worked on, back in my science life.  The idea is is to use a virus or immune response to break through a cancer cells defenses, and attack it from the inside out.  If you can get the weapon into the bad cell, it can’t handle it and pretty much explodes.   In this case, they injected a woman with a fucking battalion of measles vaccine  and cured her myeloma.  That’s cancer, folks.  Cured.

This technology isn’t particularly new, but I believe it is the first time they have tried it with a specific vaccine and had results like this.

Which brings me to my Hot on The Titties question.  I’m gonna make this pretty short today, and hopefully get a good conversation started.  I’m interested to hear what everyone has to say.

Anti-Vaxxers:

If your child had cancer, and you doctor showed you this study and asked you if you would accept the “super dose” of measles vaccine for a chance to save your child’s life, would you say yes?

As a parent who vaccinates, the answer to me is pretty obvious.  A total fucking no brainer.  Because any parent would do anything to save their child if they could. Right?

And I’m going to go ahead and assume most of the anti-vaxxers would say yes to my question.  And so then I say this to you:

The chance of your child getting cancer is quite slim, and most childhood cancers are fairly curable.  Same with most childhood diseases.  So if you would then say yes to save your child from cancer, and finally concede that the benefit outweighs the risk, why would you not do it as prevention?

And the difference, folks, is that we take cancer seriously.  The word scares the shit out of people, and so it should.

So maybe, if we changed the names of all the scary childhood diseases that can turn your life upside down, cause your child to suffer, cause permanent disability , and cause death to “cancer”,  maybe then people would see the forest for the goddamn trees.

And the floor is yours, Bitches.

 

 

 

Anti-Vaccination Disorder Fact Sheet

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Meet our resident “expert”.

Anti-Vaccination Disorder:

I have spent hours and hours researching the topic of the dangers of not vaccinating your children.  It turns out that besides the risk of  allowing once eradicated diseases to reappear, besides the risk of serious illness or death to occur in your child or in mine,  besides the problem with a herd immunity that no longer protects the already seriously ill or immunocompromised people out there who cannot receive vaccinations…

Besides all of that, my research has “proven” that their is another unexpected danger lurking for the parents who don’t vaccinate their children.

Stupidity.

It’s seems to be unclear at the moment,( pending further investigation), whether or not the stupidity is caused by ignorance, fear-mongering, Jenny McCarthy, Wakefield’s bogus study, or the truth found on the internet.  However, the statistics posted on several health related websites that show how immunizations have protected us against these childhood diseases suggest that the new epidemic of stupidity is widespread and growing at an alarming rate.

My research suggests that a combination of these factors, as well as a link to a genetic predisposition for idiocy could be responsible for the idea that vaccinations are not necessary and detrimental to our health.

Symptoms include:

Believing everything you read on the internet, no matter the author.

Trusting sensationalized, ratings hungry news networks to deliver unbiased information.

Assuming that there is a grand conspiracy in the world wishing that we raise a generation of sick or dependant children.

Assuming that your internet research is worth more than a medical professional’s educated opinion.

Assuming that your paediatrician or family doctor is in cahoots with big Pharma companies, because there’s obviously something in it for them to vaccinate and ruin your child.

Risking the lives of other people’s children because your truth has to be heard.

Taking bits of of misinformation from various “sources” and preaching it to other parents.

Allowing your own child to suffer through preventable diseases.

Saying the words “Jenny McCarthy” without rolling your eyes.

Assuming that if a medical treatment/drug/procedure has side effects, it is obviously no good.

Trying to convince other reasonable people to be un-reasonable.

Treatment:

It is possible that symptoms can be alleviated by limiting research to peer revised medical journals and other scholarly articles.  Frank conversations with your primary care physician and, if necessary, a follow up to a specialist in infectious disease may be useful.

Development of a stupidity vaccine seems unlikely, and also useless, since the irrational fear of vaccines seems to be a precursor to the disorder.

Prognosis:

People with the stupidity disorder are likely to suffer chronically.  Although intense head shaking a face slapping have been traditional methods of getting them to snap out of it and begin a course of treatment, full recovery is unlikely.  Risk factors such as the Internet continue to be available and it’s widespread use leads to full blown disease.