Thursday, July 10, 2008
Daily Douchebag: people who don't vaccinate
DOB: various
Occupation: gullible disease-promoting losers
Hometown: Anytown, USA
Current residence: Everywhere
Douchebaggery: I always get really annoyed when I hear someone talking about how they're not going to vaccinate their kids. For one thing, I'm annoyed they had kids in the first place, because kids are fucking annoying. For another, people who oppose vaccination are usually really fucking pompous about it and spout off a bunch of condescending bullshit like "don't you know that vaccines cause AUTISM???"
Usually when I come across one of these people, I school them hard by dropping a truckload of virology all over their asses, because they are wrong about almost every bit of scientastic made-up crap they patronizingly present as factual. For starters, the link to autism has been disproven by every major clinical study ever conducted. When you mention this, you usually hear something like, "Oh yeah? Well, what about the THIMEROSAL in vaccines? It's made from MERCURY!" Maybe that would fly if thimerosal was still included in most of the childhood vaccine preparations. Since pharmaceutical companies began packaging vaccines in single-use vials, there is no longer a need to use preservatives such as thimerosal since health care providers aren't double-dipping needles anymore. The rate of autism has not changed significantly in relation to the exclusion of thimerosal from childhood vaccines, nor has it decreased in populations that skip vaccination. However, I guess things like "studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals" don't mean much to people like Jenny McCarthy, who has an autistic kid and blames that on vaccination. She went on Larry King to demonstrate her simultaneous desire to blame someone for her kid's condition and her total ignorance on the subject, as she went off about how the studies disproving the link between vaccines and autism were totally wrong. It speaks volumes about the innate intelligence of the anti-vaccination movement when they consider the former host of "Singled Out" and 1994's Playmate of the Year a more credible scientific authority than the fucking American Medical Association when it comes to the interpretation of clinical data from multicenter studies involving thousands of patients.
I Googled "people who don't vaccinate" just to see what other wacked-out excuses people were using to avoid vaccination. This one dude's blog, called "massivetruth," claims that "human diploid cells" (translation: any kind of cell except a sperm or egg) in vaccines are a huge ethical problem, because "some pharmaceutical companies are extracting them from aborted fetuses such as the WI-38 and MRC-5." This sounds like some sort of mwah-ha-ha-type evil scientist-type shit that has something to do with cloning, but the fact is the WI-38 and MRC-5 are cell lines that were isolated in 1962 and 1966 from embryonic tissue and have been banked ever since. It's not like pharmaceutical companies are running some kind of abortion factory for vaccine production. And almost every drug has, at some point, probably been tested on WI-38s, MRC-5s, or HEK293s (another line derived from embryonic tissue), so if you don't want something that has been tested on a cell line with fetal origins, then you better give up popping Advil for your headaches, taking antibiotics for infections, and modern medicine altogether.
This dumbass goes on to bitch about how "we also see a rise in super virus strands such as the ever-evolving flu virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has noted that the flu vaccine has become increasingly ineffective. This is because the flu viral strands are adapting, becoming stronger. I personally attribute this to the mass inoculations people take without regard." Well, "massivetruth," you'd be better off calling yourself "massiveidiot" with something like that. Influenza is constantly evolving, but not because of "mass inoculations." Not that I would expect this moron to know anything about how RNA viruses such as influenza mutate more rapidly than DNA viruses (such as smallpox, herpes, etc.) because of the 100-1000 fold higher error rate of RNA polymerases. Flu viruses–which are taxonomically grouped into "STRAINS," not "strands"–not only constantly evolve due to their fundamental molecular nature, but they're not necessarily becoming "super" or "stronger." And the reason flu vaccines sometimes don't work is because every year, the vaccine powers that be gather a bunch of epidemiological data and try to predict which flu strains will emerge during the next flu season so they can make a vaccine against the top 3 most likely strains to circulate widely. Sometimes they are correct, and sometimes they are not, but it has to be done this way because there are hundreds of flu strains and the vaccine takes months to make.
In fact, the only thing this asshole does get right is that Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Act in 1986 to shield pharmaceutical companies from excessive liability due to vaccine side effects. The author notes "I can't imagine the guilt of losing my child because I let someone inject them with micro-doses of viruses." It's true that live attenuated vaccines (which are weakened viruses that infect the recipient but don't cause disease, like the Sabin polio vaccine) sometimes have side effects and can result in disease occasionally. However, I would feel a hell of a lot more guilty if my kid got polio the old-fashioned way and wound up permanently disabled or dead because I was taking drastic stands on scientific matters I didn't fully understand.
These anti-vaccine people really piss me off, because thanks to their self-righteous ignorance, they are bringing the vanquished diseases of yesteryear back into vogue. A measles outbreak is currently spreading through 15 states, mostly through the unvaccinated population. I would be willing to bet that population is comprised mostly of kids younger than 15 who have dumb parents that heard somewhere vaccination is bad and thus put their offspring at risk for diseases that haven't been a significant problem since the dawn of the fucking Cold War. I can't wait until polio starts tearing through the suburbs. Maybe when all their kids are strapping on their leg braces and climbing into their iron lungs instead of going to soccer practice these fucktards will realize how fucking stupid they are. Until then, take it from me (and no matter what people say about my personal life, I am a virologist by training)...don't be as dumb as Jenny McCarthy. Immunize your brats.
Labels: Daily Douchebag, destroy all children, epidemic geekery, retard rage, scathing indictments, science, viruses rule
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Razzy! You so sexy when you talk virology to us.
Hope the totally lame Rxxx situation and technical issues resolve themselves soon.
-lil darlin
Hope the totally lame Rxxx situation and technical issues resolve themselves soon.
-lil darlin
# posted by 
: 7/11/2008 1:28 AM
: 7/11/2008 1:28 AM
Thank you for posting this. I too have had it with these flavor of the month bandwagon assholes. In particular the ones that don't vaccinate and of course the hypochondriacs that have adopted autism as the "it" disease for children (a few years back it was ADHD).
Keep on kickin' ass.
Keep on kickin' ass.
Forcing people to vaccinate is wrong. I am permanently pissed that my wife was forced by New York State law to be vaccinated with the rubella vaccine (RA27/3) and now has a permanent rubella infection. She was not planning on getting pregnant at the time and would have been willing to get an abortion if she somehow became infected while pregnant. The risk of injury for an adult woman taking the rubella vaccine far out weighs the potential benefit.
Oh, and if you are injured by a vaccine you are completely screwed. Legal protections make it impossible to successfully sue the manufacturer. My advice to anyone injured by a vaccine is to sue the doctor that gave it to you for failing to explain the risks involved. Forget trying to go through the vaccine board.
Just because these anti-vaccine people are ignorant, doesn't mean they are wrong. Vaccine injuries are wildly underreported, because most doctors don't believe they exist and thus fail to report them, believing them to be coincidental.
Oh, and if you are injured by a vaccine you are completely screwed. Legal protections make it impossible to successfully sue the manufacturer. My advice to anyone injured by a vaccine is to sue the doctor that gave it to you for failing to explain the risks involved. Forget trying to go through the vaccine board.
Just because these anti-vaccine people are ignorant, doesn't mean they are wrong. Vaccine injuries are wildly underreported, because most doctors don't believe they exist and thus fail to report them, believing them to be coincidental.
# posted by : 7/11/2008 1:10 PM
: 7/11/2008 1:10 PM
Thank you for this post, Razzy; these anti-vax people have really driven me nuts. Not because it has any effect on anything I'm doing in particular, but mostly because I'm forced to listen to them blather on about stuff that they just don't know. And you are absolutely right that it is ridiculous to cite Jenny McCarthy for any sort of scientific expertise!
Did you hear Amanda Peet's quote that's been tumbling around the gossip blogs? She said that parents who don't vaccinate their children are "parasites." She doesn't profess to know anything about virology, and she makes no bones about leaving it to the actual experts. I've never been a big Amanda Peet fan, but she threw that one down quite well.
-big fan
Did you hear Amanda Peet's quote that's been tumbling around the gossip blogs? She said that parents who don't vaccinate their children are "parasites." She doesn't profess to know anything about virology, and she makes no bones about leaving it to the actual experts. I've never been a big Amanda Peet fan, but she threw that one down quite well.
-big fan
# posted by : 7/12/2008 5:18 PM
: 7/12/2008 5:18 PM
Hmmm....
You lost me here.
I'm a newbie. First day at razzy.org
I spent a good portion of the afternoon reading random pages from your website. I was having fun. I even e-mailed a link to your site to my smart hot jewish friend.
I had my wallet out, I was planning to buy the subscription. OK you don't sell subscriptions but you know... I was going to come back... Then I read the anti-anti-vaccine rant. DUDE! That sucked! Really do you have that much faith in the drug industry? As a scientist you have encountered no evidence of the pharmaceuticals influencing the course of science and the type of research that is conducted?
Have fun at the conference.
You lost me here.
I'm a newbie. First day at razzy.org
I spent a good portion of the afternoon reading random pages from your website. I was having fun. I even e-mailed a link to your site to my smart hot jewish friend.
I had my wallet out, I was planning to buy the subscription. OK you don't sell subscriptions but you know... I was going to come back... Then I read the anti-anti-vaccine rant. DUDE! That sucked! Really do you have that much faith in the drug industry? As a scientist you have encountered no evidence of the pharmaceuticals influencing the course of science and the type of research that is conducted?
Have fun at the conference.
# posted by : 7/14/2008 8:36 PM
: 7/14/2008 8:36 PM
Man, that was a rant. Vaccine injuries are not a new thing. This is the United States of America. I should be able to refuse a vaccine that the government and drug companies think I should have for whatever reason I choose. The drug companies own Washington and use the government for their benefit, not ours and for sure not the greater good.
I enjoy a good rant whether I agree with the ranter or not, but this is not just about autism. Look at the issues with the HPV vaccine, Gardasil. The default position for the government over much of the last 100 years has been to deny first, muddy the waters, and paint any dissenters as crazy. This is standard operating procedure for the government on just about all levels.
"Out of the Doctors Trial in Nuremberg came the Nuremberg Code, of which Yale law professor, physician and ethicist Jay Katz has said “if not explicitly then at least implicitly, commanded that the principle of the advancement of science bow to a higher principle: protection of individual inviolability. The rights of individuals to thoroughgoing self-determination and autonomy must come first. Scientific advances may be impeded, perhaps even become impossible at times, but this is a price worth paying.”
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan concurred when he said, “The Nuremberg Code explicitly rejects the moral argument that the creation of benefits for many justifies the sacrifice of the few. Every experiment, no matter how important or valuable, requires the express voluntary consent of the individual. The right of individuals to control their bodies trumps the interest of others in obtaining knowledge or benefits from them.”
FJH
http://autismparents.net
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I enjoy a good rant whether I agree with the ranter or not, but this is not just about autism. Look at the issues with the HPV vaccine, Gardasil. The default position for the government over much of the last 100 years has been to deny first, muddy the waters, and paint any dissenters as crazy. This is standard operating procedure for the government on just about all levels.
"Out of the Doctors Trial in Nuremberg came the Nuremberg Code, of which Yale law professor, physician and ethicist Jay Katz has said “if not explicitly then at least implicitly, commanded that the principle of the advancement of science bow to a higher principle: protection of individual inviolability. The rights of individuals to thoroughgoing self-determination and autonomy must come first. Scientific advances may be impeded, perhaps even become impossible at times, but this is a price worth paying.”
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan concurred when he said, “The Nuremberg Code explicitly rejects the moral argument that the creation of benefits for many justifies the sacrifice of the few. Every experiment, no matter how important or valuable, requires the express voluntary consent of the individual. The right of individuals to control their bodies trumps the interest of others in obtaining knowledge or benefits from them.”
FJH
http://autismparents.net
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