Gene Frenkle Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 With the flu vaccine... If say 70-80% of the people get the vaccine and you don't... Does that lessen your odds of getting the flu. If that is the case, I will just let everybdoy else get the vaccine. It's called 'herd immunity'. Once you reach a certain threshold of vaccination in the population, the non-vaccinated portion is protected by the vaccinated. Problems arise when the anti-vaccination 'activists' spread lies and misinformation, effectively driving the percentage vaccinated below that threshold. Childhood diseases that should be a thing of the past are now making a comeback: measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox and even polio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity Jenny McCarthy even has her own body count based on her unscientific rants against vaccines. http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene Frenkle Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 I think they are arbitrarily assigning traits, and have it backwards. Self-reliance, resilience, dominating and energetic are associated with conservativism, while victimization, indecisiveness, feafullness and (arguably) rigidness are associated with liberalism. So if anything, they are guilty of missing the boat. If, as they claim, these traits correlate they way they say from childhood into adult political leanings, the scholarly question they should have asked is why conservative children (self-reliant etc) switch to become political liberals (vicitimized, fearfull etc), and while liberal children (victimized) switch to become conservative adults. Yes, your slanted view is so much more objective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 It's called 'herd immunity'. Once you reach a certain threshold of vaccination in the population, the non-vaccinated portion is protected by the vaccinated. Problems arise when the anti-vaccination 'activists' spread lies and misinformation, effectively driving the percentage vaccinated below that threshold. Childhood diseases that should be a thing of the past are now making a comeback: measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox and even polio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity Jenny McCarthy even has her own body count based on her unscientific rants against vaccines. http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com Additionally, when the community immunity drops below the threshold, even vaccinated people can catch the illness. As of a few years ago, San Diego had vaccination and childhood illness rates on the order of a Third World country's, simply because enough "educated" people were so convinced that vaccinations were dangerous and didn't work anyway that diseases like measles and mumps became epidemic. Vaccination is very much about public health - denying a disease the ability to establish itself in a community - rather than individual health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YellowLinesandArmadillos Posted July 31, 2009 Share Posted July 31, 2009 But they've thought about it! So it's inevitable!! Funny thing is...not too long ago, vaccine distribution and administration would have been a state function, with the National Guard called out for additional manpower in cases of extreme need. Now, it appears it's much more federalized, and states' right are once more further diminished. What's more...last time I can think of that the country had a mass vaccination (1976), it was strictly an NIH and CDC show. Now we've got our wonderful Department of Homeland Security responsible for WMD mitigation, which means public health falls in part under their authority, in addition to NIH/HHS. And who knows where the hell those lines of authority overlap, conflict, are redundant, or are simply useless and stupid. But Dwight can't possibly understand either of those very real and serious issues...he's too busy predicting the End of Days. And I'm the one with my head in the sand, apparently. Go figure. Dwight may have a point about End of Days... though not quite as he describes, more along the lines of your scenario... I hate to think about the incompetence of Homeland Security and its ramifications for getting anything like this done. I have heard enough stories about their stupidity to question even the need for the agency. We would be better of going back to the incompetence of the FBI, Treasury, CIA etc then to trust these idiots to do anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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