Anti-vaxxers in power

[Anaxagoras]

Despite parents' best efforts, boy survives to adulthood:

https://www.eastidahonews.com/2019/02/t ... of-others/

[Witness]

Facebook is thinking about removing anti-vaccination content as backlash intensifies over the spread of misinformation on the social network

• Facebook said in a statement Thursday that it may remove, reduce, and demote anti-vaccination content on the platform in an effort to combat the spread of false information.
• As an outbreak of measles spreads across the US, advertisements promoted by anti-vaccination organization have been targeting pregnant women on Facebook.
• At the same time, posts are frequently shared within various Facebook Groups discouraging people from vaccinating their children.
• Facebook said it is "thinking through what the right approach for this effort might look like" in a statement to Business Insider.

https://www.businessinsider.com/faceboo ... &r=US&IR=T

[xouper]

Facebook is thinking about removing anti-vaccination content as backlash intensifies over the spread of misinformation on the social network

• Facebook said in a statement Thursday that it may remove, reduce, and demote anti-vaccination content on the platform in an effort to combat the spread of false information.
• As an outbreak of measles spreads across the US, advertisements promoted by anti-vaccination organization have been targeting pregnant women on Facebook.
• At the same time, posts are frequently shared within various Facebook Groups discouraging people from vaccinating their children.
• Facebook said it is "thinking through what the right approach for this effort might look like" in a statement to Business Insider.

https://www.businessinsider.com/faceboo ... &r=US&IR=T

Next up, Facebook will be censoring any dissent about global warming. Or any dissent about evolution. Or any dissent about intersectional identity politics.

Not a good precedent to set. Facebook should not be an authoritarian arbiter of what is "true".

I understand that the First Amendment does not apply to private companies. Nonetheless it is a bad precedent for large and powerful companies to be anti-free-speech.

[sparks]

Agreed. Let these foolz spread the nonsense and then watch natural selection in progress.

Sorry kids, but someone must be sacrificed on the altar of Dumbth.

[gnome]

Unfortunately "natural selection" has collateral damage.

Just the same, as evidenced by my presence at this forum's founding, my preference for places like Facebook is that they avoid blocking content unless it is literally illegal or violates privacy, similar to the standards we have here. Instead, I would have them make sure the block functions work well, possibly provide an option to search any post against fact checking sites, but most importantly--I think they would get a lot of mileage looking at how they decide what content to promote based on user behavior. I think this very mechanic is one of the primary promoters of inflammatory content, and it is their product's own features that are causing it. Look what happens when you start posting political things--their software matches you to all kinds of content that "matches" and tries to get your attention with it. It definitely creates an echo chamber of sorts, and not one of the user's choosing. They should address that instead of policing users for accuracy.

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/ElryW1J.jpg

[Witness]

Addendum:

Measles spreads at Osaka site; infected woman used Shinkansen

OSAKA--Health officials have issued measles warnings to anyone who shopped at a commercial complex here, particularly for Valentine’s Day gifts, or used specific bullet trains connecting Osaka and Tokyo earlier this month.

A public health center in Osaka said Feb. 14 that a staff worker and six customers were infected with measles at the Abeno Harukas commercial complex, bringing to 16 the number of confirmed cases there.

Earlier this month, nine workers at a Valentine’s Day fair venue on the ninth floor of the complex’s wing tower were confirmed infected with measles. The latest announcement is the first to list customers.

The six customers are in their teens to 30s and visited the complex on Jan. 26 or 27.
[…]
Also on Feb. 14, the Osaka prefectural government said a woman in her 40s who traveled between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka stations on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line on Feb. 8 and 10 was infected with measles.

The Osaka woman developed a fever on Feb. 6 and rashes broke out on her body on Feb. 9, according to the prefecture’s medical division. The disease was confirmed on Feb. 13.
[…]
The number of confirmed measles cases in Osaka Prefecture this year was 46 as of Feb. 12, more than triple the figure for all of 2018.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201902150031.html

Anax, you had your shots, right?

[sparks]

What madness.

Doomed.

[Witness]

More than 900 dead in Madagascar measles epidemic

Geneva: At least 922 people have died in a measles outbreak in Madagascar, the majority of them children, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.

Since the beginning of the outbreak in September, more than 66,000 people in the African island nation have been infected with the highly contagious virus, the WHO said.

Measles is easily preventable through vaccination. The WHO has launched a campaign in collaboration with local authorities to vaccinate more than 6 million children in Madagascar.

The campaign also includes efforts to educate the population and counter negative perceptions about vaccinations.
[…]
There were 229,000 reported measles cases worldwide in 2018 - double the number of the previous year, according to preliminary WHO figures. WHO experts say the actual number of cases is likely to be many times higher.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/africa/mor ... 50y96.html

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/thgdUkn.jpg

:P

[Witness]

136 people dead, 8,400 others sick in Philippines measles outbreak: Health secretary

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine health secretary said Monday that 136 people, mostly children, have died of measles and 8,400 others have fallen ill in an outbreak blamed partly on vaccination fears.

A massive immunization drive that started last week in hard-hit Manila and four provincial regions may contain the outbreak by April, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said. President Rodrigo Duterte warned in a TV message Friday of fatal complications and urged children to be immunized.

“No ifs, no buts, no conditions, you just have to bring your children and trust that the vaccines … will save your children,” Duque said by telephone. “That’s the absolute answer to this outbreak.”

Infections spiked by more than 1,000% in metropolitan Manila, the densely packed capital of more than 12 million people, in January compared to last year, health officials said.

About half of the 136 who died were children aged 1 to 4 and many of those who perished were not inoculated, the officials said.

Duque said a government information drive was helping restore public trust in the government’s immunization program, which was marred in 2017 by controversy over an anti-dengue vaccine made by French drugmaker Sanofi Pasteur which some officials linked to the deaths of at least three children.

The Philippine government halted the anti-dengue immunization drive after Sanofi said a study showed the vaccine may increase the risks of severe dengue infections. More than 830,000 children were injected with the Dengvaxia vaccine under the campaign, which was launched in 2016 under then-President Benigno Aquino III. The campaign continued under Duterte until it was stopped in 2017.

Sanofi officials told Philippine congressional hearings that the Dengvaxia vaccine was safe and effective and would reduce dengue infections if the vaccination drive continued.

“It seems the faith has come back,” Duque said of public trust on the government’s immunization drive, citing the inoculation of about 130,000 of 450,000 people targeted for anti-measles vaccinations in metropolitan Manila in just a week.

https://vancouversun.com/health/136-peo ... 4674eafb54

The Froggies, again! :x

[Witness]

Fearing Their Dogs Will Develop Autism, Some Owners Are Declining Vaccinations

The concern over pets developing autism from vaccines appears to be the latest issue within the anti-vaxxer movement.

The ‘anti-vaxxer’ movement has moved beyond vaccinating children and seeped into the realm of pet vaccines, according to the Telegraph, leading the British Veterinary Association to clarify that dogs cannot get autism.

'Anti-vaxxers' believe that immunisations have harmful side effects and may be the cause of autism in children - beliefs widely debunked by the medical community.

This theory is increasingly being applied to pets, particularly in the US, and there are fears it is spreading to the UK and could cause already low vaccination rates to fall.

The BVA statement acknowledged the issue stems from U.S. pet owners and cautioned British animal lovers to ignore the new trend:

“We are aware of an increase in anti-vaccination pet owners in the US who have voiced concerns that vaccinations may lead to their dogs developing autism-like behaviour.

“But there is currently no scientific evidence to suggest autism in dogs or a link between vaccination and autism.”

“All medicines have potential side effects but in the case of vaccines these are rare and the benefits of vaccination in protecting against disease far outweigh the potential for an adverse reaction.”

[…]
The issue also comes at a time when pet vaccinations are already in decline:

Pet vaccination rates in the UK are already falling. The PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report in 2017 showed that 25 per cent of dogs, 35 per cent of cats and 50 per cent of rabbits had not had a primary vaccination course when young, up on previous years.

https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellect ... Hql_sgCIQ/

[shemp]

Absolute fucking barking-mad insane stupidity!

[sparks]

Teh Dumbth is strong...

[Witness]

French Family Brings the Measles to Costa Rica

A French family is now in isolation because they have measles. It’s a couple, aged 30 and 35, and their 5-year-old son. They traveled for almost 12 hours on a plane from France to Costa Rica with over 300 passengers.

The passengers, potentially exposed to the virus, are being notified. They should go to their nearest health center if they feel ill or to get vaccinated if they haven’t been. The affected flight was Air France AF 430.

The 11 Costa Ricans on that flight have been contacted and the foreigners were sent an email to contact the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health and the CCSS are intensely tracking all possible contacts. 24 people who stayed at the same hotel have been vaccinated.

There haven’t been any measles cases in the country since 2014. The case of this French family will not lead to an epidemic, authorities say. It can, however, cause small outbreaks of secondary cases.

https://www.costaricantimes.com/french- ... rica/65495

As per French press, mom & kid weren't vaccinated, and the dad wasn't up to date with his vaccinations. But they'll learn their lesson, having to stay in isolation during their vacation. :twisted:

[sparks]

Sagan said it: "When you arrange to live in a technical civilization and then don't educate the citizenry, you're setting up a time bomb."

[Doctor X]

Though many refuse the education.

--J.D.

[Pyrrho]

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/v ... index.html

CDC Vaccine Price List

[sparks]

Though many refuse the education.

--J.D.

Which is why they shouldn't be allowed to vote until passing the Turing test. :)

[Witness]

Anti-Vaxx Texas Lawmaker Bill Zedler: Measles Outbreak Not an Issue Because of ‘Antibiotics’

A Texas state representative introduced legislation on Wednesday that would make it easier to opt out of childhood vaccinations, despite the resurgence of measles across the U.S. Republican State Rep. Bill Zedler, an outspoken anti-vaxxer, said he is not worried about the spread of vaccine-covered ailments because of “antibiotics.”

“They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in third-world countries they’re dying of measles,” Zedler said Tuesday. “Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they’re not dying in America.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxx ... ntibiotics

"And that kind of stuff..." :roll: Alas, no vaccine against stupidity, we'll have to continue the hard Darwinian way.

[sparks]

Anti-Vaxx Texas Lawmaker Bill Zedler: Measles Outbreak Not an Issue Because of ‘Antibiotics’

A Texas state representative introduced legislation on Wednesday that would make it easier to opt out of childhood vaccinations, despite the resurgence of measles across the U.S. Republican State Rep. Bill Zedler, an outspoken anti-vaxxer, said he is not worried about the spread of vaccine-covered ailments because of “antibiotics.”

“They want to say people are dying of measles. Yeah, in third-world countries they’re dying of measles,” Zedler said Tuesday. “Today, with antibiotics and that kind of stuff, they’re not dying in America.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxx ... ntibiotics

"And that kind of stuff..." :roll: Alas, no vaccine against stupidity, we'll have to continue the hard Darwinian way.

This fucker needs to be.... edumacated. With high velocity lead. Goddamn, what a dumbth fucker.

[shemp]

:bang_head:

[Witness]

Halifax chiropractor gives up licence, admits to professional incompetence

Dena Churchill posted online extensively about vaccines and made unfounded claims

A Halifax-based chiropractor who attracted attention for her unfounded views on vaccines is no longer licensed to practise in Nova Scotia.

A notice on the Nova Scotia College of Chiropractors' website says Dena Churchill surrendered her licence in January and entered into a settlement agreement with the college in which she admits the charge of being "professionally incompetent as a result of incompetence arising out of mental incapacity."

A hearing on the charge scheduled for next week will no longer go ahead.

The settlement agreement says Churchill underwent a psychological assessment in the fall. She cannot reapply for a licence to practise in Nova Scotia unless she provides a qualified medical opinion to the college's satisfaction that she is competent and fit to practise.

[…]

While the agreement resolves the matter of whether Churchill can practise in Nova Scotia, she still faces a professional misconduct hearing in May related to her online activity.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-sco ... 77?cmp=rss

One less. :twisted:

[sparks]

It's a start.

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/Fsv1lCf.jpg

[shemp]

I'm gonna try it! I hear it's good for teh autizms!

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/szZncy2.jpg

[Anaxagoras]

Facebook is thinking about removing anti-vaccination content as backlash intensifies over the spread of misinformation on the social network

• Facebook said in a statement Thursday that it may remove, reduce, and demote anti-vaccination content on the platform in an effort to combat the spread of false information.
• As an outbreak of measles spreads across the US, advertisements promoted by anti-vaccination organization have been targeting pregnant women on Facebook.
• At the same time, posts are frequently shared within various Facebook Groups discouraging people from vaccinating their children.
• Facebook said it is "thinking through what the right approach for this effort might look like" in a statement to Business Insider.

https://www.businessinsider.com/faceboo ... &r=US&IR=T

Next up, Facebook will be censoring any dissent about global warming. Or any dissent about evolution. Or any dissent about intersectional identity politics.

Not a good precedent to set. Facebook should not be an authoritarian arbiter of what is "true".

I understand that the First Amendment does not apply to private companies. Nonetheless it is a bad precedent for large and powerful companies to be anti-free-speech.

I'm going to disagree with this. I think too much misinformation gets spread by Facebook, including misinformation about vaccines, and it's harmful to society. Obviously they should stay out of politics but they shouldn't allow their platform to be used for purposes that harm society either.

[Doctor X]

Yeah, this is giving erroneous medical advice delivered with inappropriate authority and resulting in actual material harm.

"It is not a matter of 'opinion,' but a matter of 'fact!'" as a venerable mentor cautioned those upset with the evidences--you are welcome--of physics.

I watched an interesting "shut down" of a discussion on a legal blog devoted to, of all things, free speech. The reason is the Idiot in Question simply had his own opinion of what "hearsay" is. "Hearsay" is a complicated thing which can seem counter-intuitive, I will grant, but for actual lawyers it is a legal definition built up by both common and statutory law. I may not "wike it" or "agree with it" but that does not matter in legal reality.

This Idiot in Question then had the temerity to proclaim that lawyers and judges were all "wrong." Yes. At that point, the owner of the blog--a Real Lawyer[Tm.--Ed.] who attracts comments from other Real Lawyers[All Rights Reserved--Ed.]--kicked his ass out.

"BUT MAI FREEDOMZ!!1!!!"

Sure. But since the Idiot in Question wanted to argue the law while ignoring the law, he becomes like someone telling a biologist that evolution is a "myth," a physicist that "there is no evidence for atoms!" or that a force really is mv rather than mv², or me telling you that Japanese "really should begin with the verb."

Or the True Claus of Skepticism arguing about kopjiwreighkt law.

In the rain.

--J.D.

[Witness]

https://i.imgur.com/OwhG9Pp.png

[sparks]

Jeezuz, more dumbth.

"But what about MAI FREEDOMS????" One more once bitch: You do not have the freedom to act irresponsibly. Towards your kids or your community.

[Anaxagoras]

Why Measles Is a Quintessential Political Issue of Our Time

On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a timely and important hearing that had no hope of getting media attention on the same day that President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified before another committee. The overlooked hearing focussed on ongoing measles outbreaks in the United States. Between January 1st and February 21st, a hundred and fifty-nine cases of measles were diagnosed in ten states—more cases than there were in all of 2017. Measles is highly contagious and potentially deadly. It’s also entirely preventable through vaccination.

Testifying at the hearing were Anthony S. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One after another, subcommittee members asked Messonnier and Fauci if measles was dangerous and vaccines were safe. The doctors, neither of whom is a stranger to public speaking, exchanged befuddled glances. How does one handle a question to which the answer is obvious? Time after time, Fauci and Messonnier handled the questions with grace and patience. Grace, though, is a double-edged sword: a polite, respectful response to an ignorant question inevitably affirms the impression that the question itself is valid.

Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, asked Messonnier to answer “yes” or “no” to a question about the primary culprit behind the outbreaks: Is it “vaccine hesitancy and misinformation”? Messonnier responded with a diplomatic “Yes and no.” She explained that children who are not covered by health insurance are less likely to be vaccinated, which suggests that parents’ opposition to vaccination is not the only reason that fewer children are being vaccinated. In response to a later question from Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, Fauci was more decisive: he called disinformation “an important problem.” But he immediately cautioned against blaming parents who have bad information; the goal, he said, should be to provide them with better, evidence-based messaging.

Sitting behind Fauci was a woman who kept silently raising a book titled “How to End the Autism Epidemic.” The phrase refers to a bogus, long-ago debunked theory that preservatives that were once used in the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella (M.M.R.) caused autism. The British gastroenterologist who once hypothesized this link lost his medical license years ago, but books, brochures, and articles promoting his theory continue to circulate and inspire people to reject vaccination and even to protest during congressional hearings.

Vaccination is a basic political issue, because it is the subject of community agreement. When a high-enough percentage of community members are immunized, a disease can be effectively vanquished. In epidemiological terms, this is known as “herd immunity,” which cannot be maintained below a certain threshold. When enough people reject the community agreement, they endanger the rest. Willfully unvaccinated adults and children can spread diseases to those who cannot be vaccinated or haven’t been vaccinated, such as infants and people with a compromised immune system; these vulnerable populations would probably be safe in conditions of herd immunity. Vaccination and the refusal to vaccinate are political acts: individual decisions that affect others and the very ability of people to inhabit common spaces.

[Doctor X]

It is more important to find a viable excuse for why Her Turn lost, Anax.

--J.D.

[Witness]

From June 2017:

[sparks]

Brilliant!

[Anaxagoras]

18-Year-Old Testifies About Getting Vaccinated Despite Mother's Anti-Vaccine Beliefs

Eighteen-year-old Ethan Lindenberger appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Tuesday to talk about how he decided to get vaccinated against the wishes of his mother, who is anti-vaccine.
. . .

Lindenberger grew up without common vaccinations such as those for measles and chicken pox before finally getting immunizations starting in December. He described being pulled out of class each year and told he needed to get his shots, only to be opted out each time by his mother.

Most states allow parents to claim a religious exemption to vaccination requirements for their children to attend school. Seventeen states currently allow parents to opt out of vaccinations for personal or philosophical reasons.
. . .

Lindenberger's mother got most of her misinformation about vaccines on Facebook, he told the committee. Meanwhile, he got information about vaccines from the CDC, the World Health Organization and scientific journals, he said.

Facebook has come under scrutiny by health advocates and lawmakers over anti-vaccination groups and ads on its network. Rep. Adam Schiff wrote to Mark Zuckerberg last month out of concern that Facebook and Instagram are "surfacing and recommending messages" that discourage children's vaccination. The company told The Washington Post it has "taken steps to reduce the distribution of health-related misinformation on Facebook, but we know we have more to do."

This is a problem with Facebook, but also a more general problem with the Internet itself. If not Facebook, it would be sites like "NaturalNews" which is a huge spreader of misinformation.

NaturalNews.com[note 1] and its sister site WakingScience.com are websites run by Mike Adams (self-labeled "The Health Ranger") which promotes alternative medicine and related conspiracy theories.[2] Even other quacks think it's a quack site.[3] The site particularly specializes in vaccine denialism and the alleged vaccines-autism link,[4] AIDS/HIV denialism,[5] quack cancer treatments,[6] and conspiracy theories about "Big Pharma".[7] If there's an alternative medicine or alternative medical treatment out there, you can guarantee that NaturalNews has one article singing its praises to the sky and one more bashing the stupid "skeptics".

In short: If you cite NaturalNews on any matter whatsoever, you are almost certainly wrong.

I don't really have a solution to this dilemma, because if you're talking about regulating the whole Internet, that would be a nightmare, but if a major company like Facebook or YouTube would at least self-regulate the content on its own platform, I don't see that as an inherently bad thing.

[Witness]

Researchers studied the connection between the MMR vaccine and autism in a nationwide cohort of all children born in Denmark to Danish-born mothers from 1999 to 2010. They followed kids from age one through the end of August 2013.

Overall, 95 percent of the kids in the study got the vaccine.

Children with autistic siblings were more than seven times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than kids without this family history, the study found.

Boys were four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls, the study found.

And, children who had no childhood vaccinations were 17 percent more likely to be diagnosed with autism than kids who did get recommended vaccinations.
[…]
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how vaccines might cause autism.

Another drawback is the potential for some kids to have undiagnosed autism before getting the MMR vaccine, which could make the MMR vaccine appear linked to autism when it really isn't connected, the study authors note. It's also possible that the onset of autism symptoms might lead parents to skip the vaccine.

Still, the study adds to a large body of evidence showing that vaccines don't cause autism, writes Dr. Saad Omer of Emory University in Atlanta, co-author of an accompanying editorial.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-hea ... la-n979176

No link to the source in the article.

So apparently there is a link to autism – a negative link. :lmao:

[sparks]

And the real linky is more likely genetic.

Take that you Antivaxxing shit-for-genes assholes! :)

[Anaxagoras]

The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how vaccines might cause autism.

Yeah, but you can't do a controlled experiment, like a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. But we do have a kind of "natural experiment" since some kids don't get vaccinated. I think it's still strong evidence, and more than sufficient.

[sparks]

Indeed it is.

"children who had no childhood vaccinations were 17 percent more likely to be diagnosed with autism"

Even if uncontrolled it says one helluva lot. But that's what humans do: See patterns where there are none.