A rising number of parents in more than half of states are opting out of school shots for their kids. And in eight states, more than 1 in 20 public school kindergartners do not get all the vaccines required for attendance, an Associated Press analysis found.
That has health officials worried about possible new outbreaks of diseases that were all but stamped out.
The AP analysis found more than half of states have seen at least a slight rise in the rate of exemptions over the past five years. States with the highest exemption rates are in the West and Upper Midwest.
It's "really gotten much worse," said Mary Selecky, secretary of health for Washington state, where 6 percent of public school parents have opted out....
No, Rufus, I really meant no vaccine has been 100% effective. Neil, I do know one thing, if you should get tetanus, you would really be sick, and seems that the fatality rate is quite high, statistically speaking, but hey being an individual, perhaps you would live through it. I understand there has been people who lived through getting rabies also.
Gasp! Wow! What an intelligent article! Refusal to vaccinate puts kids at risk of course because it agrees with me, or vice-versa doesn't have anything to do with it.
Rufus wrote: "...and then the witch doctor, he told me what to do He told me: Ooh, eeh, ooh, ah, ah, ting, tang, walla, walla, bing, bang..." - Ray Stevens
Ha! I remember that song as well. Ah, brings back memories.
Neil wrote: Good example, John. We have no way of knowing how any given individual will react to medicine, so statistical generalizations about "most people" are useless to someone faced with a choice. For how do we know whether we are like "most people?" It is no more certain than weather or the stockmarket. Long ago, I got sick after a tetanus shot. Was it 1) ineffective vaccine; 2) an allergic reaction to the vaccine, or 3) something else entirely? Who knows? You can't conduct a controlled experiment here; there's only one me, and one set of circumstances which can never be replicated precisely. So it is utterly irrational to claim certainty about the effects of medicine, of any kind. All we can do is guess, and hope for the best.
Yes indeeed, Neil. Over the years I have been prescribed pills by the bucketful, as well as buying my own from the chemist. Nowadays, for me, they are a necessary evil, for my BP. But man, how they slow me down.
John UK wrote: I heard a poor ol' fella saying yesterday that his aging wife needed some cough medicine coz she was taken quite bad after having a flu jab. The doctor treats her, and then the chemist treats her, a double whammy!
"...and then the witch doctor, he told me what to do He told me: Ooh, eeh, ooh, ah, ah, ting, tang, walla, walla, bing, bang..." - Ray Stevens
Good example, John. We have no way of knowing how any given individual will react to medicine, so statistical generalizations about "most people" are useless to someone faced with a choice. For how do we know whether we are like "most people?" It is no more certain than weather or the stockmarket.
Long ago, I got sick after a tetanus shot. Was it 1) ineffective vaccine; 2) an allergic reaction to the vaccine, or 3) something else entirely? Who knows? You can't conduct a controlled experiment here; there's only one me, and one set of circumstances which can never be replicated precisely. So it is utterly irrational to claim certainty about the effects of medicine, of any kind. All we can do is guess, and hope for the best.
Rufus wrote: Mr. Lincoln. I thought your opening comment was most likely jesting. Now I am being compelled to believe you are serious. 100% effective? You really believe this?
I heard a poor ol' fella saying yesterday that his aging wife needed some cough medicine coz she was taken quite bad after having a flu jab. The doctor treats her, and then the chemist treats her, a double whammy!
Jim Lincoln wrote: No, vaccines are 100% effective, though they seem to have been effective enough to eliminate polio in this country, and apparently the entire world, for smallpox. ...
Mr. Lincoln. I thought your opening comment was most likely jesting. Now I am being compelled to believe you are serious. 100% effective? You really believe this?
jpw wrote: A more rational approach would be to look at historical data. As here, there's enough to take up your day...... http://www.whale.to/vaccine/smallpox_graphs_h.html
I won't bother, since the scientific method isn't rational. Population sampling, & the subsequent mathematics, are easily challenged on logical grounds. Plus, one cannot logically infer that what is true for smallpox is also true for other diseases - fallacy of induction.
I do not say this because I'm a fan of vaccination, but because I appreciate the weaknesses of science on both sides of the question.
when people believe in something with all their heart, giving 100% perfection to it, you have gone beyond reason into the realm of religion.
thinking people are able to see that if populations (as we are cattle in the Darwinian world) get a disease after innoculation, it is not 100% AND then get told they need boosters every few years, that is certainly not ABSOLUTE.
All that is ABSOLUTE are things I attribute only to God, but those who will defend such things as ABSOLUTE will also deny the priesthood they've given to such things.
And then it becomes an issue of idolatry, and putting the little ones on the altar to fulfill our lust for eternal life in the hands of the priest in white. For we must think they have ABSOLUTE power of disease and death, we have not given God his rightful role but man. So man can shut the door, trade aborted baby tissue and infect monkeys and leave them festering with illness in cages, to extract cells for replication of known and unknown pathogens, and the trusting fellow on the other side will say, this is absolutely great, what a deal I've gotten!
A more rational approach would be to look at historical data. As here, there's enough to take up your day......
No, vaccines are 100% effective, though they seem to have been effective enough to eliminate polio in this country, and apparently the entire world, for smallpox.
Thankfully, at least those parents who have to send their children to public school can be penalized if their children don't get their shots.
I think Churches and private Christian schools should step up to the plate, and have it shown kiddie carriers aren't contaminating others, who for some reason or another (perhaps as in the above, the shots didn't take?) It is being considerate as a Christian should be.
B. Sorcery, hmm, you mean you're kids eat live chickens, beef, plants, etc. Otherwise they are taking in dead stuff all the time. I suppose all of you are like the Jainists, q.v. ( Jain vegetarianism, and wear masks so you won't ingest any insects unaware?
Jim Lincoln wrote: Stop these little repositories of germs of attending schools, until they get their shots.
Dude man, the little repositories of germs (plus poisons, filth, dead baby stuff, etc.)are the vaccinated ones, as that is the intended purpose. Calling evil good gets you a BIG FAT WOE!
If in fact the vaccines worked as promised, then the vaccinated kids have nothing to worry about with the presence of non-vaccinated kids. However, vaccines are oftentimes ineffective. In 1997 the Australian government reported that the Pertussis vaccine was 37% effective. However the effective rate of deaths from the Pertussis vaccine was closer to 10 times that of the the deaths from the disease.
The math suggests to the parents that it is safer to get the disease than the vaccine. But the math to the drug company which does not have liability for defective or ineffective product is to sell more drugs and kill more kids.
Kirk O'Shotts wrote: Executions will reduce truancy rates and enable bureaucrats to meet and exceed targets. Some theonomist will provide a "biblical" basis.
Actually, it's about Average Daily Attendance. More warm bodies means more funding. And it's a boon for drug companies.
Digression: Jaime Escalante, the Peruvian who taught East L.A. ghetto kids AP Calculus in the '80s, later left Garfield High because of faculty politics & angering the teacher's union. This gives one an idea about the real priorities of gov't schools. He went back to Peru to teach at university.
COMMENTS | 
. -- Joshua
john uk from wales: "
stever
nothing new in there jim, i am aware of rcc..."
