103 thoughts on “Should you vaccinate?”

    1. I really wish it were that easy. I vaccinate my child for everything.

      Sadly I’ve seen some parents say they don’t want to inject their kids with “toxins”. When asked for clarification on what kinds of “toxins” they are they give the scientific name for ingredients.

      I can’t tell you how often I see that.

      1. This whole “toxin” crap is a blight on modern thinking. If I hear “don’t eat that because it has toxins” or “you need to do a detox” one more time….

        My organs are functioning fine, thank you. The only toxins you need to worry about are the ones that are obviously poison to us…for example, don’t drink anti-freeze; that shit will f*ck you up!

        3. I have found that anti-freeze, AKA ethylene glycol has cured my toe-nail fungus. (It was applied topically, not drunk.)

  3. No, that last panel is great. You’re right, Jerry: it doesn’t go anywhere. But that’s the point. It’s only there to illustrate how these knuckleheads can go on forever with irrelevant tangents that never stay on point. Very good!

  4. We forget: measles, polio, small pox, yellow fever, the list goes on. We don’t see them, and we don’t know that that’s because we actively do things to prevent them. Every school should have a health class where the students learn about the dangers of these diseases and others. In. Graphic. Detail. And it should be required for home-school, too, using a state-approved text.

    And when we were kids, didn’t we have to have a vaccination certificate to go to school?

  6. Haven’t seen a primary source for this, but heard an NPR journalist today citing a CDC estimate that measles transmissability to those exposed who are unvaccinated is around 90% for a single exposure. Yikes!

    1. It is even more yikes when you consider what counts as exposure for measles. Passing within 2 metres of where the patient has been within 2 hours. Then there is the slight problem that the patient will be highly contagious for around four days before the first obvious symptoms occur.

      1. Yes, I had heard about this. Measles is incredibly contagious, and you can catch it from being in the same room that an infected person was in hours earlier who did not have symptoms. Yikes, indeed.
        Also, adults who were vaccinated when they were children can catch it. And this outbreak is spreading. I heard it was from a single person, a ‘typhoid Mary’.

    2. I heard that on CBC too. I forget the context as I was probably driving and cursing traffic at the same time.

      The piece I was listening to compared measles to ebola and how measles spread much more easily. I got my MMR vaccine last year (it’s good for 5 years) because I think I may have missed being vaccinated as a kid. A lot of these vaccines came out after I was older so us folk from the 70s got missed. Besides, it didn’t hurt to get it. I did make a quip on FB that I may become autistic. 🙂

  7. Those people make me so angry. A not commonly known fact is that smallpox killed more in the first half of the 20th Century than all of its wars combined. ( 300m against about 280m).

    And how was smallpox eliminated? Well you know the answer as well as I do.


  8. +----------------------------------+
    | Should you vaccinate your child? |
    +-----------------+----------------+
    |
    V
    +-----+
    | YES |
    +-----+

    There is no “NO”.

    /@

    1. There are medically valid reasons not to vaccinate a child and because of those reasons anyone can be, should be to protect those who can’t be.

  9. +———————————-+
    | Should you vaccinate your child? |
    +—————–+—————-+
    |
    V
    +—–+
    | YES |
    +—–+

    There is no “NO”.

    /@

  10. Recently I read that the measles virus can linger in the air up to two days after an infected person coughs in a room. If my kids hadn’t been vaccinated, I’d be afraid to let them out of the house right now.

  13. Very nice chart and it tells a good story as well. Those of us old enough to remember how much fun it was staying home from school with the measels – did not have a vaccine back then. We had the polio vaccine which was brand new and we had small pox. We should get them all.

    We also got the chicken pox and the mumps. Today they even have a vaccine for shingles so if you had chicken pox you should get that one.

    1. Yeah, the measles were great for me. I remember quite well the terrifying fevered hallucinations and delusions.

      I was first wave polio vaccine. We got the vaccine at school. We lined up for a sugar cube in a little white paper cup, nurses supervising the chew-and-swallow.

      I saw the human wreckage polio left behind. Jonas Salk was a savior.

        1. Ah, you are correct. The timing is spot on, I got the vaccine in 1962, I think, maybe ’63. I must have presupposed first wave because I thought I would have been administered the vaccine at a younger age than when I received it, 7-8.

    2. Not really all that long ago either. Even growing up in the late 60s – 70s chicken pox and mumps were something that you just expected to get sometime during your childhood. Seemed like everyone got them.

      The most vaccinations I ever experienced at one go was at the hands of the USAF in preparation for moving to Europe in the mid ’70s. After two sessions a couple of days apart it took about a week for your arms to become usable again.

      1. My kids, born in the mid-late 80’s, both got chicken pox. We had to just watch, of course, as our parents watched while we suffered with the disease when we were young.

        I got the shingles vaccine as soon as I qualified for it. Disease sucks. Why anyone would purposefully avoid vaccinations is beyond me.

        1. Me, too. Got the shingles and the pneumonia ones. Don’t always get flu shots, however, because they are not nearly as effective (so many strains they don’t cover) as the others.

          1. What’s there downside of getting a flu vaccination? It isn’t 100%? I don’t know why you’d let the perfect be the enemy of the good like that.

          2. Everytime I try to get the flu shot, I’m sick and can’t get it. It’s like my immune system is afraid of the shot!!

          3. I have had unpleasant reactions to flu shots on at least two occasions (never to any other kinds of shots, and I’ve had a ton of them = cholera/yellow fever, etc.). Nothing horrendous, but since I maybe only seem to get any kind of flu (or cold) every 10-15 years or so ( and I have maybe had 3 or 4 flu shots in the past 30 years), I think I must have a pretty good natural immune system, at least to flu and cold viruses. Maybe it’s just the chemical they put the vaccine in which I’ve reacted to?? My former doc (before she retired) also said she would not have bothered with the flu shot if she didn’t legally have to get it as a family doctor. But she difinitely pushed for shingles and pneumonia shots, and booster shots for all the other stuff.
            I find that my friends who are so paranoid about germs and are constantly using hand sanitiser are the ones who seem to get the most colds and flus. I wash my hands after using the bathroom and before I cook (or after cleaning up kitty barf) , but that’s about it. One of my former colleagues would not partake of snacks that others brought into our workroom – scared of shared germs – and he always had colds…Correlation, not cause, I know, but still interesting.

          4. I’d say that a sample size of two is not very informative. Here’s what the CDC says:

            “In randomized, blinded studies, where some people get inactivated flu shots and others get salt-water shots, the only differences in symptoms was increased soreness in the arm and redness at the injection site among people who got the flu shot. There were no differences in terms of body aches, fever, cough, runny nose or sore throat.
            “

            and

            “Why do some people not feel well after getting the seasonal flu vaccine?

            Some people report having mild reactions to flu vaccination. Common reactions to the flu shot and the nasal spray flu vaccine are described below.

            Reactions to the flu shot:
            The most common reaction to the flu shot in adults has been soreness, redness or swelling at the spot where the shot was given. This usually lasts less than two days. This initial soreness is most likely the result of the body’s early immune response reacting to a foreign substance entering the body. Other reactions following the flu shot are usually mild and can include a low grade fever and aches. If these reactions occur, they usually begin soon after the shot and last 1-2 days. The most common reactions people have to flu vaccine are considerably less severe than the symptoms caused by actual flu illness.

            Reactions to nasal spray flu vaccine:
            People also may have mild reactions to the nasal spray vaccine. Some children and young adults 2-17 years of age have reported experiencing mild reactions after receiving nasal spray flu vaccine, including runny nose, nasal congestion or cough, chills, tiredness/weakness, sore throat and headache. Some adults 18-49 years of age have reported runny nose or nasal congestion, cough, chills, tiredness/weakness, sore throat and headache. These side effects are mild and short-lasting, especially when compared to symptoms of seasonal flu infection.

            What about serious reactions to flu vaccine?

            Serious allergic reactions to flu vaccines are very rare. If they do occur, it is usually within a few minutes to a few hours after the vaccination. While these reactions can be life-threatening, effective treatments are available.”

            If you minimize your chances of getting the flu, you minimize the chances of passing it on to someone else… like an elderly person to whom it might be fatal.

          5. Well, I hope you do have a solid immune system, but I’m afraid you fall squarely within the expected range being that 5-20% of the population gets the flu every year. That’d mean on average, a person would get it every 5-20 years and that’s even neglecting the odds that the likelihood is even higher if you are in bad health or elderly. So, for healthy people, the expected rate is probably even less often.

            That said, a few years ago, I got the flu shot and the next day had a 101 fever and felt awful, though looking at typical side effects of the shot, this was probably just a coincidental illness that set in. A couple years ago, I came down with the flu before I got the shot; I was bedridden for 4 days, and that was the first time I’d had it in probably 15-20 years. I happily get the shot to reduce the chances of that happening again.

          6. The nurse at my doctor’s office argued with me about the stupid shingles shot. She said I shouldn’t get it until after 55 or something because it would be wasted.

            I think she doesn’t understand how the immune system works. Just take my damn money – it’s not covered by OHIP but I had coverage for it through my own work benefits.

          7. I don’t think OHIP pays even if you are over 55. But it’s worth the $100 or whatever it was. When my doc told me she had had a patient with shingles in her vagina, I was convinced. Not sure if there’s a male version of this atrocity…

      2. I got chicken pox and rubella but thankfully avoided mumps somehow. Someone I used to work with said he had mumps and he never forgot how miserable he was when he had it. I had a bunch of coughing illnesses as a baby too. I’ve asked my mother if she just let any germy person touch me because I seemed to get a lot of baby illnesses. I guess it was just that there weren’t vaccines back then.

        1. I never got mumps symptoms, despite my 3 brothers getting them while we were all on a transcontinental train (my poor parents) but years later I was tested and apparently have the antibodies in my blood. You might, too.

      3. Do you have the smallpox vaccine scar? I got it on my shoulder because my mom didn’t want it on my arm where it would show. I’m a relic now since no one needs to get vaccinated against small pox anymore.

        1. For years I thought that I didn’t have a scar (some people have much bigger scars than others) but maybe 10 years ago I think I found it on the underside of my upper arm (I had always looked at my shoulder). I certainly had the smallpox vaccine many many times as a child, where they pricked you a bunch of times with the little need.e.

    3. When a few years back, I started seeing PSAs/ads for the shingles vaccine everywhere, my first reaction was along the lines of “what’s this disease that I’ve never heard of before?” Then I learned that shingles is chicken pox, and was surprised that my parents hadn’t gotten me vaccinated (instead, I had the pox as a child). Then it struck me that I had just lived through something important, and it had slipped by in such an unobtrusively ordinary way that it had nearly escaped notice.

      1. You do realize that the shingles vaccine is for people who have already had chicken pox, right?

        1. Yes, but think what that means: the shingles vaccine is essentially a booster shot for the nonexistent chicken pox vaccine of my childhood, which has become part of the routine vaccine schedule. Just as I never experienced measles, so my children will never experience chicken pox.

    4. The only trouble w staying home w measles was that you were not supposed to read. You were supposed to rest your eyes. Borrrrring.

  17. I read recently that there is a connection between circumcision and autism. I wonder if this is why there are more autistic boys than girls?
    I had measles as a child and had my dick trimmed but although a bit weird I am not autistic.

          4. Sounds like something I would’ve done in college with some Goldschlagger to wash it down. If the price and taste of that drink isn’t an argument against the gold standard, nothing is.

  18. “One should not vacillate about vaccinating.”
    I’ll not give up the day job.

  20. A mother can’t choose not to put her baby in a car seat if she’s pulled over she’s breaking the law.
    I deal with people’s stupidity each and every day at work why are the news media tiptoeing over this issue.
    This is a public health issue not an individual right.
    We have wonderful vaccines that work and are extremely safe if a parent refuses to immunize their children they should be convicted of attempted murder.
    And if a set of parents refused to immunize their children against measles and then their children get measles
    their insurance should not have to pay the hospital bill because it’s preventable
    the money should be taken right out of their bank account or their house should be foreclosed, maybe then these ignorant parents would have some skin in the game and they would have something to lose.
    These people are starting a public health crisis and maybe starting massive epidemics all over the country and even all over the world and yet they suffer no consequences of this horrifically wrong decision. Didn’t forest Gump say” stupid is as stupid does”
    I agree with jerry and all of the scientists
    you put your baby in a car seat whether you like it or not and you get your children immunized whether you like it or not.

    1. I agree. Why isn’t vaccination mandatory? Its not that different than parents refusing to provide chemo to a child with cancer, with the added danger that the child can become a vector and infect others. Why allow children to suffer to protect a radical notion of individual rights?
      Vaccination should be mandatory before a child attends school for sure.

      1. It is mandatory; but with a catch. You can opt out for medical, philosophical or religious reasons.

        There is now a push to eliminate all exceptions except for medical ones. I hope it succeeds.

  21. We could terminate the bottom part of the chart satisfactorily with a final box reading, “Huge fine and/or imprisonment.”

      1. That reminds me of the _House_ episode, “Ignorance Is Bliss”, in which the patient takes drugs which lower his IQ because he wishes to be dumb and happy with his intellectually inferior wife rather than smart and miserable.

        /@

      2. “Ask your doctor if ‘Using Your F**ing Brain’ is right for you. Side effects include nausea and an urge to smack people upside the head. If these symptoms persist, tell your bartender immediately and hand him your car keys. Don’t ‘Use Your F**ing Brain’ if your child attends a progressive private school, because the a**hole parents there will make you regret having brought children into this f**ed up world and you can’t unring that bell, sister!”

  23. The only problem with this is that it is a flow chart which requires reasoning and choosing, qualities in short supply among the anti-vaccination crowd.

    1. They’ll come up with anything. I just heard a tape from 2008 on NPR’s “Science Friday” in which a mother adamantly refused to listen to the data from a highly informed scientist.

      Mother: [She’s probably been reading Robert Sears’ nonsense] there’s too much aluminum in the vaccines. Where has this been studied? They studied what happened at the injection site; but what about [babies’] insides?!

      Scientist: There’s less aluminum in all of the childhood vaccines than in baby formula.

      M: How many studies are there of combining all these vaccines in such a short period?!

      Scientist: I would estimate the number between high hundreds and low thousands.

      M: I don’t believe it!

      1. Yup, a scientist who could actually find these studies and show them to you is not to be believed. But a book that has been copied and recopied through multiple language translations about a woman who never fucked anyone yet had a kid who could walk through walls and on top of water, yup, I believe that!

  25. Back in the mid-1950s my younger brother said at breakfast that he could no longer see. No one at the time even knew that he had the measles. Within days he was dead at ten years of age. The measles had led to meningitis which is what killed him. Both my sister and I had had the measles several years before and had been confined to a darkened room until such time as it appeared we were well again – no complications. This was just a few years before measles vaccine was licensed in 1963.

    By 1971 measles vaccine was available in combination with mumps and rubella as MMR vaccine. It was 96% effective for measles and only slightly less for the other two. Don’t vaccinate your kid(s) and gamble with death – and death for anyone exposed to it. Parents who do not vaccinate their children should be jailed for needlessly endangering the lives of their children and any other children with whom they may have contact. No children who have not been vaccinated should be allowed in any school. Belief systems do not ward off disease nor do they cure.

    1. Michael, that’s terrifying!

      I can’t imagine a better statement than yours on the necessity of getting vaccinations.

  26. It’s disingenuous to equate the studies (science) behind the effectiveness and safety of vaccinations with that of the science solidity of gravity. Those of you (us) who ate hyper skeptical rational materialists do a disservice to the whole movement but just invoking “it’s science” as proof of any issue. There is plenty of bad, biased and fraudulent science out there.

    1. Would you care to tell us if the bad or fraudulent science is that science that tells us that vaccines are safe (and a LOT safer than getting a disease), and that they’re effective in preventing infectious disease?

      People aren’t saying “it’s science” alone; what they mean, unless you’re clueless, is that scientific investigations support the claims that vaccinations are safe and effective.

    2. Not quite. There is a lot of bad, biased and fraudulent claims masquerading as science. When science gets it wrong, the self correcting mechanism kicks in and the people who insist on unsubstantiated claims are relegated to the fringe groups.

  28. Reblogged this on Stop Steiner in Stroud and commented:
    The risk of Autism argument is one parents in Steiner schools use to justify their decision not to vaccinate, but the real reason in Anthroposophy is that vaccination is believed to interfere with reincarnation; your child must suffer disease in order to progress to the next level of spiritual development.

        1. Woooooooooooooo! I had never really looked into it. Just assumed that my very very bright high scool classmate would not have gotten involved in something like this…

          1. Yeah, I remember thinking Waldorf schools must be brilliant; that was before I realized the left had left me in their dust. (Whilst riding their stage over a cliff.)

          1. That was eye-opening!

            The British Humanist Association always seems like such a going concern.

      2. My dear, they are the Woo of Woo. 😉 I used to work in one of their centres. I was amazed! They denied their children plastic toys because plastic ‘damages a child’s etheric body’ (!) They did not believe in teaching children to read and write. They believed in fairies! It was incredible.

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