- Nov 13, 2012
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You see how this discussion is quickly getting out of hand. I mean you can say x doesn't prove y doesn't prove z all day long. But looking at the whole picture and not just one part of it:The first statement is untrue, I'm not sure what data that is from but it's very clear that vaccines are of great benefit. It really bugs me because there are segments of the population who cannot be vaccinated, for example children with leukemia. Then they have be exposed to all these perfectly preventable diseases because there are other segments of society who were misinformed and send their sick, unvaccinated children to school to spread the illnesses to those kids who don't have a choice about vaccinations. It's frankly irresponsible. Now we have kids with illnesses we haven't seen in ages and kids who have already compromised immune systems being exposed to them, life-threatening to them, because somebody else's parents were suspicious of vaccines.
On the Amish- a common logical fallacy is that correlation equates corroboration. We call it "post hoc ergo propter hoc" formally. This is not the case. For your example specifically there can be number of reasons why a population doesn't appear to have much autism. The Amish are extremes- their entire lifestyle is very different than most modern people. If I apply your logical fallacy likewise to the Amish, one could say that 1. Amish do not get vaccines 2. Amish have high rates of dwarfism therefore 3. Not getting vaccinated causes dwarfism. Right? Wrong of course, they have higher rates of dwarfism and a number of other genetic diseases/disorders because they are inbred (and I say that clinically, not as a derogative). It is absolutely 100% untrue that vaccines cause autism. The main problem with that study you refer to was the same flawed logic actually. He found kids with autism, found they were all vaccinated as is common practice and said a>b and b>c thus a>c. Cherry picking data and no meaningful controls. They also eat food, breathe air, were exposed to sunlight and were from Europe. Does that imply any of those things cause autism? Of course not. And that one single unethical doctor started this whole hysteria. Read carefully, you will see that just like GMOs (and in fact vaccines are GMOs) all subsequent literature eventually leads back to that one rotten apple buried in the bottom of the barrel.
Oooh look! A real paragraph!
1. The Western countries with the most vaccines [US] have the most infant deaths. The country with the least [Japan, Sweden] have the least. [And Sweden has a BIG third world population ].
2. Most vaccine preventable deadly diseases were almost already eliminated before the vaccine for them was administered. Simply by washing hands and not dumping chamber pots into the street.
3. Assuming 85% percent of the population does get vaccinated, your child need not get vaccinated due to herd immunity.