As an intellectual exercise,since you seem so passionate about the subject of anti-vaxxers...
Are all vaccines good? If not, who chooses? The government? What about when Gov. Rick Perry tried to force the HPV vaccine on all teenage girls in TX, even though it was suspected he had financial incentive to do so?
Is it ok for the state to force you or your kids to receive a medical treatment? Even when there are multiple demonstrated cases of drug companies breaking the law and corruption?
My point isn't to fall on either side of the debate.
My point is that it's wrong to silence the debate and to label people who are thinking about these things so simply as "anti-vaxxers" and dismiss them.
Reality is complex. As soon as you're 100% sure you're right, it'll bite you.
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Yes, vaccines proven effective against the spread of disease are good. The current body that judges this is the FDA, which is part of the government. The corruption of the people administering the vaccine have no bearing on the effectiveness of the vaccine. For HPV in particular, it looks like we're going to eliminate new infections next generation thanks to this, which is unquestionably good. I'd have preferred it to be administered to everyone, not simply who the government deems worthy. (EDIT: Sorry, forgot how medical costs were allocated in the states.)
I don't really think it's inaccurate to label anybody against vaccines as "anti-vaccine", since... that's their position. If I wanted to be vitrolic and hyperbolic, I'd call them "pro-disease", "baby-killers", or "complicit in the largest outbreaks of preventable death of children". "Anti-vaccine" is merely a summary of the position.
I really get why herd immunity is important to you. It's not academic to you; instead, it's life and death.
But, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that you can't get vaccinated, because you have adverse reactions. That is, there are greater than zero persons who have significant negative effects from vaccinations.
And you would be seriously harmed if the state required - forced - vaccinations, at least unless they allowed a medical exception.
Look, claytongulick may in fact have an axe to grind. That doesn't mean that every point he raised is nonsense.
Except no one when talking about mandatory vaccinations is saying people with allergic reactions or medical conditions would be forced into being vaccinated.
Creating a massive strawman in attempt to discredit my argument does not a good argument make, especially as I'm making it from the PoV of someone that has had such an experience in the past. I feel no need to engage with such a point because it has zero bearing in reality.
Accusing someone who is trying to engage with you in good faith of creating strawmen also does not make a good argument.
Not everyone who has an allergic reaction to a vaccination is going to have medical documentation of that. Maybe their parents couldn't afford to take them back to the doctor for confirmation. Maybe they couldn't take the time off work. That happens, especially among the poor.
Or was the "strawman" the idea that people would be forced to be vaccinated? claytongulick said that Gov. Perry did exactly that; you responded by saying that he was lying about his position, but you never actually refuted any of his claims. Did Gov. Perry actually force people to be vaccinated? If so, that's not a strawman. (Requiring people to be vaccinated in order to attend school, when there are truancy laws on the books, counts as "forced" in my book.)
Look, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm vaccinated, and so are my kids. I understand why herd immunity is important - especially so for you, but for everyone else, too. But when you call your opponents liars, it makes your side look bad, especially when they say something that at least appears reasonable. (At least you called him a liar based on his posting history, which gives unbiased observers a place to go to evaluate your claim.)
> Not everyone who has an allergic reaction to a vaccination is going to have medical documentation of that. Maybe their parents couldn't afford to take them back to the doctor for confirmation. Maybe they couldn't take the time off work. That happens, especially among the poor.
This is what allergy testing is for. If you don't have the paperwork, then you can get tested. The fact that people don't have time to get tested is an entirely separate issue relating to the class stratification in the US
And I told you what the strawman was. You were insinuating that people with allergies would be forced against their will to be vaccinated and risk a deadly reaction. You tried to claim that was a reasonable point and I disputed that.
And I said exactly what he was lying about. Which was that specifically he was claiming to not take any sides in this argument, when his post history shows clearly that he has taken a stance. That's lying at the minimum and gaslighting at worst. Which is also why I have trouble believing he came to the table to argue in good faith. This is without mentioning his leading sentence.
You claim that 1) they won't have to be vaccinated because they can get tested, 2) they don't get tested because of class stratification, but 3) you present no solution to class stratification. And then you claim that it isn't a reasonable point to say that they would be forced to be vaccinated!
You... um... rather failed to put together a coherent argument there. Or if you did, I failed to follow it...
1) Some people don't vaccinate because they have to eat first.
2) Because eating is more important than vaccinations, it would be inhumane to make vaccinations mandatory.
3) Ergo, you cannot make vaccinations mandatory until you solve world hunger.
At that point why do anything at all? Decision paralysis makes things impossible to solve because this arbitrary person I made up doesn't have time for anything so you have to solve this completely irrelevant issue in order to free up time first so that they can then get to the point of order.
No, that is completely unlike what I am saying. But you seem rather clearly to just want to argue, rather than actually trying to understand, so I'm done.
Are all vaccines good? If not, who chooses? The government? What about when Gov. Rick Perry tried to force the HPV vaccine on all teenage girls in TX, even though it was suspected he had financial incentive to do so?
Is it ok for the state to force you or your kids to receive a medical treatment? Even when there are multiple demonstrated cases of drug companies breaking the law and corruption?
My point isn't to fall on either side of the debate.
My point is that it's wrong to silence the debate and to label people who are thinking about these things so simply as "anti-vaxxers" and dismiss them.
Reality is complex. As soon as you're 100% sure you're right, it'll bite you.