Our society has always had more than it's share of superstitious fools...and the snake-oil salesmen who exploit them. But it feels to me like the anti-science crowd is gaining momentum. This seemingly has been spearheaded by religious fanatics on the Right who accept everything in the Bible literally. The GOP loves to portray educated people as "elitists" when in fact most of their leaders are products of the Ivy League themselves. Now they want to try to convince us that innoculations are part of the "Democrat Party's" evil plan to Nazify America. This is so irresponsible that it is almost criminal. Rush and Glen are now encouraging people to reject treatments that could very well save their lives. And they do it all to make a buck. I don't know how they can sleep at night.

People, get your innoculations! Don't give in to hysteria, heresay and manipulation. Base your decisions on facts and evidence. There is no such thing as a medical treatment that is risk free, but flu shots are pretty close. And get your kids innoculated too. There is overwhelming evidence that this is safe for kids and irrefutable evidence that they are at great risk if they don't get innoculated. My wife is a pediatric nurse and I am a physician. We would not dream of witholding innoculations from our children. If you do, you are committing child abuse and endangering the lives of your children.

An in case you are wondering, no I don't have any connections to the drug industry. In fact, I belong to a number of anti-Pharma organizations. But I now how to read a scientific journal and I understand statistics, and I'm telling you that all of this anti-innoculation hysteria is a bunch of hooey.

Be smart...don't let a bunch of psuedo-journalists do your thinking for you.

Oops...should have used the spell check. Well, at least you know that I'm not a true elitist!

Thank you for a rational, well-worded argument on this important topic.

However, you must recognize that rationality has no place in this debate. When one has Jennie McCarthy and Rush Limbaugh on one's side, losing is not an option.

I agree with you in general but it is unfair to blame this particular idiocy all on the "right". There is a segment of the left that has an irrational fear of vaccines and GMO's as well. Whether or not this segment has gained traction from the anti-lung cancer, anti-evolution and anti-global warming campaigns I don't know.

Remember that a core element of liberalism is a wariness regarding authority. Since many can not understand the arguments, it comes down to do I trust the "so called experts" or my gut, my fears and the "alternative medicine gurus" who have perhaps made me feel more calm and in control.

Thanks blue-

Science is attacked by both the right and the left. Vaccines are feared by many for unfounded reasons but also championed by those that don't really know how they work. There is a lot more to making and effective one than most people think, and of course there is the particular "bug". I am an immunologist and I support vaccinations that have been well studied and have high efficacy. However, there is precedent for some vaccines being more harmful than good (and this has nothing to do with autism). The RSV vaccine is a great example, it didn't work and it resulted in several deaths because it induced an inappropriate immune response to the virus. So to blindly get vaccinations without doing any (quality) research is also stupid. In general, you should get vaccinations to the things you are at risk for, not just everything under the sun. As an immunologist (one that works with mice not humans) I never get a flu shot, and I rely on preventative measures (washing hands, avoiding sick people etc.) but it is a risk I take. On the other hand I've been vaccinated to Hep B. One issue is that the human body only has so much "space" for memory lymphocytes meaning that vaccinations cn skew your memory pool. There is a phenomena knows as "heterologous immunity" that results from similar viruses or other "bugs" that share similar epitopes, sometimes causing a shift in the memory pool that selects for cross reactive lymphocyte clones that react to weaker antigens, resulting in a weaker response to new insults. This is also tied to the amount of space we have for memory cells.

In short, vaccinations good, but not all are created equally. There is always a risk/benefit balance that should be weighed.

As medical professionals, are you willing to admit that the medical community over-prescribes and over-treats many problems? I am not saying medicine is all bad, by any means, but I think some of the distrust is earned.

Also, I meant to imply that vaccinations may affect heterologous immunity negatively because the vaccines are always designed for one to a few dominant epitopes (antigens). This skewing of the memory pool may effect how you respond to other related infections. There is data on this in mice but not humans yet (much harder to do in humans).

Yes I totally agree. It is much easier for them to through drugs at the problem. It is laziness a lot of times. Also, as one that has studied in a Medical college and taught med students I can tell you that med students don't fail out, meaning that all students get a degree but not all of them are any good at what they do.

Healthy lifestyle is always the best, but it doesn't matter how healthy you are you can die from tetnus, so you should get vaccinated. You should take antibiotics if you have a bad bacterial infection too. In general vaccines and antibiotics are not the same thing as being put on Prozac or Adderol because they don't know what else to do with you.

O: Also, I meant to imply that vaccinations may affect heterologous immunity negatively…

Thanks for making that clear; just think about how up in arms some folks would get over receiving a homologous vaccine.

LOL!

immunologist to immunologist....... you should be ashamed of yourself for not taking herd immunity into account. Some minute, unproven risk to you is worth it to protect people who are not able to be effectively vaccinated.

Shame on you for putting some unproven risk to yourself above cancer kids, the elderly, pregnant women, etc that you could be passing the flu because you were too selfish to get vaccinated.

Amen, fellow human.