Anti vaccine magazine (or how stupid people can get)

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A discussion has emerged regarding the dangers posed by an anti-vaccine magazine, "What Doctors Don’t Tell You," which promotes false health claims, including that vitamin C can cure HIV and that homeopathy can treat cancer. British retailers are being urged to stop selling this publication due to its misleading information. Many in the medical community, including scientists and charities, are advocating for better public education on vaccines and health issues, arguing that a lack of understanding contributes to the spread of misinformation. The conversation highlights the challenges of combating medical myths, particularly in an environment where celebrities and media can amplify pseudoscience. Participants express concern over the consequences of willful ignorance and the need for the scientific community to engage more effectively with the public to counteract misinformation. The discussion also touches on the societal implications of vaccine hesitancy, emphasizing the importance of herd immunity and the potential dangers of diseases that vaccines prevent.
  • #31
I would also add that a good number can also hear information and not understand what it means.

My favorite anecdotal story about this is a conversation that I had with my sister when we were in out 20's. She used to buy and read tabloids like the National Enquirer from the checkout counter at the store. I would constantly tell her that they were full of trash and that only stupid people believed what they wrote. One day she she showed me a story in one that stated that 25% of their readers had a high school education. She interpreted this to mean that the rest had college degrees and therefore the readers of the tabloid were smart people. It took me days to get her to understand that people with college degrees also had a high school education and therefore 75% of the readers did not complete high school.
 
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  • #32
Borek said:
No idea where I have seen it, but someone suggested that people refusing inoculation of their kids should sign a statement that if something happens, they will pay for the medical expenses from their own pocket.

Which actually goes against a trend of a universal health care.
I think this would just lead to more prayers instead of proper medical care. And there is no realistic way to charge parents for temporary or permanent health issues or even death of their children.
 
  • #33
Borek said:
I think the main problem is people are misjudging dangers. They don't know how many kids would die because they were not inoculated - mainly because the vaccination programs are successful, so people don't know how dangerous the diseases are. But whenever some kid gets ill because of the vaccination it is a thing that is immediately blown out of proportion by hyenas (oops, sorry, meant journalists), so the overall signal given is that vaccines are bad.

That's why I think those post mortem pictures should be posted everywhere. Just to help people keep the balance.

Yes, which is why willful ignorance isn't as easy a claim to make as some would like to believe. Bad calculations of probabilities is pretty much the norm for humans.

The chances of not getting a disease would be x^n, with x being the probability of each person you come into contact with currently not being capable of transmitting that disease and n being the number of interactions a person have (not the number of people a person interacts with - each interaction with the same person still counts as a separate interacton since that person obviously doesn't have a disease such as rubella 100% of his life). "x" is very close to, but less than 100%. "n" is very large.

And in spite of n being very large, there were still a significant minority of people (close to 10%?) who managed to escape catching rubella while they were children. And given that complications could be more severe as an adult (especially an adult pregnant female), being in that 10% wasn't necessarily considered as being lucky.

If a vaccination program is successful, then x, the probability of a person being able to not transmit a disease, gets so close to 100% that the risk of complications from the vaccine exceed the chance of complications from a disease that becomes almost impossible to get.

Provided the probability of a person being able to transmit the disease stays constant!

Unfortunately, your vaccine program turns into a dynamic and circular game of prisoners' dilemma. Once the risk of the vaccine exceeds the risk of the disease, then the best choice for 100% of the "prisoners" is to turn down the vaccine, which raises the probability of being exposed to the disease, which makes the best choice for 100% of the "prisoners" being to get the vaccine, which lowers the probability of being exposed, etc.

And, speaking of rubella, (rubella statistics and http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencerubella.html), the average number of cases in the US has declined to less than 5 per year, with about 75% being adults that were not innoculated. Obviously, when you look at the WHO statistics, the need for rubella vaccination is still there in the US, even with the chances of exposure in the US being so low. But it's perfectly understandable how a "selfish" person (a person that's only evaluating the risk of their own child at this particular time) in the US could look at the US statistics and feel the risk of the rubella vaccination probably outweighs the risk of actually catching the disease.

That doesn't mean the optimal solution for all time is to always get the vaccine. How many people get small pox vaccinations today?
 
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  • #34
There should be a Nash equilibrium somewhere, probably at very high vaccination rates. Due to the long timescales and non-rational humans, I think it is better to go with high(er) vaccination rates.
The other (and better) equilibrium is a dead desease, of course, see smallpox and rinderpest.
 
  • #35
mfb said:
I think this would just lead to more prayers instead of proper medical care.
That reminds me of a Tourette laced post I made on Facebook one day. How did that go?

Cleaned up Om said:
So your kid was sick, and you prayed, and your kid died. hmmm... If your house caught fire, would you pray the flames away, or would you call the fire department? You'd call the fire department, wouldn't you. Take your children to the doctor, you two faced hypocrites.

mfb said:
And there is no realistic way to charge parents for temporary or permanent health issues or even death of their children.

We do here in the states. Just google: homicide conviction prayer

And although there are states that have laws that would seem to prevent this:
Wisconsin is among 17 states that allow religious defenses against felony charges of crimes against children...

Sometimes the courts step in:

The Neumanns contended that their convictions were unconstitutional because of the state's law that allows residents to pursue "treatment through prayer."
...
But the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court disagreed in a 6-1 ruling, upholding the Neumanns' sentences...
ref


Borg said:
I would also add that a good number can also hear information and not understand what it means.

My favorite anecdotal story about this is a conversation that I had with my sister...

We may be siblings.
 
  • #36
OmCheeto said:
We do here in the states. Just google: homicide conviction prayer
I heard about that case. I meant monetary charges.
 
  • #37
BobG said:
Yes, which is why willful ignorance isn't as easy a claim to make as some would like to believe. Bad calculations of probabilities is pretty much the norm for humans.

The chances of not getting a disease would be x^n, with x being the probability of each person you come into contact with currently not being capable of transmitting that disease and n being the number of interactions a person have (not the number of people a person interacts with - each interaction with the same person still counts as a separate interacton since that person obviously doesn't have a disease such as rubella 100% of his life). "x" is very close to, but less than 100%. "n" is very large.

And in spite of n being very large, there were still a significant minority of people (close to 10%?) who managed to escape catching rubella while they were children. And given that complications could be more severe as an adult (especially an adult pregnant female), being in that 10% wasn't necessarily considered as being lucky.

If a vaccination program is successful, then x, the probability of a person being able to not transmit a disease, gets so close to 100% that the risk of complications from the vaccine exceed the chance of complications from a disease that becomes almost impossible to get.

Provided the probability of a person being able to transmit the disease stays constant!

Unfortunately, your vaccine program turns into a dynamic and circular game of prisoners' dilemma. Once the risk of the vaccine exceeds the risk of the disease, then the best choice for 100% of the "prisoners" is to turn down the vaccine, which raises the probability of being exposed to the disease, which makes the best choice for 100% of the "prisoners" being to get the vaccine, which lowers the probability of being exposed, etc.

And, speaking of rubella, (rubella statistics and http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/timeseries/tsincidencerubella.html), the average number of cases in the US has declined to less than 5 per year, with about 75% being adults that were not innoculated. Obviously, when you look at the WHO statistics, the need for rubella vaccination is still there in the US, even with the chances of exposure in the US being so low. But it's perfectly understandable how a "selfish" person (a person that's only evaluating the risk of their own child at this particular time) in the US could look at the US statistics and feel the risk of the rubella vaccination probably outweighs the risk of actually catching the disease.

That doesn't mean the optimal solution for all time is to always get the vaccine. How many people get small pox vaccinations today?
Rubella isn't the measles. Just for those that don't know. It is a much milder illness.

Sometimes measles can lead to serious problems. There is no treatment for measles, but the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine can prevent it.

"German measles", also known as rubella, is a completely different illness.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/measles.html
 
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