rssVaccination - The Hidden Truth
January 24th, 2008 · or link to (permalink)
This terrible movie is another great example of FEBL (Fucking entertaining Big Lie) media. For some reason, in recent years a bio-luddite movement has formed against one of the greatest, proven, scientific discoveries in medicine and biggest sources of the relief of global suffering, the process of vaccination. A growing cult has chosen to identify vaccination as some kind of grandiose conspiracy and in doing so, they are engendering paranoia and endangering lives.
The format of this paranoia is very similar to both the Scientologists war on psychiatry or Evangelicals war on Darwinism. Rather like the fact that there are a small minority of biologists who believe in Intelligent Design, this documentary shows the views of some of a small minority of physicians who have problems with vaccination. There are risks with vaccination as there are with almost any medical procedure, and people who do not believe in it, but that does not mean that vaccination does not work, or that the benefits so vastly outweigh the risks that they are overwhelmingly worth it.
In the United States, the place of Tom Cruise for a war on physicians rather than psychiatrists, is taken by the quack radio host, Gary Null (who is not in this Australian documentary but is a popular anti-vaccination extremist). Null’s method is to setup vaccination as some kind of faceless government conspiracy compared with touchy feely alternative medicine, an argument which he delivers with a pleasant, soft, reassuring voice. This is an easy way to persuade people, because it is not comparing like with like.
Rather like the way that natural child birth surrounded by candles is a preferable environment to a sterile linoleum floored hospital room, but is a more dangerous one, vaccination only works if everyone does it, so vaccination tends to be delivered through the somewhat anti-septic environment of government organized vaccination programs. It is because government programs tend to be more faceless and sterile than private ones that they raise the suspicions of those who are susceptible to paranoia and equate truth with personal desirability.
The solution to damping this paranoia was spectacularly shown when we visited our pediatrician, Michel Cohen, as group of prospective parents, before our son was born. At the end of a question and answer session, one man said that he was wary of governments and therefore wary of vaccination. Dr Cohen’s answer was that although it should be the man’s choice what to ultimately do, vaccination was not so much about the individual as about the community.
By replacing society and government with ‘community’, telling the guy he had a choice and implying that lack of vaccination put the individual before the community, i.e. was selfish, Dr Cohen had pulled a Gary Null. He had expressed something in comforting terms, but this time it happened to be the truth. Brilliant, quite brilliant.
Vaccination Information Service/Taycare Pty Ltd
45 min 20 sec Jan 20, 2008
www.vaccination.inoz.com
6 responses so far »
Eric TF Bat : Jan 24, 2008 at 3:03 am
Rather like the way that natural child birth surrounded by candles is a preferable environment to a sterile linoleum floored hospital room but is a more dangerous one…
You want to watch that metaphor, I think. If you have no idea what you’re doing, natural childbirth is riskier than going to a hospital, but only because hospitals are filled with people who do know what they’re doing. So that’s an apples-vs-oranges comparison right there. Natural childbirth with competent people is, by definition, less dangerous than going to a big air-conditioned building filled with antibiotic-resistant airborne diseases and doctors who feel pressured by legal issues to get a lot more active than they strictly need to. It’s only the presence of medical expertise that makes the difference, and if you have medical expertise amid the candles, natural childbirth wins.
Apart from that: good points. Will watch.
admin : Jan 24, 2008 at 3:21 am
Excellent point .
Although I would argue that part of the benefit of being in a hospital is not just the people but the ability to access large pieces of expensive and often immobile equipment, or to pass people to specialists should things go wrong.
This could require an army of people and devices to replicate at home, such that it would be a lot more cost effective to make the interior furnishings of delivery rooms more domestic and personal.
In other words, apples = decoration and oranges = equipment and staff. Make the Hospital be decorated more like a home than a home be equipped like a hospital.
Of course nice decoration doesn’t do anything to get rid of viruses or bacteria, so on that issue, I concede.
james : Jan 25, 2008 at 2:15 am
Louis Theroux: Behind Bars - BBC - 2008
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=911668869270957994&q=bbc+duration%3Along&total=2717&start=0&num=100&so=1&type=search&plindex=12
OilMonkey : Jan 25, 2008 at 5:42 am
I wouldn’t be so quick to bash Luddites, as is the haughty fashion of the modern human primate.
Reality is doing quite the bang up job of proving Thoreau correct:
“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.”
This is not to say I disagree with you regarding FEBLs. You do an excellent job debunking the insidious, counterproductive nature of conspiradroid religion.
But I think one glaring fact is becoming abundantly clear, from fuel to food to water and beyond, the modern human primate’s mythology of infinite growth (speaking of FEBLs) is increasingly constrained by a finite planet while we bury our heads deeper in the sand in response.
We are little more than children playing with toys, oblivious to the world around us.
In this sense, Luddites are more insightful than ever.
Johnson : Jan 26, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Two things, first home birth is safer because for two reasons; less unnecessary intervention and control of a pregnant woman’s birth experience and a good midwife never allows a high-risk or even moderately risky patient to deliver at home or in their birthing center. Secondly, and thankfully, vaccinations are not necessary for everyone, it is only necessary that enough of us are willing to have our children vaccinated to produce a herd immunity. That’s why I don’t typically worry to much about those that refuse vaccinations. The real shame is that home births could save us hundreds of millions of dollars just as vaccinations have done. When you consider that a hospital birth, without the complications they often create, can cost from three to ten times as much as a home birth insurance companies should cover the entire cost of a home birth as an incentive for low risk mother’s to give birth outside of hospitals. Our last child, born at home, cost about $3,500. This included all pre and post natal care. We paid only about $700 out of pocket.
D Donahue : Feb 3, 2008 at 5:09 pm
The issue for me has less to do with what represents the best approach to childbirth and everything to do with ensuring that regardless of choice, competent people are there to attend and that the method of choice is ultimately decided upon based on what’s best for the child and not a parent’s political or spiritual agenda.
I my case, my partner, right up until my son’s birth, ensured me that qualified midwives were indeed set to attend his birth and I had no reason to doubt her word. When she went into labour, there were no midwives to be had and at that point was told they had notified her that they wouldn’t attend the birth as she was considered too high risk although they would assist in a hospital setting. Our son was born healthy and he’s doing well but the whole experience has been a difficult one to deal with. I respect her choices and was supportive of them but there comes a point where the birth of a child involves far more than what’s right for the mother and is predicated upon her willingness to set aside personal agendas in the interest of all who
are ultimately to impacted by her decisions. I simply ask that regardless of the choices we make, that they’re
made with clarity and based on sound information and advice. As a father, I’m expected to be there and indeed always will but the process of parenting begins long before childbirth and thus we all have a right
to fully appreciate what in fact we’re dealing with.
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