5% of students in 8 states unvaccinated

[merithyn]

Did you choose (stay with) your doctor because he/she shares your beliefs?

My doctor is a holistic MD. He believes in treating the person not the symptoms, and he also believes in letting the body do its job whenever possible. Medicine is a last-case scenario for him, not the first thing he grabs off the shelf. This is a philosophy I agree with, so yes, it's part of why we chose him. In fact, I've made it a practice to find doctors trained outside of the US whenever I can because they most often have the same philosophy, regardless of where they trained. (German and Indian doctors are the best, imo.)

I've spent most of my life around the medical field. My mother was a nurse and I volunteered for years at her hospital as a teen. I was an EMT, a CNA in ICU, I've worked in insurance, and spent several years ghost writing books for doctors. Do I think I know as much as a doctor? Nope, not in the least. Do I know enough to make informed decisions for my family and me? Yes, I do. And if I don't know it, I know where to find unbiased information. I don't believe that doctors are gods, nor do I think they are infallible. I certainly don't believe that the state knows what it's doing, either, given the pressure for a variety of special interest groups (read: drug companies).

Do I think I know what's best for the country as a whole? Nope, but I do know what's best for my family. Convenience vaccines are not among them.

[Neil]

Listen to your body.   

The fact of the matter is that the public has no right making any decisions whatsoever.  This modern age is beyond their feeble ability to reason.  You get pseudoscience and superstition putting the whole of society in danger.

[merithyn]

my point, if any, is that the chances of complications from the chicken pox vaccine is smaller then the chances of complications from the disease itself, so why not vaccinate if your main concern is health related?

My main concern is the long-term affects of the vaccine, not the disease itself. When kids are vaccinated at a young age - which is the requirement - they are at a severe risk of getting the disease as an adult, which is far more dangerous than getting it as a kid. Shingles - which is what causes the most long-term problems, not chicken pox - is most often developed, etc. It's already been happening in kids in their late teens, that first round of vaccinated kids. They don't get the booster and they get the disease. If they get the booster, great! But since most people don't remember to get their tetnus boosters, why should we believe they'll remember to get the varicella vaccine? And since it causes very few major problems in younger kids with a minor risk of shingles later, why not let them get the disease and alleviate all of that?

[Razgovory]

My doctor is a holistic MD.

Is it okay if I just burst out laughing here?

[merithyn]

My doctor is a holistic MD.

Is it okay if I just burst out laughing here?

You might want to consider looking up what that means before you do. In other words, he treats the whole person not just the symptoms. Yes, definitely something worth mocking. 

[Razgovory]

Yeah, I know what it means.  Otherwise I wouldn't have laughed.  Do you do acupuncture as well?  Power Crystals?  Those little magnetic bracelets?

[dps]

Generally, I want my doctor to treat my symptoms--the rest of my person is none of his business.

[Razgovory]

Generally, I want my doctor to treat my symptoms--the rest of my person is none of his business.

I'd also like him to restrict himself to medically proven treatments rather then try herbal supplements.

[Ideologue]

Put them in a quarantine zone.  They're lost causes.

Especially these:

as well as government-fearing libertarians.

I sell the cure what ails ye.

[Fate]

That article isn't very informative. I mean, that increase could be entirely made up of people refusing to vaccine against Chickenpox (a reasonable refusal since it's a convenience vaccine), the 'flu (another convenience vaccine), and HPV (a fairly controversial vaccine). All of these have become required vaccines in a number of states in the last five to ten years, and could be the cause of most of the increase.

I take it you've never had shingles... VZV is hardly a convenience vaccine.

Studies to date show that kids who are vaccinated for varicella young are more likely to get shingles as an adult since they forget to get the boosters.

The current VZV vaccine schedule is one shot at 12-18 months and a second shot at age 4-6. Or 2 shots with 4-8 weeks between the first and second shot if you're older. There isn't a booster for you to forget.

[Fate]

My doctor is a holistic MD.

Is it okay if I just burst out laughing here?

You might want to consider looking up what that means before you do. In other words, he treats the whole person not just the symptoms. Yes, definitely something worth mocking. 

He's a foreign medical graduate in primary care. They're about on the bottom of the medical totem pole in terms of intelligence.

[Neil]

And smart people generally don't go into medicine in the first place.

[garbon]

I certainly don't believe that the state knows what it's doing, either, given the pressure for a variety of special interest groups (read: drug companies).

You mean one of the special interest groups that has not only received very specific regulation but also receives regulation that is constantly enforced and even enforced more severely?  Look up the Synthes execs who got prison time recently when it wasn't even determined that their product triggered said 3 deaths.  Feel free to compare/contrast with financial execs who helped trigger the global financial crises.

[garbon]

That article isn't very informative. I mean, that increase could be entirely made up of people refusing to vaccine against Chickenpox (a reasonable refusal since it's a convenience vaccine), the 'flu (another convenience vaccine), and HPV (a fairly controversial vaccine). All of these have become required vaccines in a number of states in the last five to ten years, and could be the cause of most of the increase.

I take it you've never had shingles... VZV is hardly a convenience vaccine.

Studies to date show that kids who are vaccinated for varicella young are more likely to get shingles as an adult since they forget to get the boosters.

Doesn't that prove that they failed to get enough pharma products...not too few?

[merithyn]

Yeah, I know what it means.  Otherwise I wouldn't have laughed.  Do you do acupuncture as well?  Power Crystals?  Those little magnetic bracelets?

Generally, I want my doctor to treat my symptoms--the rest of my person is none of his business.

I'd also like him to restrict himself to medically proven treatments rather then try herbal supplements.

And on that note, I'll bow out. I sometimes forget that it's not worth trying to explain myself, but then this happens and I remember all over again.