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Post by tapati on Aug 26, 2010 17:50:05 GMT -5
Yeah, for me too, because heart disease makes me more vulnerable if I do get something. The fact that whooping cough was going around again gave me the chills. I know, I have asthma and the possiblity of getting whooping cough completely freaks me out. I don't know how I'd even survive it. Just the sound of that baby 'whooping' on the commercial makes me feel like I can't breathe, I have to turn it off as soon as it comes on. And I live near Ashland Oregon, a town with an unusually large population of non-vaccinated children. I'm on the list for a booster and it can't come soon enough for me. Some places around here are having free booster clinics. I understand your fear! {{{hugs}}}
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Post by nikita on Aug 26, 2010 17:52:55 GMT -5
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Post by tapati on Aug 26, 2010 19:47:36 GMT -5
Santa Cruz is like that too, so I know what you mean. (Lots of people have told me that Ashland is a lot like Santa Cruz.) That's why we had an epidemic going on when I got whooping cough.
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Post by km on Aug 26, 2010 21:02:54 GMT -5
Yeah, for me too, because heart disease makes me more vulnerable if I do get something. The fact that whooping cough was going around again gave me the chills. I know, I have asthma and the possiblity of getting whooping cough completely freaks me out. I don't know how I'd even survive it. Just the sound of that baby 'whooping' on the commercial makes me feel like I can't breathe, I have to turn it off as soon as it comes on. And I live near Ashland Oregon, a town with an unusually large population of non-vaccinated children. I'm on the list for a booster and it can't come soon enough for me. Yeah, I hear you. I have asthma as well. Makes me glad I live on the East coast for once...
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Post by madame on Aug 27, 2010 4:34:36 GMT -5
Tapati and Fabucat, I didn't post about German laws to say that Germany is an awful place to live in. I simply get very uneasy when I hear parents start talking about making laws to enforce what should be an informed decision of the parents. Germany is great in many ways, and raising children here is not awful by any means, but you do sense that people are not so inclined to question laws or even entertain the thought of doing things differently. For example homeschooling. I just mentioned having thought about homeschooling and all the other women were shocked! As if I had said I didn't want my children to receive an education!
On to the medical insurance problem. To find a good job in Germany, you need qualifications, many of which are very specific. This in itself is not bad, but what about people who can't find a job in their field? Like anywhere else, they have to take jobs that are not well paid, and many of these don't include benefits, like medical insurance. If you can't find a job that pays for 1/2 of your medical insurance, you must pay 100% of it out of your earnings and it is expensive.
Because medical insurance is compulsory, if you don't have it you will be penalised by having to pay for all the months you weren't insured, at the rate you should have been paying. I believe the number of months is only taken back to the point where it became compulsory, but I'm not sure.
If you aren't insured, your children may also be left to die if they get sick, parents will be penalised for not having insurance, and any other children will very likely be taken into care. Doctors can't take pay-as-you-go patients.
I don't think that nanny states are good in the long run. I'm not sure the good outweighs the bad, and from what I hear in the news, it sounds like the nanny is going to have to start getting a little stricter. You've got too many families living long term from welfare, and their children are growing up with no good work ethics. They believe they have the right to everything paid for them, because in an effort to level the ground for children, things that "the poor" would usually have to go without are being paid for them. Is that bad? no! but in the long run? I'm not so sure.
Sorry for the typos. I don't have time to go over my post.... Probably clear as muck!
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Post by arietty on Aug 28, 2010 2:36:15 GMT -5
Re: chicken pox, I had a very bad case. The people who bug me most are not the ones who merely avoid the vaccine, but rather the people who have chicken pox parties so their kids can be immunized by having chicken pox (so they don't get it as an adult). If people are going to do that, I hope they isolate their children while they may be incubating it (and still contagious). They shouldn't expose other people who might get very, very sick, such as immuno-compromised children and adults, and pregnant women. CHICKEN POX PARTIES?!!!! Every time I think that I've read something in this forum that's the living end and nothing else will shock me, I'm wrong. And what you're describing isn't a QF practice necessarily, but something that more mainstream. Because there's nothing more fun than having a whole slew of kids in the neighborhood sick with chicken pox at the same time. Whew! Chicken pox parties were standard practice for decades. This not not some fundamentalist thing. My mother used to tell me about them, I grew up with this idea as a normal thing, it has nothing to do with religion, it was mainstream. The idea was you were prepared. No you didn't take your kid out to playgroup after they had been exposed to chicken pox via your friend's kids who had it, you kept them home. And no you didn't expose them when you had a premmie, were in the middle of some other crisis etc.. If you had little kids you were HAPPY they got chicken pox at the age of 5 rather than 15. My 6 kids had it all at once. The 12 year old was the sickest and it went down in age as to how sick they were. The 2 year old had 2 spots on his stomach and no other illness. We camped out in the living room and watched a lot of videos and they got to eat whatever they felt like. They still tell stories about it, lol
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Post by tapati on Aug 28, 2010 17:13:48 GMT -5
Yes, I knew they were a practice before the vaccine. It just seems odd now. And all kinds of people are having them--and not quarantining their kids after. That's my frustration. Anyone could catch them while they are incubating, some adult, a pregnant lady, someone on steroid-based meds for arthritis, a transplant patient who has to take immune-suppressant drugs for life.
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Post by sandra on Aug 28, 2010 20:52:55 GMT -5
First, my caveat: While I haven't vaxxed my kids, I absolutely understand people who do... IF they vax as responsibly as I have not-vaxxed (ie, read the pertinent literature included in the vax, paid attention to what they signed on the consent form).
Then, just to throw another personal story into the mix: My daughter caught rubella from an irresponsible visitor at my neighbor's. The neighbor was homeschooled and unvaxxed and six months pregnant with her second child. Some friends of her hubby's were "between houses" and living with them for a while. The friend's daughters changed schools and had lost(?) vax records so just got revaxxed for everything--including rubella.
I didn't know any of that when my kid breaks out in this horrible itchy rash. I went next door to inform my preggie neighbor that her child had been exposed to mine while playing during the incubation, that I was horribly sorry for the exposure and would she please run to her OB for a titers check. The visiting dad overheard and laughingly announced, "oh how weird! We just had [the daughter] immunized with that last week."
It is all over the literature and the consent forms that contact with pregnant women contraindicates the vaccine. The neighbor mom went understandably ballistic and kicked the visiting family out within two days. I wasn't sure but I think her husband almost had to go with them. Fortunately, she had already developed an immunity so she and baby were fine. But really!
And, just for irony--my sick daughter's case rivaled the scare-you-to-death photos on the CDC website but my other daughter never developed so much as a fever or rash.
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Post by nikita on Aug 28, 2010 21:19:23 GMT -5
First, my caveat: While I haven't vaxxed my kids, I absolutely understand people who do... IF they vax as responsibly as I have not-vaxxed (ie, read the pertinent literature included in the vax, paid attention to what they signed on the consent form). Then, just to throw another personal story into the mix: My daughter caught rubella from an irresponsible visitor at my neighbor's. The neighbor was homeschooled and unvaxxed and six months pregnant with her second child. Some friends of her hubby's were "between houses" and living with them for a while. The friend's daughters changed schools and had lost(?) vax records so just got revaxxed for everything--including rubella. I didn't know any of that when my kid breaks out in this horrible itchy rash. I went next door to inform my preggie neighbor that her child had been exposed to mine while playing during the incubation, that I was horribly sorry for the exposure and would she please run to her OB for a titers check. The visiting dad overheard and laughingly announced, "oh how weird! We just had [the daughter] immunized with that last week." It is all over the literature and the consent forms that contact with pregnant women contraindicates the vaccine. The neighbor mom went understandably ballistic and kicked the visiting family out within two days. I wasn't sure but I think her husband almost had to go with them. Fortunately, she had already developed an immunity so she and baby were fine. But really! And, just for irony--my sick daughter's case rivaled the scare-you-to-death photos on the CDC website but my other daughter never developed so much as a fever or rash. I've read this twice and somehow I'm missing the part where it's other people's fault (people who didn't even know they were carrying) that the unvaccinated children and pregnant woman were exposed? When you refuse vaccinations aren't you pretty much accepting that fate may step in and actually expose you to the disease and that you will most likely catch it? Isn't that part of the bargain you make when you don't vaccinate? I think the anger is completely misplaced here. I mean, you guys made a risk-benefit analysis, chose to take the risk, and now it's everyone else who is the problem if you lose in the risk bargain you made? This makes no sense to me.
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Post by tapati on Aug 28, 2010 22:49:46 GMT -5
I'm not sure which literature, but here's the position of the CDC: Q. Should we give an MMR to a 15-month-old whose mother is 2 months pregnant? A. Yes. Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine viruses are not transmitted from the vaccinated person, so MMR does not pose a risk to a pregnant household member. www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/combo-vaccines/mmr/faqs-mmr-hcp.htmI read the same thing in several other places just now. I would suggest that your child was exposed to whatever the rash was somewhere else. The incubation period is 14 to 21 days. So if the kid was vaccinated "last week" then your child's illness couldn't have come from exposure to that child, even if the child had rubella.
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Post by km on Aug 28, 2010 23:01:34 GMT -5
First, my caveat: While I haven't vaxxed my kids, I absolutely understand people who do... IF they vax as responsibly as I have not-vaxxed (ie, read the pertinent literature included in the vax, paid attention to what they signed on the consent form). Then, just to throw another personal story into the mix: My daughter caught rubella from an irresponsible visitor at my neighbor's. The neighbor was homeschooled and unvaxxed and six months pregnant with her second child. Some friends of her hubby's were "between houses" and living with them for a while. The friend's daughters changed schools and had lost(?) vax records so just got revaxxed for everything--including rubella. I didn't know any of that when my kid breaks out in this horrible itchy rash. I went next door to inform my preggie neighbor that her child had been exposed to mine while playing during the incubation, that I was horribly sorry for the exposure and would she please run to her OB for a titers check. The visiting dad overheard and laughingly announced, "oh how weird! We just had [the daughter] immunized with that last week." It is all over the literature and the consent forms that contact with pregnant women contraindicates the vaccine. The neighbor mom went understandably ballistic and kicked the visiting family out within two days. I wasn't sure but I think her husband almost had to go with them. Fortunately, she had already developed an immunity so she and baby were fine. But really! And, just for irony--my sick daughter's case rivaled the scare-you-to-death photos on the CDC website but my other daughter never developed so much as a fever or rash. I've read this twice and somehow I'm missing the part where it's other people's fault (people who didn't even know they were carrying) that the unvaccinated children and pregnant woman were exposed? When you refuse vaccinations aren't you pretty much accepting that fate may step in and actually expose you to the disease and that you will most likely catch it? Isn't that part of the bargain you make when you don't vaccinate? I think the anger is completely misplaced here. I mean, you guys made a risk-benefit analysis, chose to take the risk, and now it's everyone else who is the problem if you lose in the risk bargain you made? This makes no sense to me. Yeah, this is pretty much where I am on this as well.
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Post by sandra on Aug 28, 2010 23:25:29 GMT -5
I'm not blaming the vaxing parents for my kid getting rubella. I accepted the risk of exposure when I didn't vax.
My info on package insert literature and the consent form both contraindicating for pregnant women came from the pregnant mom herself who had vaccinated her first child. She was the one who blamed the vaxing family for the exposure; she didn't blame us for actually contracting the disease.
Whatever the package insert said, it was obvious that the parents hadn't even thought to ask to read it when at the doctor's office. So my anger (I guess you could call it that, I prefer "frustration") is that I as a non-vaxer have gone to great lengths to read up on vax preparation, effectiveness, and safety, before choosing to non-vax while most of the vaxers I know don't even realize there was an insert listing possible contraindications, much less consider any other options
If the powers that be are now saying that it's okay to vax pregnant women or those who live with pregnant women, that's not what I understood policy to be at the time.
My point was meant to be that vaxing and not-vaxing should both be undertaken with a sense of responsibility--checking out the research and arguments for or against for yourself, to the best of your abilities (admitting that it all gets pretty polemic rather than informative), rather than assuming that either option is a 100% safe or effective choice without potential consequences.
Sorry if that wasn't clear.
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Post by tapati on Aug 28, 2010 23:31:18 GMT -5
It's not OK to vaccinate the pregnant woman, but it is important to vaccinate any children who live with her, and perfectly safe. Just to clarify for anyone who might be reading.
Someone should wait four weeks before taking a chance on getting pregnant after receiving the vaccine, also.
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Post by nikita on Aug 29, 2010 0:00:07 GMT -5
I think that any public health policy that depends on all people being up to the minute aware and educated on all aspects of everything they do at the recommendation of their physicians/public health departments/CDC is doomed to failure. People have different educational levels, different languages, different cultural expectations, different levels of maturity, different levels of trust of the medical establishment, etc. If the safety of one's child is dependent on how well other people read inserts to standard vaccinations and get up to the minute info on every medicine they are prescribed then there are going to be a lot of endangered children out there. That is simply not the world we live in and it's foolish to be frustrated by what is clearly reality. We make provision for reality, we don't beat our fists against it and wonder why it doesn't move.
There is not a medicine (or herb) out there that does not carry risks in its use and application along with its benefits. Drugs are toxic, all drugs. Whether you take them or not depends on whether the benefit is greater than the risk of not taking them. Vaccinations are no different, except that vaccinations affect those around us as well. That is why I chose to vaccinate and will never give a pass to those who don't. I understand that people may choose differently, but it will always remain, to me, a selfish decision to expose one's children as well as the rest of us to deadly and deforming diseases on the miniscule chance that something 'could' happen. Something 'could' happen when you give ibuprofen to your child to reduce a fever. Something 'could' happen when you choose to administer anesthesia for surgery rather than just tying the child down and cutting into them. Every drug has it's place and it's risks. I don't know why we are pretending that vaccinations are somehow exempt from that equation and must prove 'no risk' to be worthwhile when their application is so breathtakingly effective in ridding us of major diseases and plagues.
Do with that what you will. I had to say it. And I don't apologize for it.
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Post by nikita on Aug 29, 2010 0:34:19 GMT -5
Nikita (as moderator):
Now, now, Nikita, play nicely and don't be intentionally provocative to the other nice posters regarding a topic you feel passionately about.
Nikita (regular poster):
Yes, ma'am.
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Post by arietty on Aug 29, 2010 2:09:53 GMT -5
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Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 10:10:04 GMT -5
Perhaps not, but I do think that those of us for whom this poses a very serious public health risk are going to have trouble being patient and disinterested over the whole thing. We who are vulnerable to these illnesses are going to have difficulty respecting the choices of others not to vaccinate. And not only that, but it's difficult for some of us to understand this as an issue falling completely within the realm of personal choice when it poses actual public health risks. I've largely kept my mouth shut because I know that I could quickly escalate into alienating everyone...rather than inspire an interest in sound science. I'm too close to my diagnosis, and my suppressed immune system is a little too new for me to speak "reasonably" and respectfully about the issue. That said, I'm most grateful to Tapati for posting good information--and to Nikita for clearly explaining the dangers of this "personal choice." As for me, yes, I have read the anti-vaccination literature, and I find it mostly to be anecdotal pseudo-science. And I know that the actual peer-reviewed studies in scientific journals that raise questions about vaccination have been discredited. I think the QF mindset is one that engenders a lot of comfort with fringe-y conspiracy theory-laden literature. And I think the controversy over vaccinations among ex-QFers is one example of the residue of that mindset--and one that I wish were as easily dispensed with as courtship and skirts-only and the rest of it.
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Post by jemand on Aug 29, 2010 10:15:37 GMT -5
I'm not sure which literature, but here's the position of the CDC: Q. Should we give an MMR to a 15-month-old whose mother is 2 months pregnant? A. Yes. Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine viruses are not transmitted from the vaccinated person, so MMR does not pose a risk to a pregnant household member. www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/combo-vaccines/mmr/faqs-mmr-hcp.htmI read the same thing in several other places just now. I would suggest that your child was exposed to whatever the rash was somewhere else. The incubation period is 14 to 21 days. So if the kid was vaccinated "last week" then your child's illness couldn't have come from exposure to that child, even if the child had rubella. Additionally, the vaccine uses *attenuated* live virus. There is nowhere I can see where this attenuated live virus is shown to be able to transmit the full, active version to another person (except possibly in utero, however, even here no CRS has been seen with women accidentally vaccinated while pregnant, but vaccination while pregnant has been contraindicated just in case, it seems). Then again, I am trying not to spend an inordinate amount of time fighting SIWOTI syndrome, so if you do have official case reports and stuff documenting such transmission, than sure, present it.
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Post by tapati on Aug 29, 2010 13:43:25 GMT -5
It is true, Nikita, there is some risk for everything you might take. (These days, even what you might eat. When spinach kills people, just eating a salad is fraught with danger!) Herbs have killed people. Yes, seemingly harmless herbs. (I've never understood how people can simultaneously hold the notion that herbs are powerful medicines, yet believe that they can never harm anyone.) I am sad that our public schools aren't doing a good enough job to enable people to understand the difference between anecdotes about miracle cures vs peer-reviewed studies using double-blind methodology. We should have an educational system that is sufficient for people to understand the value of scientific method and why correlation isn't proof of causation. It's a crying shame that anyone can get through school without knowing these basic things about science, whatever else they take away from science class. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation(This is a bit of a personal issue for me because I ran into it with my ex all the time--as when he and his friends wanted to find the opening to the "hollow earth" after reading a book about it! They didn't know enough about basic science to evaluate what they were reading. I couldn't convince them of their error. Fortunately they didn't have the follow-through required to actually travel to the North Pole and pay for a plane...and all the other grandiose ideas.)
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Post by lucrezaborgia on Aug 29, 2010 14:32:22 GMT -5
I somehow doubt that the mothers of days past who lived in times where all these diseases (that are now rare thanks to vaccination) were rampant ever thought that the extremely small risk wasn't worth it. It's so easy to look around you and see little risk in not vaccinating your children because most of these diseases have been so reduced that they might as well have been eradicated. Unless you live somewhere where these diseases are still rampant, you really have no idea of what the true risk is of not vaccinating versus vaccinating.
I myself will be a high-risk pregnancy when I do decide to have children because of certain meds that I am on. I will have to decide if the risk to my child's health is worth the risk to my health and go from there.
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Post by macktivist on Sept 4, 2010 17:42:39 GMT -5
Please stop using the word "nanny state". It's a a right-wing smear word. Most of here are Americans, and having you complain about "nanny state" is like a rich man coming out of a restaurant and telling those starving that the steak was undercooked. I'm a recent college grad in the US, and you have NO.FRICKING.CLUE how bad it is for us here. Population is an investment for countries. Your so-called "nanny states" have decided to protect that investment. You bet your butt that those type of countries are going to make sure those investments stay alive and don't die of something stupid like measles because a hausfrau decided she knew better than an army of scientists who had studied contagious diseases their whole life. The US hasn't, and there are REAL PEOPLE suffering. I have anxiety. This summer, I was assaulted while walking home. Now every little bump in the night is terrifying. I sleep with the light on every night because I'm scared of the dark now. I REALLY should be in some kind of counseling or medication. But I can't. I have no insurance. I used to get the state insurance because I had no money, but they cut that because it wasn't important to look after poor people's health. I'm not on my parent's anymore, but will be able to in January because of the evil "nanny-state" is forcing employers to let children of workers stay on insurance until they turn 26, as so many people of my generation are unemployed, or trapped under employed in jobs that will NEVER give us health insurance.
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Post by nikita on Sept 4, 2010 17:44:48 GMT -5
Please stop using the word "nanny state". It's a a right-wing smear word. Most of here are Americans, and having you complain about "nanny state" is like a rich man coming out of a restaurant and telling those starving that the steak was undercooked. I'm a recent college grad in the US, and you have NO.FRICKING.CLUE how bad it is for us here. Population is an investment for countries. Your so-called "nanny states" have decided to protect that investment. The US hasn't I realize these discussions bring up a lot of emotion sometimes, but we do need to refrain from demanding that others use only vocabulary that is pre-approved. If the original poster makes a statement that one disagrees with then rebut their position, but please don't police their chosen vocabulary (with the exception of racially or gender-based hate words which I think we all can agree are inappropriate). 'I disagree with the designation 'nanny-state' for the following reasons.' is a very different statement than the demand 'Do not use the term 'nanny-state'.' Let's discuss points of view, not argue over politically correct terminology. We're a large tent here and not everyone holds the same presumptions about politics or society, there's room for variation. Thanks.
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Post by nikita on Sept 4, 2010 17:58:20 GMT -5
This is such a huge subject and there are so many nuances and pros and cons regarding this particular health care bill that was passed so I would rather we don't get into a war here about that in particular if possible but I will ask THIS:
How do so many conservative Christians come down on the side of a policy that is for all intents and purposes the survival of the fittest?
That makes no sense to me. Somehow 'social justice' has become an epithet in some of those quarters and the poor are treated like the scum of the earth. That is so counter to even the most rudimentary biblical reading that I am continually mystified by it. It just doesn't make any damn sense.
Mactavist, I am very sorry for your situation. It really sucks when you know you need medical treatment and cannot afford to get it. It's gotten very cold out there lately, and it looks like it could get colder if some of the current crop of candidates has their way about it. Some of them want to shut down all social programs as 'unconstitutional'. It's like some weird alien race has landed and is now determined to take over government, it is so counter to what is accepted policy for the last half century. I don't even recognize these people. But people in need are truly getting the shaft now and from what I can tell in the foreseeable future. And most of the shafters claim to be walking with God.
It makes no damn sense at all.
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Post by macktivist on Sept 4, 2010 18:15:31 GMT -5
I was just pointing out that "nanny state" is a demonizing, propaganda term where I live for "any government that prioritizes human beings".
As some one who has been on welfare, and knows many people who rely on welfare to survive, I've had "nanny state" comments thrown in my face as an insult. This isn't about "PC", this is about the very real stigma against poor people in the US, where we are seen as pathetic children if we rely on or support a system with strong public services. I can't think of a way in which saying "nanny state" is NOT condescending or spiteful, honestly.
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Post by jemand on Sept 4, 2010 18:16:24 GMT -5
How do so many conservative Christians come down on the side of a policy that is for all intents and purposes the survival of the fittest? Actually, it's more survival of the *richest*
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