Herd Immunity and Compulsory Immunization

Ryan,

For what it's worth:

Prior to wide-spread vaccination, mortality rates in individuals with smallpox were high - up to 35% in some cases.^[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine#Post-eradication_vaccination

Jordan

Post 41

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 2:26pm

Hey, it looks like Norway did make it mandatory for people to carry around a certificate of smallpox vaccination. Source. That link is interesting, actually. It suggests that people got vaccinated quite willingly since the situation was otherwise so dire. I'm thinking it's not so much the problem that a virus is invisible, but rather, that outbreaks have become so seldom.

Jordan

Post 42

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 5:19pm

I know that smallpox infection and mortality rates were astronomical. That is an argument for the efficacy of vaccination, which I believe is pretty much beyond question. I seriously doubt that any disease with that kind of morality rate is going to have many people refusing noncompulsory vaccination.
Ted, I understand what you're saying. The only thing that would be different if you'd chosen to make up the 3% and 90% as your numbers would be that it would look worse for the point that you are arguing. Which is probably why you chose to make up the numbers that you did. The smallpox thing is an incredibly poor example for a lot of reasons. One being if an epidemic breaks out at a certain point you are in an emergency situation. As discussed elsewhere, emergencies are not the same as everyday life and different criteria apply when judging an appropriate course of action.
I agree that one of the important parts of argument is trying to understand what the other person says. I get what you're saying. Have you been even reading my questions? If so, why are you ignoring repeated requests for you to explain your own thinking?
I don't assume that you're an innoculation fetishist. Your argument doesn't have that tone at all. It actually has the tone of someone who wants to grow the gov't just a little bit, just this time, for just this one issue. Based on what? Fear of getting sick? Vaccination rates already vary from abysmal to ok in America. Depending on state and specific disease discussed. I couldn't find any evidence that even those numbers included illegal immigrants, who likely didn't get vaccinated in their home countries. The minimally vaccinated hell that the lemming-people you see all around you is the world you already live in, Ted.
I'm not asking you to prove vaccination works. I'm asking you to explain a position that is pro-complusion in terms that doesn't rest on "vaccines are good for you" or "I'm afraid of X, the gov't should compel everyone along a course that makes me less afraid." Explain the belief that in a civilized society the vast majority of people would choose this? It would take a vast majority to set us up for the kind of pandemic you keep describing resulting from uncle sam holstering the gun. The religious nuts, chiropractors (a significant number do not believe in vaccination), and autism alarmists are already exempt from vaccines in most places, and they live and work among us. Do you really think the majority that vaccinates now would just stop if the gov't wasn't involved? I'm not seeing how we need a huge gov't agency to track and enforce a behavior that most of us would do anyway, and the resisters are already exempt from.

Post 43

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 5:39pm

What are you talking about, "grow the government"? How is my being largely satisfied with current state of affairs a desire to increase the power of the government? This is your own straw man.

The problem is that you are making up a non-problem "Oh, those poor masses of people who are having their rights violated!" and not offering your own solution. No, you do not have a right to go around unvaccinated for a deadly disease, just like you don't have a right to feed the bears on your front lawn, actively or by failing to lock up your food. We require people to lock up their guns and poisons and bear bait and dangerous animals, and this is no different.

So, please show me the actual problem that troubles you, and then we can attempt to fix it. Your simply saying that there is a problem doesn't establish it.

Oh, and you ask "Based on what? Fear of getting sick?" This is a second straw man. You are simply ignorant if you don't fear infectious disease. I have a rational fear of plague and am skeptical of ending a reasonable policy not because of actual harm - which has not been shown - but due to the fact that an uncontextual argument is being put forth. Spreading infectious disease is the initiation of force. We cannot determine that a person is spreading disease before he has already become sick and infectious. Hence, we require that all people take a reasonable precaution, just like locking up food, guns and poison. And this precaution, applied, has saved the lives of some two to four billion people who are alive today.

What is seen is a few babies and anarchists crying when they get innoculated. What is not seen is hundreds of millions of people dying like this.

What, exactly, is there not to get here?

Historic pandemics

Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, killed between 50 and 60% of Europe's population.[13]
The Black Death of 1347 to 1352 killed 25 million in Europe over 5 years (estimated to be between 25 and 50% of the populations of Europe, Asia, and Africa - the world population at the time was 500 million).
The introduction of smallpox, measles, and typhus to the areas of Central and South America by European explorers during the 15th and 16th centuries caused pandemics among the native inhabitants. Between 1518 and 1568 disease pandemics are said to have caused the population of Mexico to fall from 20 million to 3 million.[14]
The first European influenza epidemic occurred between 1556 and 1560, with an estimated mortality rate of 20%.[14]
Smallpox killed an estimated 60 million Europeans in the 18th century alone. Up to 30% of those infected, including 80% of the children under 5 years of age, died from the disease, and one third of the survivors went blind. [15]
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 (or the Spanish Flu) killed 25-50 million people (about 2% of world population of 1.7 billion).[16] Today Influenza kills about 250,000 to 500,000 worldwide each year.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 2/02, 5:52pm)

Post 44

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 6:31pm

Jordan, the logic I was complaining about is that compulsion is OK as long as it isn't "sinister," with what that entails left undefined.

Post 45

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 6:32pm

Honestly Ted, like i've said at least 3 times, I want to know what the thought is with your position. This relates to your incredulity regarding my statement about growing gov't. Your position seems to be "the greater good" requires it and the threat involved.
1. Please explain how your position doesnt support govt intervention in any potentially dangerous part of life? It could be used for secondhand smoke ( I hear they're working on thirdhand now). Global warming endangers us all if you believe its real. Many people in charge of the guns believe it is. There are a lot of dangerous things out there, Ted. Please explain where the line is drawn and how how its drawn.
2. What secret about human nature do you know that leads you to the sure belief that the individuals involved in the epidemics you mentioned wouldn't have prevented them if it was within their power?
3. How prevalent are the bear cops in the areas you're talking about? People there can't be trusted to protect themselves from obvious threats?

Post 46

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 6:45pm

4. I work in health care. I'm aware of the horrors of infectious disease. Noone has ever needed to force me to protect myself. Noone needed to force my mom to vaccinate me as a child. She's a reasonable person who took reasonable actions. Most people would.
5. To the best of my knowledge, we are not under any sort of compulsory food storage, gun security, or household poison security legislation. Any fictional bear epidemic would seem to fall under the ethics of emergencies.
6. Does this mean the betrothal is off. :)

Post 47

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 6:59pm

Exactly. My position does support intervention in a dangerous part of life. That's why I support it. It is because your walking around carrying a deadly virus which you could have prevented by taking a reasonable precaution to stop is an initiation of force against me. You don't have the right to walk around spreading germs.

There is an underlying fallacy here. The anarchist begins with his notion of a perfect set of absolute rights in mind. Rights as instituted in an actual political system are not self-instantiating absolutes. they have to be enforced by real people, using compromise, at some real cost, and by actual individuals. Compromises are required. I would prefer a system of voluntary taxation, for example. But I am perfectly justified under current circumstances in availing myself of the police or the military which happens to be funded through involuntary taxation. I have to be alive and free in order to move toward a better system. The fact that taxes exist now does not make me want to get rid of the army or the police to protect my ideological purity. likewise, since there is no other way to safeguard us all against such real diseases as smallpox and polio, I accept that reasonable precautions will have to be forced upon some people at gunpoint. You have the right of free association. But I will expect you to compromise that right, and allow me to prevent the entry of certain people into this country ahead of time because I have reason to believe they are a threat. You also have the right to choose which medical procedures you will and will not undergo. But this medical procedure is reasonable and necessary - and unless you can provide a better alternative, I am happy to "force" it upon you.

As for the fact that most people will act reasonably even without the threat of the law, that is fine. How does that affect my position? It only takes one person carrying a deadly disease to kill you. It is that irrational person i am worried about. That person deserves to have a gun pointed at him, not so that I can steal his money, but so that I can stop him from being a disease vector.

Oh, and as for second hand smoke, if it really were dangerous, I would want it regulated. But it is not, and neither is it infectious nor is it undetectable by normal means.

As for bears, it's an analogy, and analogies work whether or not you are actually being attacked by a bear at this moment. I don't think you are so literal or witless that you can't understand an analogy.

You seem incredulous, because you keep identifying the fact that I want the state, as a last resort, to force some people to get vaccinated. Yes. That is exactly right. That is how it is now. It doesn't bother me. You don't have the right to carry a virus. I don't have a way of knowing ahead of time if you are carrying one. I repeat, I dfon't have a way of knowing ahead of time if you are carrying one. So I require that rather than letting me blow away any stranger who coughs near me (too late for me anyway) that the state enact and enforce a reasonable set of rules on vaccination.

Please show me how the current laws cause actual harm.

Post 48

Monday, February 2, 2009 - 7:09pm

Ryan, the fact that you are ignorant of the sorts of regulations that exist when wild animals are a real threat to people is your problem, not mine. Try leaving food out for the bears in Alaska, and tell the cops when they come that it is your right to do what you want on your property. Indeed, try feeding the pigeons in New York. You can armchair legislate all you want. Anarchists and pacifists do only that. I understand your concerns for freedom, and will be happy to agree to your solutions once you propose them. You have not offered any alternative solutions so far. Yes, most people will be rational. How would you treat those who will not?

Nor did I ever accuse you yourself of being personally irresponsible. It is the irrational ones I want threatened with guns.

As for the betrothal, it is not between you and me - you are not my type, and I am happily spoken for. I will have to let my nephews have the last word. And I have this sort of argument with their father all the time. It does not come down to violence. Rational people can disagree, and there is a reason for the existence of parliamentary debate in a rational system of government.

So, I tire of your repeated and understood objections, I await your counterproposal.

Post 49

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 4:58am

Ted jabbed:

Luke, I asked you what was wrong with the current law, and you respond that you think the current law is more lax than I would like. So, I think maybe you have a reading comprehension problem.

No, I read you just fine, Ted. I said the law is fine the way it is (though I should have researched that first!) but showed all signs of being less than the "mandatory vaccination for adults" you seemed to advocate:

Measles, mumps, diphtheria, they all kill. Vaccines provide only partial immunity. So, even if I do get vaccinated, if my neighbor doesn't, he can still get the disease and pass it on to me. And the nature of the phenomenon is such that it is only after he has already become infectious that we know he has the illness. Prior restraint is the only way that actually saves lives in such cases. We simply require people to get vaccinated ahead of time since that is the best way to deal with a plague - to prevent it.

I read this as meaning you want everyone vaccinated. The law does not require this for adults (except immigrants) and only requires it for children who register at public schools. Hence I suggested the law may be more lax than you like.

The political mechanism? What's really wrong with the current mechanism, other than a potential ideological complaint? I am all for voluntary. (Indeed, I expect there must be at least five published doctoral theses on this by libertarian Poli-Sci majors.) But I am not interested in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The bathwater we have right now is hardly objectionable.

When I used the word "lax" I simply wanted to reconcile your earlier paragraph with your later one versus the laws I later cited.

Post 50

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 8:27am

The solution to this problem is obvious: schism.

What we need in the world is a giant schism between folks -- folks who dig compulsory vaccination, and folks who like to gamble more with their health. There has to be a great wall built up, separating the compulsorily-vaccinated folks from the non-. If, after some time, all those "health gamblers" have died from infectious disease -- then we decontaminate the area and re-populate it with compulsorily-vaccinated folks once again (until the next time great numbers of folks desire to live free of compulsion, at which point, the cycle begins again).

:-)

Ed

Post 51

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 9:19am

Ted,

... as for second hand smoke, if it really were dangerous, I would want it regulated.

There's something called the Precautionary Principle (PP) and it is a terrible, terrible thing. The folks touting PP are risk-avoiding junkies. They worship risk avoidance. There isn't any thing or action completely devoid of risk. But folks who go PP all over you like to think they're doing you a favor, minimizing your risk for you (against your will) and whatnot.

Secondhand smoke is associated with childhood asthma. A review of 38 studies found an extra third (33%) risk above baseline in kids from age 6 to 18. That's perhaps a million kids who have asthma now precisely because of secondhand smoke. A million victims.

Now, this may make you want to regulate smoking, but I caution against the PP slippery slope. For example, 2000 folks a year are killed by their intimate partners, one extension of your logic might lead to the government banning love. We'd do it because we'd avoid risks that way -- and on the notion that risk avoidance is our primary purpose on this planet.

Ed

Post 52

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 10:12am

Ed, of course that sort of thing is nonsense. It depends upon perceptual level thinking and the lack of ability to compare risk. The problem with second hand smoke is that people can smell it. People react viscerally to smells in a way that they don't usually react to such things as sight or sound. Certain people have no ability to "deal with" smells. How many times have you heard your co-worker complain when you eat a slice of pizza that she "smells something!" That's nice. I hear something - your whiny voice - I don't have to announce that or the fact that "I can see" that your tank top clashes with your hip huggers to the rest of the office.

Luke, what part of I am happy with the current system ("The political mechanism? What's really wrong with the current mechanism, other than a potential ideological complaint? I am all for voluntary. (Indeed, I expect there must be at least five published doctoral theses on this by libertarian Poli-Sci majors.) But I am not interested in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The bathwater we have right now is hardly objectionable.") don't you understand?

Post 53

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 10:27am

God damn it, Ted!

I have stated repeatedly that you utter conflicting statements.

On the one hand, you rant about wanting to protect yourself from your neighbor's lack of immunity, thus implying a desire for 100% adult immunization.

On the other hand, you rant that you like the current system, thus implying that less than 100% immunization is acceptable.

Which is it?

Post 54

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 12:03pm

No, one hundred percent immunization is your straw man. I never said it. Understanding the difference between my words and your guesses is a minimum requirement for rational dialog. There currently exist outs, and I said I support what currently exists.

So, "god dammit," please stop deciding that your surmises are emanations from my consciousness. That belief is called paranoid schizophrenia.

If there is anything that I actually said, rather than what you think I think, that you want clarified, please do ask. I assume you yourself are not bitterly opposed to the current system. I am still waiting to hear from those who oppose any legal sanction at all how they propose to offer a solution. I am not opposed to an even more voluntary system, if it works. I just don't see the real harm or real violation of rights in the current system.

Post 55

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 12:22pm

This issue has been addressed several times by science fiction authors. Notably by Heinlein in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". The lunar society was very libertarian but had strong protections built in to their rules against individuals who ignore the safety of others. This is brought into sharp focus by the harsh environment they lived in where a single mis-step could wipe out much of the colony. A great deal of effort was made to make sure each and every individual understood their responsibilities and the consequences of ignoring them. Similar issues exist in our society, but our relatively more benign environment allows many people to think they can ignore them. Good thread and good discussion.

Post 56

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 1:08pm

Hi Mindy,

I get it now. Thanks. My point was that no one here is suggesting we smuggle in (sinisterly) an initiation of force, just compulsion to abide by the law.

Ed, your post made me giggle.

Jordan

Post 57

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 2:15pm

Ted, tell me how this passage of yours does not imply your right to force your neighbor (and, by implication, 100% of your neighbors) to have "preventative" vaccinations:

So, even if I do get vaccinated, if my neighbor doesn't, he can still get the disease and pass it on to me. And the nature of the phenomenon is such that it is only after he has already become infectious that we know he has the illness. Prior restraint is the only way that actually saves lives in such cases. We simply require people to get vaccinated ahead of time since that is the best way to deal with a plague - to prevent it.

Please clarify what this actually means as I hardly consider my interpretation a "straw man" but do consider these words at odds with your other words.

Post 58

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 2:57pm

Luke, you are either being absent minded or stubbornly obtuse. What, prey tell, could I be referring to here in post 9:

Of course there may be scientific reasons for allowing certain people exemptions. But the fact that some unshaven paranoid anarchist pacifist thinks it's his right to leave his virii on all the doorknobs he opens is not one of them.

That plus my statement:

What's really wrong with the current mechanism, other than a potential ideological complaint? I am all for voluntary.

as well as my being a frigging Objectivist should make it clear that I am not looking to establish a healthcare dictatorship, and that you happen to be mistaken in your guess as to my secret motives.

I trust this is sufficient?

(Edited by Ted Keer on 2/03, 3:11pm)

Post 59

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 3:13pm