Anti vaccine bullshit

[Broomstick]

It goes hand and hand with people who keep talking about "stimulating" the immune system, and "boosting" the immune system... but a super-strong immune system is NOT a good thing, it results in things like allergies or, even worse, what one of my sisters came down with, an auto-immune disorder that nearly destroyed her heart. Right now they have it under control, but if that control slips she'll end up on the organ waiting list or dead.

Some of these people think they understand medicine and the human body, but in reality they know just enough to be dangerous.

[biostem]

It goes hand and hand with people who keep talking about "stimulating" the immune system, and "boosting" the immune system... but a super-strong immune system is NOT a good thing, it results in things like allergies or, even worse, what one of my sisters came down with, an auto-immune disorder that nearly destroyed her heart. Right now they have it under control, but if that control slips she'll end up on the organ waiting list or dead.

Some of these people think they understand medicine and the human body, but in reality they know just enough to be dangerous.

Wait, I thought that the current theory was that people are being raised in too clean of an environment, thus their immune system doesn't get a chance to adapt to "common" triggers, like dust & animal dander, and autoimmune disorders had to do with your body identifying other cells within yourself as foreign/to be attacked - resulting from a defect in your immune system, not because it's too strong or anything.

[Purple]

It is my understanding that allergies are basically the immune system overreacting and firing when it shouldn't. So it can happen if you are not used to something that's harmless and it freaks out. But it can also happen if the system it self is supercharged and just becomes hyperactive because of it. That's my understanding at least.

[Broomstick]

There are conflicting theories about how allergies happen, and it's entirely possible there more than one cause.

There is the "too clean" hypothesis, as mentioned.

There is also the theory that some people evolved to better resist intestinal parasites, which tend to suppress the immune system as a defense mechanism, and that without such parasites the immune system is left "super-charged" and prone to malfunction.

There is a tendency for allergic people to be prone to auto-immune disorders and vice versa.

It is a defect of the immune system, but it's not a deficit as many assume, it's an excess of reaction that causes the problem. Severe cases are treatment with drugs that suppress the immune system, not stimulate it. Several times in my life my allergies have been treated with the same drugs used for organ transplant recipients, albeit at a smaller dose than they get. My sister is on a long-term daily dose of such medications.

Then there are situations like cytokine storms, an immune response to a pathogen that spins out of control and can kill you. Cytokine storms are usually seen in young adults, the people with the strongest and healthiest immune systems.

Like a lot of things in biology, the immune system requires balance. You don't want too much reactivity. People who become obsessed with "strengthening" the immune system don't understand that. For someone like myself, stimulating my immune is probably NOT a good idea. On the upside, statistically highly allergic people such as myself seem less likely to develop cancer or die from it... perhaps our over-reactive systems do a better job of identifying and eliminating defective cells. Which, I hasten to add, does not make us immune to cancer, just less likely to get it or more likely to get it later in life, meaning something else (like maybe eating a food we're allergic to and kills us via anaphylactic shock, or catching the flu and having our immune system go kamikaze on us) is likely to kill us first.

So, maybe I have a genetic trait that in primitive conditions where I would likely be carrying a menagerie of intestinal worms in my gut I'd have an advantage over people without the trait in that my system counteracts the immune suppression of the parasites, allowing me to be healthier, live longer, and have more children but in a modern environment without such parasites the trait becomes a liability instead of an asset, leaving my system hyper-reactive.

Or maybe not, but it's another illustration that more isn't always better.

Back to vaccination, that's another reason herd immunity is needed - vaccinations don't always "take" and we don't always understand why they don't. That's why, even if you've had a tetanus shot in the last ten years or so if you're injured in a manner putting you at high risk of the disease they often vaccinate you again - your prior one may or maybe not have been effective, and how quickly immune response diminishes after vaccination varies from one person to another.

Basically, some of these woo-woo artists are tinkering with an extremely complex system that no one entirely understands, a system composed of a lot of interlocking controls to not only ramp up a response but control it and dial it down, too.

I think with some of these anti-vaxxers you have a situation where the kid is insulated from a lot of infectious assaults and the parents get upset at the notion that, after some vaccinations the kid will suffer side effects like a sore injection site or mild fever, leaving the kid cranky and prone to crying for a few days, which against the background of not being sick makes the parents think the vaccinations are making the kid ill. These people don't live in third world conditions of near-chronic diarrhea and infections of one sort or another following one after another, and they certainly haven't seen a kid that is really seriously ill, or dying, against which the typical post-tetanus side effects are completely lost against the background.

Not to mention these folks haven't been sick themselves - they're a generation that not only hasn't had to worry about major killers like smallpox, they haven't spent a week or two suffering chickenpox, mumps, measles or the like - I'm willing to bet the parents purchasing "Marvelous Measles" never had the disease themselves. My parents certainly had nothing good to say of the disease, never wanted their children to get it, and had bad memories of neighborhood kids who died of the brain complications of the disease. My parents knew people who had gone deaf from the mumps, and even one person who died from chicken pox. Even in my generation, mumps was no fun and almost everyone got it, and almost everyone had at least a couple scars from the chicken pox and now we're all at risk of shingles, which, if you've never known anyone who's had it, is incredibly painful (the only time my father ever cried from from physical injury or illness was when he had shingles. Keep in mind, my dad once had his appendix burst which is no walk in the park, either, and said shingles was a close second). It can also leave you in chronic pain or blind you. I wish I had had a chickenpox vaccination instead of having even my mild case of chickenpox because I dread shingles - rest assured, I'll be getting that vaccine at the appointed time!

Again, it's a problem with vaccinations being too successful - people just don't comprehend that these "childhood diseases" killed and maimed on a regular basis. They're sparring their children the brief pain of a needle and a few days of feeling vaguely ick but putting them at risk of something far worse.

[jwl]

And so frustrusting that the "might cause autism" always pops up (even in mainstream). The guy who came up with it debunked himself in a later study but I guess it was already a brainbug by then.
According to a recent Danish study there was a strong possibility that child circumcision has a much higher risk to cause autism (not surprising given the traumatic experience) but I don't see this being picked up due to cultural sensitivities

Did he? I thought he was a fraud that got banned from doing any further work.