Educated people can be dumb, too

[anonimouse]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040706/hl_nm/health_vaccines_dc_1

"Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a ... city."

Several studies have shown two barriers to full vaccination -- a lack of adequate medical care and affluent, educated people who question the need to vaccinate their children.

In other words, people with the resources to vaccinate their children and (supposedly) the intellectual capacity to understand the importance of vaccination choose not to.

At what point does ignorance cross the line to malice?

 

[geni]

Dunno But antivac groups crossed the line a long time ago.

 

[anonimouse]

Dunno But antivac groups crossed the line a long time ago.

Of course, when they went to the "people that are susceptible to disease for no fault of their own are expendable because we don't want to subject our child to a minute risk" card, among other things.

But what I found so disturbing about that study is that it's not the unwashed masses or the uneducated that are joining the woo-woo-anti-vaccine bandwagon. It's the middle-class SAHM with a college degree (or some other semblance of an education) who spends an inordinate amount of time on the internet. They're the faux medical geniuses that roam the baby websites trying to convert people to the cult of uninformed choice.

 

[Benguin]

Is it primarily that or is there an element of lassiez faire apathy involved? It does say they question the need, less than 50% said anything about safety.

 

[anonimouse]

Is it primarily that or is there an element of lassiez faire apathy involved? It does say they question the need, less than 50% said anything about safety.

I don't think you can discuss safety without need, because it really goes to the warped risk/benefit analysis perpetrated by anti-vaxers.

If you believe that vaccines aren't really necessary, your tolerance for risk goes way down. Why take the chance that your child might be one of the unfortunate few to suffer a vaccine reaction if they're unlikely to get a vaccine preventable disease? If these diseases were prevalent in our society, the risks involved with a vaccine would seem to pale in comparison to the risks of the disease.

That's why vaccines are often called a victim of their own success.

I could do an entire separate discussion of the intellectual dishonesty employed by anti-vaccine groups to convince parents that vaccines are no longer necessary, or in many cases, were never necessary in the first place.

 

[Benguin]

If you believe that vaccines aren't really necessary, your tolerance for risk goes way down. Why take the chance that your child might be one of the unfortunate few to suffer a vaccine reaction if they're unlikely to get a vaccine preventable disease?

Oh, I wasn't decrying that point ... just questioning how much of the problem is solely caused by anti-vax disinformation, and how much by lazy parental irresponsibility.

Personally I think parents who act in this way should be held accountable, I mean if their child is subsequently handicapped or killed by measles that strikes me as child abuse.

 

[anonimouse]

Oh, I wasn't decrying that point ... just questioning how much of the problem is solely caused by anti-vax disinformation, and how much by lazy parental irresponsibility.

Personally I think parents who act in this way should be held accountable, I mean if their child is subsequently handicapped or killed by measles that strikes me as child abuse.

It'd be interesting to know what the other 50 percent of the "educated" lot thought of vaccines, that's for sure.