The Dangers of the Anti-Vaccination Movement

Unfortunately, many prominent actors/actresses and people have been promoting a movement which could endanger future generations.  The anti-vaccination movement is a threat to us all and founded on untruths. 

Vaccines are so incredibly important, and have managed to completed eradicate diseases such as smallpox (which killed 1 in every 7 children in Europe), and almost completely eradicate Polio.  Additionally, the introduction of the meningitis vaccine in 1988 saves almost 33,000 lives and avoids 14 million infections for children born in a given year.   The vaccines have a proven effect.

However; critics claim the following:

• Many diseases that were caused by overcrowding, poor hygiene, poor sanitation, and restricted diet were reduced because of changes in conditions.
• Survivors of disease would become immune, and preventing these immunities is a risk to future generations and only a temporary cure.
• This brings an even greater risk to older or sick people because they are not immune.
• Side-effects, such as autism, make vaccines not worth it. 

The problem with these claims is that they are simply not true.  Vaccines have been proven to be effective, especially when vaccination use stops in certain areas and disease reemerges.  The immunity is a null point, since if everyone is vaccinated then they cannot get sick with these diseases, and the side-effects that are definitely caused by the vaccine are extremely rare and usually do to an allergic response, and other side-effects anti-vaccinations claim, such as autism, have no scientific proof of correclating to vaccines.

The extreme danger of these promotions became evident during several epidemics in areas where vaccine use declined.

• In Stockholm from 1873-1874, campaigns against smallpox vaccine caused a reduction in vaccine use from 90% in other areas of Sweden to only 40% in Stockholm, triggering a smallpox epidemic which changed peoples minds, but only after lots of people died.
• A DPT scare in UK because of prominent figures misinforming the public about reactions to the vaccine reduced use from 81% to 31%.  An epidemic followed which led to the deaths of many children.
• Recent Measles outbreaks, such as those in Indiana in 2005, and in the UK and Ireland in 2000, stemmed from fears that the vaccines cause autism and other serious problems in children.  In Northern Ireland the vaccination rates reduced to as low as 60%.

The supposed safety hazards to children include the weakening of the child's immune system due to too many vaccines, fears that the chemical Thiomersal causes autism, and claims that the MMR vaccine might cause autism.  None of these claims has been proven to be true in numerous scientific studies, and recent trials have denied parents of autistic children compensation for injuries on the grounds of lack of evidence.

However, this fear of side-effects is not the only reason people choose not to get vaccinated, or not to have their children vaccinated.  Some people cite individual liberty, or that they can't be forced into using vaccines.  Others claim that vaccines are against their religion, since it is an attempt to thwart god's will.  Some people believe that vaccines are simply a way to make money off of people.  But scarier, is that according to a 1995 survey, 1/3 of U.S. chiropracters don't even believe that vaccines work, and convince clients not to take them.   All of this has made it very expensive for pharmaceutical companies, none of which actually make profits off of vaccines, since their court costs far outweigh any profit they would make.   Some companies have even pulled out of the vaccine business because of this. 

The anti-vaccine movement is led by bad scientists, bad thinkers, and parents looking for someone to blame for things that just happen sometimes.   Unfortunately, we cannot be complacent about this, since it could threaten our children, or the health of future generations. 

My Religious History

I figured the question of my religious history will have to be answered at some point, so why not start now?

I was raised Catholic.  Up until I was about 12, I went to mass every Sunday and every religious holiday without fail.  I was so devoutly religious as a child, that I believed a Sunday school teacher who said that Mary had visited her once, prayed to be the next "virgin mother," and was extremely disgusted with my brother when he decided that he was atheist (I was 8 at the time, he was 12). 

So what changed?

Well, my family was extremely scientific anyway, and my parents raised me to think.  My mother has a PhD in Differential Equations, and my dad has a PhD in Statistical Forestry.  We talked about everything, and I learned a lot about how to interact with other people and various other things from advice they gave my brother at the dinner table, well before I ever encountered the necessity for knowing. 

So when I entered 8th grade world history, and we started at THE VERY BEGINNING -4.4 billion years ago -, I started to wonder why the bible didn't begin that way too.  This was just a beginning, though, because I did not really reach that moment where things changed until my 9th grade biology class, where the facts of evolution paired with this history sort of started to scream at me. 

It was essentially really close to that moment where I learned Santa Claus wasn't real.  Just because one of them wasn't real, meant that all the rest like the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, etc., also weren't real.  So when I learned that the beginning of the bible was completely false, I began to wonder about the credibility of the rest of the book.  A little research and some thinking, and it became completely evident that the book wasn't absolutely true, and thus, believing in the being it proclaimed to be real did not really make any sense. 

I pretty much still did a lot of research on the topic and paid attention to news, but it wasn't until the shooting here at Virginia Tech where I decided I needed to really thoroughly examine my views.  I was stunned and worthless as a person for a couple months afterwards, but once I got past that stage of my life I started to develop my knowledge and interest in secularism, humanism, and freethought, and so here I am, president of the Freethinkers at Virginia Tech, and writing a blog. 

How Can I be a Conservative Atheist?

You may be feeling a little confused about the title of my blog (Maybe even as confused a G.W. Bush here).  How the hell does someone be an atheist and a conservative AT THE SAME TIME!?!??!  Well, that is an excellent question!  To explain it, I will define atheism and conservatism respectively. 

Atheist is literally a - theism, meaning anti-theism, or the lack of belief in a god.  This may seem relatively self-explanatory, but it really isn't.  We typically categorize atheim into two types. These are big A atheism and little a atheism.  Big A atheism asserts:

• that atheism is 100% correct
• the world would be better if everyone agreed with that
• atheists should actively attempt to deconvert people, for the greater good of the world

 Little a atheism is the lighter version, and consists of the following basic ideas:

•  acknowledgement that they may not be correct, but are still assertive in their opinion that there is no god (without this assertion they would be agnostic)
• while other religions are wrong they are not necessarily a bad thing
• no active deconversion movement is necessary

I would categorize myself as a little a atheist.  While I do not think an active deconversion movement is useful, since people who would become real atheists or agnostics must reach that conclusion by serious contemplation and though, I think that it is extremely important that an active skeptic community be around in order to help people who have reached that level of thought but have nowhere to turn to.  I will explain this more thoroughly in later posts, but I do not want to stray too far from the present topic. 

Now, conservatism is not what most Americans seem to attribute it to be.  When I claim that I am a conservative, I mean entirely by the standards of government size.  Conservatism has more to do with the size of government than religious views.  Religious views are simply a tool for politicians to attract people who do not necessarily think deeply enough into the workings of government to understand real conservatism.  

I do not believe that socialism or collectivist systems have been show to be effective economically or for quality of life.  This includes government health care, which has been shown to be less effective than the current (although flawed) American health care system, because of (among other reasons) longer waiting times, fewer cancer survivors, and less comprehensive options for treatment.  Since the red scare, the word "socialist" has been a bad word.  I'm not sure I really agree with that.  Though the Obama Administration and Democrat-run congress pretend that their policies are not socialist because of this fear (The government is nationalizing companies among other things - that's socialism), they really are.   There are also lots of other bad ideas or fears that came out of the red scare which I will also discuss in detail at a later point in time. 

So I hope I described well enough exactly how I can be a conservative atheist.  I know most people I encounter in my life seem to be quite shocked by this, but these are my views and I will not pretend to be anyone else. 

I think that it is really important that people understand that just because they belong to a specific group of people does not mean that they have to agree with all of those people on all topics (or even most topics), or even that they need to be part of a certain political party.    Just because you are black does not mean you have to be a democrat.  Just because you are religious does not mean you have to be a republican.  I encourage people to choose a party based on, not specific elements of their platforms, but rather the general goal of the party which leads to those specific elements.

Also, since this is my first post, I want to emphasize that all posts on this blog are entirely my opinion, and that I acknowledge that I may be wrong and hope that people will correct me in those cases.  I hope you enjoy the read!