to think it's not terribly helpful to keep referring to parents who haven't MMR'd as "whack jobs"...

[MsGillis]

..or morons, or unfit parents, or up there with people who drink and drive?

I appreciate that people have very strong feelings around the subject, but I think that we need to understand that there are a significant number of parents who didn't/haven't vaccinated, not because they are crystal waving nutjobs, but because they are actually scared shitless and paralysed into indecision?

Surely there are ways and means to communicate information, and arrogantly shouting about how one person is right and anyone who disagrees is all kinds of nobhead is not going to be conducive in opening up reasonable dialogue?

Wears - re " you said that game theory "concludes that it is perfectly normal for parents to decide not to vaccinate where perceived risk of a vaccine is higher than its expected benefit. By "normal" you seem to mean acceptable or reasonable."

No, actually, in this context "normal" means "rational". As opposed to "whack job" thinking, which was the OP's misinformed, ill-considered understanding of the situation. GT assumes individuals making rational decisions that make sense in their particular situations. It does not seek to "validate" one decision over another - i.e. both the government's vaccine policy and non-vaccinating parents' decisions are "valid" and rational.

It is not easy to talk about a discipline with someone who clearly has no training in it, but you will either need to read at least a Wikipedia page on Game Theory, or take my word for it. Saying things like "That's why I said that game theory does not validate the non-vaxx decision" only show that you have read neither the study I linked to nor the plain-English little paragraph that summarises its results which I posted, or just couldn't understand either of it.

Where's your maths degree from cote? Wondering if we might be connected...

Yes, game theory explains why people make choices that might makes sense for them and what the aggregated impact of those choices would be if the whole population made them, namely to return to relatively high childhood mortality rates where everyone knows someone who has died or been severly disable due to an avoidable disease.

There are server adverse reactions to vaccinations, but in healthy children these are vanishingly rare compared to the complication rates in the old childhood illnesses.

And to explain further:
"For the rubbella example, one of the main reasons was that the group of immunised children had far fewer younger siblings with birth defects. Even with immunised mothers."

There was a study done in looking at vaccinating children against rubbella, the main outcome was that it protected the vaccinated children's own younger siblings more than any other group. I'd put my DS through a tiny risk to reduce risk of serious abnormalities to subsequent DC.

MrsHoarder - I have an engineering degree and an MBA. I studied Game Theory as part of my MBA curriculum, under a truly brilliant professor who was visiting from Princeton. It was one of my favourite courses ever, in case you were wondering

"There are server adverse reactions to vaccinations, but in healthy children these are vanishingly rare compared to the complication rates in the old childhood illnesses."

Risk is not the same thing as probability ("rates"), as I explained just below. For some diseases, the risk of disease might be higher than risk of vaccination, in which case you would naturally vaccinate, but this is by no means true for all diseases.

"There was a study done in looking at vaccinating children against rubbella, the main outcome was that it protected the vaccinated children's own younger siblings more than any other group. I'd put my DS through a tiny risk to reduce risk of serious abnormalities to subsequent DC."

"Younger siblings" as in DC2 in the womb? This doesn't even make sense. When you were pregnant with DC1, you would be tested for rubella immunity. If found non-immune, you would surely get the vaccine yourself after DC1 was born. So by the time your are pregnant with DC2, you would be immune so there would be no need to vaccinate DC1 against rubella to protect the fetus.

Cote, leaving the last part of your post to one side...

You didn't say rational, you said normal. They are different words with different meanings. You're changing position now.

Nobody suggested that it isn't rational to hide behind herd immunity, any more than it isn't rational to push aside others to get into the lifeboat. But it isn't normal - and certainly not creditable - in any social sense, is it?

Had you said rational, or even 'understandably selfish', in the first place you'd have been clearer - and you wouldn't need the game theory smokescreen either.

"Whack job" refers to the reasons sometimes given for not vaccinating, not to the logic of relying on the protection given by others. Please tell me in what way game theory informs us of the reliability and substance of those reasons.

cote so that would be no you have no evidence that the mmr causes regression and not only do you not have evidence but you are prepared to ignore all the evidence that has failed to link mmr and regression.

As I've said I'm no statistician but I think your interpretation of the expected outcome of mmr (regressive autism) to be highly flawed. You are giving the mmr a much higher adverse event profile than it actually has.

Cote fair enough.

As for risk, yes I know what the mathematical definition of risk is. Given for a lot of the diseases the worst outcome if you contract the disease is death and is more likely than serious side effects (i'm not counting mild fever and sleepiness for a few days here) from the vaccine.

That's why any decent game theory model of vaccination uptake shows a sharp rise in the face of an epidemic. When its a stark choice of vaccination or almost definitely get the disease then the way for individuals to minimise their total risk is to get a vaccination. The problem us that the best solution overall is the unstable equilibrium where everyone vaccinates (except clear cases where individual risk is higher than usual) not the stable equilibrium where no-one vaccinates and epidemics become more frequent.

Wears - I'm not changing anything. When you say "normal" in a Game Theory context, that means you are referring to a decision that will normally be made by a rational individual. I'm sorry that you are so unfamiliar with GT that you don't understand this.

"Nobody suggested that it isn't rational to hide behind herd immunity"

This isn't just about herd immunity. It is about not vaccinating when expected risk is higher than expected benefit. Have you missed the myriad posts I have written about how I am not vaccinating DC against rubella and why? Expected benefit is zero, but there is a cost (no natural lifelong immunity) and possibly even a small risk (as from any vaccine). I want DD to have it as soon as possible and we are certainly not "hiding behind herd immunity"

"Given for a lot of the diseases the worst outcome if you contract the disease is death"

Not all diseases, though. Which brings us to MMR, which has a component against a disease so mild that many parents miss it in their children.

"The problem us that the best solution overall is the unstable equilibrium where everyone vaccinates"

"Best solution overall" is the result of the government's decision process. Individual parent's decision process looks at best solution for my child.

Until you can separate the two, we will have a long conversation going around the same points.

CotedAzur you don't really seem to understand about risk assessment yourself, tbh, especially as you don't look at all risk factors, and come up with skewered figures. Plus you actually have not compared the risk posed by non-vaccing to the one posed by vaccing, but compared it to something totally unrelated, namely giving antibiotics.

The risk of non-vaccination, increases the risk of infection in two ways:

a) by the individual not being protected (and don't get me started on the stupidity of the "immunity through infection is better" argument. The whole point of immunity is not catching the disease, surely)

b) outbreaks not being halted, as the less immunised people, the more likely the disease is to spread

c) the severity of the disease - does it cause death or mild discomfort. A risk of death of 1/1000 is pretty hefty, especially if the likelihood of catching it increases.

"Not all diseases, though. Which brings us to MMR, which has a component against a disease so mild that many parents miss it in their children. "

That's exactly the reason why MMR is and should be favoured over singles - because antisocial morons would cease to vax against rubella, which would without a doubt lead to more cases of congenital rubella syndrome, no matter whether the daughters only get the jab at the beginning of puberty, as the community immunity protection for non-responders is lost.

I've done continuous research into vaccines for the last 20 years and as a result decided not to vaccinate my children. I feel very secure in my decision as I know that if a person is going to react badly to the natural illness they will react badly to the vaccine itself. Years ago we used to have measles parties so that children would have the illness at the appropriate time, we also used to know how to deal with it and look after the child appropriately as with the majority of childhood illnesses. Most parents I talk to these days wouldn't have a clue how to deal with the illnesses - a generation of lost knowledge! You can still get these illnesses even if you vaccinate and don't think it can be a mild dose that just goes away. If you chose to vaccinate all well and good but I hope you researched it all first and then made your decision. Likewise if you chose not to vaccinate. I wonder if we are a generation of parents who spend more time researching what car, washing machine, dishwasher etc. to get than we do researching what is about to be pumped into our new born baby's bloodstream. Just a thought!

This isn't a game theory seminar. It's a web forum. Normal means normal on a web forum. I am sorry you're so unfamiliar with the rules of everyday life that you don't understand this.

You have changed position: you tried to pray game theory in aid of a suggestion that it was somehow independently possible to show that it's acceptable to not vaccinate. Now you're merely saying it's rational to let others have their children jabbed instead of yours - which relies on herd immunity whether you like it or not.

Now, how about telling me how game theory substantiates the reasons for not vaccinating with MMR - like, say, the risk of regresssion that you have most definitely said you believe to be an effect of vaccination - despite the absence of any reliable evidence.

The "best solution overall" is the unstable equilibrium where there is negligable risk of getting a disease because a sufficiently large proportion of the population is immune to it. Its unstable because as soon as we enter that equilibrium it is relatively less risky to not have the vaccination so then disease rates rise, followed by vaccination rates. Then the disease goes into decline again so vaccination rates decrease...

Rubella has a slightly different risk profile, but its not the general population who are most at risk from an non-immunised boy, its his mother (and thus later siblings) and his wife (his own children). Pregnant women have a slightly lower immune system so are more prone to diseases, even ones they should be immune to.

Sorry, meant to say that the government isn't a separate dictating organisation here, its the setting of social policy to lead to least harm for all of us. You might put "government" and "individual" as the two players in a game, but when the government looses in this game we all do through 1 in every 1000 dying of measles and other rather grim statistics.

What a shame we have forgotten how to care for children with childhood diseases such as smallpox, polio and diphtheria. All that lost knowledge

Quite *noble" , I mean when everyone knew how to cope with measles then it was a trivial disease

"What a shame we have forgotten how to care for children with childhood diseases such as smallpox, polio and diphtheria. All that lost knowledge"

I was thinking that just the other day, as I trepanned myself and let out the plaguey vapours.

Can someone tell me if the children who have measles have definitely not been vaccinated?

Jomaid- that post is of such surpassing wrong headedness I don't know where to start........

On another thread one poster said that she was taught when nursing that fever management of disease was important, and that this was the cause of damage, rather than the disease being a direct cause. If this knowledge has been lost then it would seem to be detrimental to all, regardless of the disease.

WidowWadman. If someone asks you why you should vaccinate your son against rubella who will never get pregnant or a daughter who can't get pregnant before puberty, which do you think is the better explanation:
a)Because we are trying to stop the disease circulating and our policy of vaccinationg babies will do this or
b) you're an antisocial moron.

IMO a) is the better option but this is not being explained. All the information I have seen is of the 'your child is not protected' form, but not explaining the reason behind the policy, which would take a couple of sentences to outline.

DuelingFanjo sums it all up very nicely:
"If anyone ever tried to inject me or my son with something against my will i would fight them tooth and nail."

Call me what you will. I'll ignore you. Make vaccination a condition of obtaining a school place. I'll home school. Force me or my children to have any vaccination and I'll take your goddamn head off.

Can someone please tell me as I am not a scientist and vair confused..

did the man die of "measles"?
those suffering from the measles outbreak...have they all not been vaccinated?

Why can't people vaccinate against measles alone if they want to?

welljustcallhimdave - what will you do if/when your children ask to be vaccinated.

did the man die of "measles"?
They don't know yet, according to today's paper, and were doing more tests.

those suffering from the measles outbreak...have they all not been vaccinated?

They don't know this either, as far as I can tell, but they would like you to think that.

Can't answer the third question.

I've been wondering why this outbreak occured specifically in Swansea. I heard that there was a local newspaper that put people off. I was wondering if people who didn't want to use the MMR couldn't afford single vaccines? Are people less able to afford singles there than anywhere else? (I don't know much about the socio economic status of Swansea).

Also, I was always led to believe that the US has measles outbreaks but someone on here has said measles doesn't really occur there anymore as vaccination is mandatory?

Anyone have the answer to any of these? (Genuine questions)