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The ethics of vaccination

I recently came across an interesting article on vaccination. The article, written by Dr. Stemwedel of San Jose State University, addresses the ethics of non-vaccination with respect to the social contract.

Although this aspect of the argument may be mentioned in other articles, it is seldom given such thorough treatment.

What I find most comical is that parents can bypass the social contract and decline to vaccinate their children but still send them into public school (etc.). Apparently (although I may be wrong here), all you have to do is express an ethical opposition to vaccination and that’s acceptable.

Are all obligations of the social contract as easily dispensed with while still keeping the benefits?

Can I send my son to school with a pack of Marlboros because we don’t agree about the dangers of secondhand smoke? After all, it’s just my one son who will be smoking in class. -I know this is an absurd argument, but don’t we forbid smoking in class for the same reason we insist on vaccination? And I would be pretty disappointed if my son started smoking – he is only 8.

What other elements of the social contract can be ethically declined?

Must I pay taxes even when the guy I voted for lost?

Can I be the one guy who declines to be burdened by speeding laws?

By the way, last year saw an outbreak of Measles in Wales that has been attributed to declining vaccination rates over recent years.

Measles data from Wales – a closer look

21 Apr

Yesterday I wrote a quick post about a report of spiking measles cases in Wales as reported by Wales Online. What troubled me was the manner that the data was being presented. In the graph presented in the article, the y-axis is labeled ‘cumulative number of cases’. What bothered me is that this is not ‘new cases’ and I had to go searching through a lot of reporting and data to clarify what the numbers really were.

– Regardless of what I found, it is true that there is a very worrisome spike in Measles cases, but I do not think it serves people well to misrepresent data. Or, perhaps I could state it more clearly as “I still think the data is being presented in a way that does lead to misinterpretation, but not as bad as I thought.”

The BBC shows the epidemic this way:

Since the outbreak began in November, 77 people have needed hospital treatment for the illness.[I’m not sure if this means hospital admission or not.]

Health officials said 1,825 had been seen at four hospitals in Bridgend, Swansea and Neath Port Talbot on Saturday.

The breakdown of people vaccinated were:

Morriston Hospital, Swansea 341
Singleton Hospital, Swansea 302
Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend 727
Neath Port Talbot Hospital 455
-From BBC News

The news has increased in urgency with these high numbers of potential cases, and also became more grave as”Gareth Williams, 25, died at his home in Swansea on Thursday.”

In the years prior to the current epidemic, which began in November of 2012, there was a distinct trend of increasing cases, but this has been increased by an order of magnitude over even the worst years. Data from the Public Health Wales Health Protection Division (analogous to the CDC here in the States) show the trend starting, but these data do not include many of the current cases as it cuts off just as the epidemic struck:

note: this only contains data for the first two months leading into the currernt epidemic

So… my original fear was that data was being unjustly ‘massaged’ in order to present the problem as possibly more serious than it is. After looking at the data, I still think it may not be the best way to present the data, but it does communicate the right message. One thing that I must admit is the difficulty in finding good, raw data that is up to date.

Questions I would like to see answered from this outbreak are:

How are immunized vs partially immunized vs unimmunized people faring? i.e. how protective is the vaccine?

Has herd immunity been doing much of the ‘protection’ up to this point – also, do/would booster shots really provide any protection for previously immunized people? (somehow these two go together in my mind)

Data is slippery stuff

20 Apr

My students know that I can go on and on endlessly about vaccines and immunology – and I also publish here on the same topic. It only makes sense, I may be an intro bio teacher most days, but I’ve spent most of my life working in immunology, including getting my degree in that field.

However, it’s not the only thing I harp on. For instance, I want my students to examine data they are given and think about what that data means. Data is just data, i.e. numbers. If I told you “5652“, it would be meaningless, but it becomes meaningful when units are applied and you know what those units truly stand for. That particular number would seem high if I said it was the number of dollars a hamburger at Five Guys cost (ps – their burgers as terrific, just maybe not $5,652 terrific). It would seem a low number if I told you that was how many people lived in NYC (Google tells me that real number is about 8,244,910).

What Do I Mean?

So, here’s some real data I was directed to this morning (whilst in my convalescence):

Make sure you look closely at it and interpret the data just from the information given (the article it references discusses the data broadly, but does not tell you anything more about it).

Click on the chart and see the article it refers to. What is that article TITLED?

I’m not going to write any more just now, but I do intend to return to this in a couple of hours (pending any comments)

DownHouseSoftware

Tag Archives: wales

Measles data from Wales – a closer look

Data is slippery stuff

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