Is Thursday vax day? Data on Seattle schools

[epphd]

Makes me want to fucking weep. The schools we are considering have exemption rates of 8.5%, 10.25%, 12.2% and TWENTY TWO PERCENT.

blogs.seattletimes.com/fyi-guy/2015/02/04/vaccine-exemptions-exceed-10-at-dozens-of-seattle-area-schools/

That last one might be off the list now because what the hell is going on?

One of the comments from the article said we should start employing the term "blueneck". I like it.

Want to see threshold rates for various diseases? Seattle is hosed.

[pitta12]

Yes, DD's school (Bellevue SD) is 10.5% and three quarters of those are personal or religious exemptions.

[mominatrix]

ugh.

Move to West Seattle! from the map, it seems like only one is in that kind of range, and that's an option school...

It sucks. We're sucking it up right now at DS's preschool (I don't know what the rate there is, because they split their K-1-2 grades off into another school, so it's not reported as easily anymore. Last time I checked, though, the exemption rate was like ::mumblegrumblemotherfucker:: 33%... my guess is it's gone up in the last few years.)  I'm just holding my breath until September that that place isn't ground zero for a HUGE outbreak of something.

The (very British) founder there occasionally sends these very chippy emails about how somebody has something, and "we all need to be really careful to wash our hands!!" and I just want to barf.

::crosses fingers over and over until August::

[jln]

Kent SD ranges from 1.4 to 11.4% exemption rates.  Luckily DS won't be attending school here and the city in TX we're moving to has 98-99% vax rates. 

[sldt]

DD's school (BellevueSD is under 10%, the bulk for personal reasons) but our local high (Interlake) school is almost 30%!

I will add, we are heading to Disneyland in a few weeks and got the 2nd shot for my youngest who isn't 4 yet. It's about a month early and our ped said that it's possible that because he wasn't 4 when he got the 2nd shot we would have to fill out exemption paperwork when he enrolled in school but that medically he was vaccinated. I'll deal with that when the time comes if it's true and haven't checked into it but I assume that would be a rare case to explain the craziness at the high school.

[lys]

Look at Marin County in CA. Those well educated, liberal, high income residents are on the the high rate of no vax-er list.

[darnkatz]

I just looked at our exemption rates (we're just outside Tacoma) for my daughter's school. 3.20%. 5 personal, 2 medical, 2 religious. I don't trust parents not to send their sick kids to school, either. The parents here suck. Guess they don't suck quite as much as some Seattle parents, though.

[KateAggie]

Our school district only has an exemption rate of 1%, and the surrounding districts ate even lower. See? Texas does have awesomeness.

[KateAggie]

Feb 5, 2015 16:37:42 GMT -5 jln said:

Kent SD ranges from 1.4 to 11.4% exemption rates.  Luckily DS won't be attending school here and the city in TX we're moving to has 98-99% vax rates. 

The first thing you like about TX! I promise there will be more.

[epphd]

Why I am replying to lys I don't know but here goes: while it makes me IRATE that the people with whom I otherwise align myself politically are capable of such boneheadedness, don't be so smug as to believe they have cornered that particular market.

Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck are all vaccine skeptics and all have huge conservative followings. Further, anti-vaxxers are about evenly split among ultraconservatives and ultraliberals. So before you give yourself a big pat on the back for pointing out that liberals don't vaccinate, mind your own political shop - it has more than its fair share of anti-science morons.

[origami]

I'm scared to look up my home district's exemption rate. Maybe it's not reported and then I can go on in my fantasy that only homeschoolers opt out completely.

ETA: I have no idea what those other Rs said about vaccines but I don't think Rand Paul is a vax skeptic. He doesn't want them mandated to the point that no exemptions are allowed because he's a libertarian. He has an unfortunate tendency to stick his foot in his mouth (the apple may not have fallen far from the tree), so he did that again on this issue. But he vaxes his kids, himself, and thinks everyone else should do so voluntarily. That's not a skeptic's view.

[IIOY]

Feb 5, 2015 17:49:35 GMT -5 lys said:

Look at Marin County in CA. Those well educated, liberal, high income residents are on the the high rate of no vax-er list.

I actually saw an article the other day reporting on a survey about attitudes toward vaccinations. The anti-vax folks were almost evenly split between liberal and conservative.

[origami]

Feb 5, 2015 18:50:12 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Feb 5, 2015 17:49:35 GMT -5 lys said:

Look at Marin County in CA. Those well educated, liberal, high income residents are on the the high rate of no vax-er list.

I actually saw an article the other day reporting on a survey about attitudes toward vaccinations. The anti-vax folks were almost evenly split between liberal and conservative.

phew! I get worried they're all at my end of the kook spectrum because those are the types I know IRL. It's embarrassing to belong to the same groups they do.

[IIOY]

Feb 5, 2015 18:56:40 GMT -5 origami said:

Feb 5, 2015 18:50:12 GMT -5 IIOY said:

I actually saw an article the other day reporting on a survey about attitudes toward vaccinations. The anti-vax folks were almost evenly split between liberal and conservative.

phew! I get worried they're all at my end of the kook spectrum because those are the types I know IRL. It's embarrassing to belong to the same groups they do.

LOL

The gist of the article was actually to refute that it's only crazy liberals who are anti-vax. This seems to be the prevailing theory given the location of the outbreaks. It turns out the extremes on both sides share the blame pretty equally in the grand scheme. Yay for bipartisanship!

[epphd]

Feb 5, 2015 18:46:10 GMT -5 origami said:

I'm scared to look up my home district's exemption rate. Maybe it's not reported and then I can go on in my fantasy that only homeschoolers opt out completely.

ETA: I have no idea what those other Rs said about vaccines but I don't think Rand Paul is a vax skeptic. He doesn't want them mandated to the point that no exemptions are allowed because he's a libertarian. He has an unfortunate tendency to stick his foot in his mouth (the apple may not have fallen far from the tree), so he did that again on this issue. But he vaxes his kids, himself, and thinks everyone else should do so voluntarily. That's not a skeptic's view.

origami, he's definitely not helping matters. I posted this the other day. And frankly, I believe that if you think that "gosh everyone should just use their feels and make a decision" on something like vaccination, you ARE a skeptic. Because that's not how they work. We protect society by making laws that protect the greater good. Vaccination should be no different than basic laws surrounding hygiene and safety. You can't fire a weapon in to a crowd; you shouldn't be able to walk around with a vaccine preventable disease because you willfully didn't vaccinate.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rand-paul-vaccines-can-lead-mental-disorders-n298821

In an interview with the network Monday, Paul said that vaccines are "a good thing" but that parents "should have some input" into whether or not their children must get them.

And he gave credence to the idea - disputed by the majority of the scientific community - that vaccination can lead to mental disabilities.

"I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," he said.

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/416283/rand-paul-christies-moronic-statement#ixzz3QvHVloFN

[origami]

Feb 5, 2015 20:14:36 GMT -5 epphd said:

Feb 5, 2015 18:46:10 GMT -5 origami said:

I'm scared to look up my home district's exemption rate. Maybe it's not reported and then I can go on in my fantasy that only homeschoolers opt out completely.

ETA: I have no idea what those other Rs said about vaccines but I don't think Rand Paul is a vax skeptic. He doesn't want them mandated to the point that no exemptions are allowed because he's a libertarian. He has an unfortunate tendency to stick his foot in his mouth (the apple may not have fallen far from the tree), so he did that again on this issue. But he vaxes his kids, himself, and thinks everyone else should do so voluntarily. That's not a skeptic's view.

origami, he's definitely not helping matters. I posted this the other day. And frankly, I believe that if you think that "gosh everyone should just use their feels and make a decision" on something like vaccination, you ARE a skeptic. Because that's not how they work. We protect society by making laws that protect the greater good. Vaccination should be no different than basic laws surrounding hygiene and safety. You can't fire a weapon in to a crowd; you shouldn't be able to walk around with a vaccine preventable disease because you willfully didn't vaccinate.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rand-paul-vaccines-can-lead-mental-disorders-n298821

In an interview with the network Monday, Paul said that vaccines are "a good thing" but that parents "should have some input" into whether or not their children must get them.

And he gave credence to the idea - disputed by the majority of the scientific community - that vaccination can lead to mental disabilities.

"I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines," he said.

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/thread/416283/rand-paul-christies-moronic-statement#ixzz3QvHVloFN

I just fundamentally disagree that unless you are pro-mandating vaccines you're a skeptic. That Rand's position. He doesn't actually think parents should "read blogs and decide for themselves." He thinks vaccines are important and that everyone should get them. He just thinks the govt should not mandate them without exceptions. I'm willing to bet the majority of people agree with that position.

His comment about vaccines causing a disability was bad and he needed to respond to the criticism, which he did. That's an example of his loose canon tendency. He says things. Everyone goes "Huh?" And then he clarifies. It's part of why I think he will not be the R nominee. It reminded me of that girl who claimed the flu vaccine made her walk backwards. Anyway he's not wrong to talk about the risks of vaccinating. He just flubbed his point. Too many pro-vaxers, myself included, tend to imply there is zero risk, which isn't true. When anti-vaxers hear this it fuels their conspiracy theory and makes them think we are ignorant or part of a cover-up. Rand should have better explained the possible side effects, incl encephalopathy if that's what he was referring to, and how low the risk is. I think he was saying or should have said: there are some risks to vaxing. Those risks are very low. But if you as a parent have some legit reason to think your child is at risk of an adverse reaction then you should be able to decline vaccinations.

I don't think pro-vaxers clamoring for the govt to basically force people into getting vaccinated helps. We're talking about people who think vaccines are poisonous and a giant scam from the govt and Big Pharma. They will flip the fuck out if we tried to force them (or make the mandate nearly unavoidable). It turns off moderate vaxers because it's too heavy-handed.

[epphd]

I can see what you are saying. I do *suspect* that irrespective of his public statements to the contrary, he has enough of a history of off handed statements or participation in groups that ARE anti vaccination that he actually IS a skeptic. That said, you are right that perhaps in this context that's not exactly the right phrasing.

I also think there is a difference between wholesale compulsory vaccination for all and mandatory vaccination to have access to public benefit such as education. I don't know what the line is -I agree that simply by virtue of the federal gov't having a stake in it, that alone is enough to turn off plenty of people who value... I don't know, a smaller governing body making the EXACT same requirement (in the state of state vaccination requirements).

Frankly I'm just at a loss that when it comes to legislation to protect the greater good; when it comes to making good use of perhaps the single greatest medical achievement in the span of human history - we are essentially at the mercy of sizable percentage of people on both sides of the political spectrum who are WILLFULLY ignorant. And that some further conflate their political ideology with their unwillingness to accept mountains of scientific and clinical evidence - well it weakens my ability to split hairs about what it means to be a vaccine skeptic. In my eloquent opinion they are all fucking stupid.

[jenny1223]

I checked our local elementary and high school today. 15% and 18% respectively. Out of all those exemptions, 1 (1, not 1%) was medical, 1 was religious and the rest were personal. Grrr...

[epphd]

Yep, of the four schools we are considering, there are 236 personal exemptions, 2 religious, and 16 medical.