> MMR are [edit] usually temporary and can typically be effectively treated by the medical systems of industrialized nations, whereas autism is permanent and generally untreatable.
Sure, but forgoing the MMR vaccine to prevent autism makes as much sense as forgoing baths to prevent brain tumours.
Especially considering that measles has no effective treatment whatsoever. The treatment for measles is piss poor symptomatic treatment (IE you've got a fever? Here's some ibuprofen. You acquired bacterial pneumonia as a complication? Take some antibiotics.)
I really don't see symptomatic treatment as "effectively treated", I see it as a barely more effective treatment than placing leaches on a plague victim as they have to face the disease alone. Given that acute measles has a 15% mortality rate, I'd say it isn't effective treatment at all given that the measles mortality as a whole is 3 in 1000.
I find the blissful ignorance these people live in to be baffling. Do they not comprehend the statistics that there were hundreds of thousands of infections per year before vaccinations began and that this was attributed to deaths in the ten-thousands and countless more blindnesses.
I guess I'm rare in that I would rather see my kid alive and not suffering an agonizing death in childhood above my inconvenience of taking care of an autistic child and feeling like I have to blame someone else above simply accepting genetics.
It is common for people to prefer no child to a child with substantial medical problems. Hence embryo selection, prenatal genetic testing, abortion, adoption etc. When one considers that it is common for parents to know someone with an autistic child, and increasingly rare for a parent to even hear of a child dying of MM or R, a prophylactic vaccine can seem not to justify the potential risk.
To put it another way, even if a person believed that there was only a 1% chance that there was a 1% increase in risk of Autism due to the vaccine, that would still be significantly more risk than death from measles. Although epidemiology is a science, vaccine sales are a business, and it is not unreasonable to weigh pharma's economic interests in vaccines that scale to the degree that MMR does. Pharma is not in general a philanthropic endeavor and a healthy skepticism regarding their products is not unreasonable.
Vaccines are generally not very profitable, to the point where the various industrialized nations are having to subsidize production to keep supply up.
Healthy skepticism is certainly good and reasonable, but what we're seeing is unhealthy skepticism. The science is in and overwhelming, but antivaxxers consistently latch on to debunked, unreliable, or outright loony evidence to support the increasingly discredited claims.
Having been around since the 1970's development costs have long since been recovered. In addition with the recommendation of a second dose the number of doses delivered per year has almost certainly increased.
The contracted cost to the US CDC for Proquad (MMRV) is $8.57/dose (at which Merck is undoubtedly making a profit) and Merck charges $13.93/dose on the open market (additional 62% margin).
Sure, but forgoing the MMR vaccine to prevent autism makes as much sense as forgoing baths to prevent brain tumours.