I just read two articles on Comcast. The first is about its proposed acquisition of Time Warner. Evidently, the FCC has received some opposition to allowing the acquisition, because Comcast uses some rather monopolistic practices. More or less, Comcast and Time Warner are using their size and market share to manipulate content providers into paying for services that most ISPs gladly provide for free. Notably, one of the complaints comes from Netflix, because Comcast and Time Warner refuse to provide direct connections for free.
Direct connections to major content providers dramatically reduce internet congestion and improve the ability of ISPs to provide good quality media streaming. As such, ISPs that provide direct connections to major content providers benefit themselves and their customers dramatically. Very large ISPs, like Comcast, however, use their size to force content providers to pay for these connections. Ultimately, the content providers feel forced to comply, because without the direct connections, their services will perform poorly for customers of those ISPs. Sadly, the customers blame the content providers, even though the fault lies entirely with their ISPs.
The second problem with Comcast is its attempt to redefine language. According to Comcast, charging extra when a subscriber goes over a data limit is not technically a data cap. The FCC definition of "data cap" actually includes this kind of subscription model, with a clause explicitly exempting Comcast from this definition (the FCC working group that drafted this definition includes a Comcast VP, who presumably is responsible for this clause). Evidently Comcast's size and market share gives it the power to define language in its own terms. Note that the term "data cap" is commonly used by ISPs and individuals to mean any data limit, whether it be a hard limit or a sort of uptier limit where extra charges are applied when the limit is exceeded. It is clear that Comcast believes itself to have power to alter the meaning of language.
The second problem is worse than the first, but they come down to the same thing. Comcast's motive for using data caps* is exclusively financial. Most data caps imposed by smaller ISPs exist to combat network congestion. Comcast is large enough that it does not have congestion problems, but they would rather charge data caps to pay for upgrades than use a portion of their already very high profits to pay for them. There is another, more nefarious and legally questionable reason for Comcast's data caps though. Comcast does not count data transfers to and from its own services against the caps. This means that customers using data heavy services may feel compelled to use Comcast's services instead. Now, I do not know exactly what services Comcast offers, but I could easily imagine some examples. Note that even if Comcast does not offer a specific service, it could easily add it at a future date. The first service that Comcast could offer is a video streaming service. Video streaming from services like Hulu or Netflix are certainly data intensive, and regular use of those services could easily hit a fairly large data cap. If Comcast offered its own video streaming service, many customers might feel like they have to use Comcast's services instead of Netflix or Hulu, to avoid paying fees for exceeding the data limit. This applies equally to digital media sales services, like those provided by Amazon. Digital video files are large, and can be consumed faster than streaming video (because you can download many at a time, at a faster rate than you can view them). If Comcast offered this sort of service, a data cap would definitely give it an advantage in the market of its subscribers.
The thing that all of these problems boil down to is monopoly. Comcast is leveraging its huge market share to force content providers to pay for services that other ISPs provide for free, because they benefit both sides equally. This is a monopolistic practice. Comcast uses a data cap to increase its revenue, and gets away with it because of its huge market share. Again, this is a monopolistic practice. Lastly, and the worst of them all, Comcast uses its market share in its ISP service to gain an unfair advantage in its other services. This is an extremely monopolistic practice. In fact, large companies have frequently been punished by the government for this last practice. The MS lawsuit over its inclusion of Internet Explorer in the US (and Windows Media Player in the EU and now in China as well) was based on the fact that MS was using its Windows market share to give it an unfair advantage over other browser (and media player, outside the US) makers. This is monopolistic because it is using the popularity of one product to sell another unrelated product (internet connectivity vs internet based service, very similarly to operating system vs application). Further, it is not just abusing the market share of one product to sell another unrelated product (IE and Windows Media Player might seem free, but the price is included in the cost of Windows); it is actually putting customers in a position where they are effectively being fined or otherwise charged extra for using someone else's product too much.
Very few ISPs do the oppressive and monopolistic things that Comcast does. Most ISPs now offer unlimited data in all of their non-business packages. Most ISPs provide direct connections to content providers at no cost, because they benefit just as much or more. Most ISPs do not have enough market share to leverage things like data caps and direct connections to rip off customers and compete unfairly with content providers. Most ISPs do not make anywhere near the profits Comcast does. Comcast is not doing any of this because it is necessary to remain profitable. It is doing all of this because it wants more money and it has the power to get it. If it acquires Time Warner, it will control even more of the internet. We should be seriously worried about one company having this kind of power over our largest communications system (especially when that company thinks that it can just redefine language to avoid looking bad). Comcast is already acting in ways that have been established as monopolistic and illegal in the US and most of the rest of the world. While we should be worried, it is the government's job to protect us from this. Not only should Comcast not be allowed to increase its monopoly by acquiring Time Warner, it should be the subject of a serious government investigation for monopolistic practices.
Here is the article on data caps definition: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/comcast-tells-government-that-its-data-caps-arent-actually-data-caps/
* If some Comcast executive reads this and suddenly feels compelled to demand that I use a different term, let it be known that I will not. Bullying large publications might work, but I am not going to redefine language based on the delusions of grandeur of some company.
27 August 2014
25 August 2014
Death of Small Gods
There is this thing about modern physics that has always bothered me. It is closely related to the atheist assertion that people tend to invent new gods every time they come across something they do not understand (this assertion is true). Many ancient civilizations had Sun gods, Moon gods, various weather gods, and even fertility gods (or typically goddesses, but it is the same). Now, I am not bashing religion. Personally I believe in God, but I do not use my belief in God to explain away things that I do not understand. Frankly, I love science, and I enjoy reading about new discoveries. What bothers me is that modern particle physicists seem to be obsessed with inventing new particles every time they hit something they cannot explain. Instead of inventing new gods all the time, modern scientists invent new particles all the time. These are, in my estimation, little more than small gods. Now, I will admit that on occasion, they are right. It turns out, however, that sometimes they are epically wrong. Recently, a large group of these small gods died.
Small gods interfere with real physics. They lead us down paths that will ultimately turn out to be a colossal waste of time and money. Supersymmetry is a theory that suggests that every known particle has a symmetric sibling with a higher mass. This symmetric set of particles were invented to explain away why Higgs interactions do not cause a runaway increase in mass. They also happen to explain some of dark matter theory. They also happen not to exist. At least, the LCH has not detected even one of them, and particle physicists think that it should have. Supersymmetry has been a prevalent theory for a long time (invented in 1966 and seems to have gotten popular in 1981). Since its inception in 1966, we have wasted 48 years on it. Almost half a century of wasted work of at least thousands of physicists. Of course, some parts of the theory seem to be correct, but those parts could easily have been discovered as parts of other theories. Ultimately though, half of the particles of modern physics have turned out to be false gods.
All of the new theories also involve new particles, and who knows, maybe there are a few particles responsible for the effect. This should be a learning experience though. Just because inventing a whole bunch of new particles can easily explain a phenomenon does not mean that it is the right choice. New particles are convenient because they add mathematical variables that can be manipulated to fit observations. Sadly, this is much like inventing a Sun god (with a chariot and everything) to explain the observation of the huge ball of light in the sky. In science, there are often unnoticed variables, and they may even be associated with unobserved particles. Assuming that every inconsistency is the result of an unobserved particle is just bad science though. Given how often we prove ourselves wrong, the initial assumption should be that we have missed a property of at least one existing particle. Speculations about new particles are definitely appropriate. Dedicating most of our resources to them, however, is probably a bad idea so long as we have not eliminated other less invasive explanations.
Overall, when small gods die, scientists should feel humiliation. All of the scientists that have wasted half a century of work on supersymmetry should feel like a majority of their time was wasted. They should feel like their worship of these small gods was pointless. They should feel humiliated and embarrassed that they did not spend more time looking at alternatives that did not involve the invention of so many new gods. I am not saying that they should stop doing physics. They need to recognize their invention of new particles for what it is though: the invention of gods to explain nature. This does not mean they should stop trying though. Sometimes inventing new gods works out. After all, the invention of the idea of anti-particles was another instance of almost doubling the number of known particles (of specific classes, anyhow), and it has been very well proven since. While they should feel some amount of humiliation when they fail so epically, scientists should not allow themselves to get discouraged by failure. They should learn from their mistakes, and then get back up and try again.
Small gods interfere with real physics. They lead us down paths that will ultimately turn out to be a colossal waste of time and money. Supersymmetry is a theory that suggests that every known particle has a symmetric sibling with a higher mass. This symmetric set of particles were invented to explain away why Higgs interactions do not cause a runaway increase in mass. They also happen to explain some of dark matter theory. They also happen not to exist. At least, the LCH has not detected even one of them, and particle physicists think that it should have. Supersymmetry has been a prevalent theory for a long time (invented in 1966 and seems to have gotten popular in 1981). Since its inception in 1966, we have wasted 48 years on it. Almost half a century of wasted work of at least thousands of physicists. Of course, some parts of the theory seem to be correct, but those parts could easily have been discovered as parts of other theories. Ultimately though, half of the particles of modern physics have turned out to be false gods.
All of the new theories also involve new particles, and who knows, maybe there are a few particles responsible for the effect. This should be a learning experience though. Just because inventing a whole bunch of new particles can easily explain a phenomenon does not mean that it is the right choice. New particles are convenient because they add mathematical variables that can be manipulated to fit observations. Sadly, this is much like inventing a Sun god (with a chariot and everything) to explain the observation of the huge ball of light in the sky. In science, there are often unnoticed variables, and they may even be associated with unobserved particles. Assuming that every inconsistency is the result of an unobserved particle is just bad science though. Given how often we prove ourselves wrong, the initial assumption should be that we have missed a property of at least one existing particle. Speculations about new particles are definitely appropriate. Dedicating most of our resources to them, however, is probably a bad idea so long as we have not eliminated other less invasive explanations.
Overall, when small gods die, scientists should feel humiliation. All of the scientists that have wasted half a century of work on supersymmetry should feel like a majority of their time was wasted. They should feel like their worship of these small gods was pointless. They should feel humiliated and embarrassed that they did not spend more time looking at alternatives that did not involve the invention of so many new gods. I am not saying that they should stop doing physics. They need to recognize their invention of new particles for what it is though: the invention of gods to explain nature. This does not mean they should stop trying though. Sometimes inventing new gods works out. After all, the invention of the idea of anti-particles was another instance of almost doubling the number of known particles (of specific classes, anyhow), and it has been very well proven since. While they should feel some amount of humiliation when they fail so epically, scientists should not allow themselves to get discouraged by failure. They should learn from their mistakes, and then get back up and try again.
22 August 2014
Magic Mushrooms
On a lighter note:
I made this connection a few years about when I was watching my brother play a Lord of the Rings themed video game. Part of the game mechanics involve collecting mushrooms that heal your character or something. There may have been a weak connection with a line in the book where someone mentions some mushrooms that might be worth collecting, right before something bad happens. Anyhow, here is the connection I made.
Before computer games were popular, there was the hippie era. During that era, drug use was rampant. One of the more popular drugs (probably due to availability) was "magic mushrooms" which were just poisonous mushrooms diluted to a point where they would not be fatal. They were rumored to create visions and other interesting things. Well, these "magic mushrooms" were known of long before they became popular as a drug. I don't know exactly what the connection is, but they were certainly already known about in the mid 1800s when this next part occurred.
Ironically, the next part happened chronologically prior to the hippie movement. In 1865, a book featuring unusual mushrooms was written. This book, Alice in Wonderland, included mushrooms that could change the size of a person (Lewis Carroll was rumored to have used drugs while writing the book, so it is likely he was aware of "magic" mushrooms). Specifically, one part of the mushroom increases size and the other reduces size. Now, how does this relate to video games?
Back to the future again, in 1985, the game Super Mario Bros. was released. It included a game mechanic where consuming a mushroom would enlarge the character, just like the mechanic from Alice in Wonderland, though Alice's mushroom was far more potent. The game added a second, green mushroom that gave the character an extra life. In a later Mario Bros. game, another mushroom was added that shrinks or kills the character.
The Hobbit game may have gotten its mushrooms from that brief line in the first volume of Lord of the Rings, but it certainly did not get the healing mechanics from the book. Looking at this brief history of mushrooms with magical properties in media, it seems pretty clear that they originated from "magic mushrooms" used as drugs. It began as a mushroom that made people high (figuratively), then it evolved into a mushroom that made people high (literally), then it entered the realm of video games, where it still increased the size of people but also had live giving properties. With this rather interesting 150 year history, where are magic mushrooms going to take us next?
I made this connection a few years about when I was watching my brother play a Lord of the Rings themed video game. Part of the game mechanics involve collecting mushrooms that heal your character or something. There may have been a weak connection with a line in the book where someone mentions some mushrooms that might be worth collecting, right before something bad happens. Anyhow, here is the connection I made.
Before computer games were popular, there was the hippie era. During that era, drug use was rampant. One of the more popular drugs (probably due to availability) was "magic mushrooms" which were just poisonous mushrooms diluted to a point where they would not be fatal. They were rumored to create visions and other interesting things. Well, these "magic mushrooms" were known of long before they became popular as a drug. I don't know exactly what the connection is, but they were certainly already known about in the mid 1800s when this next part occurred.
Ironically, the next part happened chronologically prior to the hippie movement. In 1865, a book featuring unusual mushrooms was written. This book, Alice in Wonderland, included mushrooms that could change the size of a person (Lewis Carroll was rumored to have used drugs while writing the book, so it is likely he was aware of "magic" mushrooms). Specifically, one part of the mushroom increases size and the other reduces size. Now, how does this relate to video games?
Back to the future again, in 1985, the game Super Mario Bros. was released. It included a game mechanic where consuming a mushroom would enlarge the character, just like the mechanic from Alice in Wonderland, though Alice's mushroom was far more potent. The game added a second, green mushroom that gave the character an extra life. In a later Mario Bros. game, another mushroom was added that shrinks or kills the character.
The Hobbit game may have gotten its mushrooms from that brief line in the first volume of Lord of the Rings, but it certainly did not get the healing mechanics from the book. Looking at this brief history of mushrooms with magical properties in media, it seems pretty clear that they originated from "magic mushrooms" used as drugs. It began as a mushroom that made people high (figuratively), then it evolved into a mushroom that made people high (literally), then it entered the realm of video games, where it still increased the size of people but also had live giving properties. With this rather interesting 150 year history, where are magic mushrooms going to take us next?
21 August 2014
Idiot Awareness
I just wanted to point out that now days, public bad behavior is often permanently documented on the internet. It turns out that a large number of Americans do not know how to properly park their cars. It also turns out that the old adage, "The customer is always right," is actually proven false many times each day. There are tons of idiots, jerks, egotists, and any other brands of people with poor or uncivil behavior out there. It also turns out that many of them are documented in the one place that it is impossible to completely remove data. So, next time you are in a hurry and consider parking in the middle of the path in a parking lot because it will only take a few seconds to return your Redbox movie (yes, I saw this happen last week and it took almost five minutes), reconsider.
If you want to have your faith in humanity destroyed, Not Always Right is a great website documenting some of most stupid and inconsiderate customers on the face of the planet. These are stories about customers who believe that because they are the customer, they must be right. One thing you might find is that many Americans think Canada is part of the U.S. and expect to be able to use U.S. money in Canada. You will probably also discover that a lot of Americans have a hard time recognizing when a problem was created by their own actions.
A great site for making you wonder about the effectiveness of U.S. drivers tests is Bad Parking. There are actually several web sites dedicated to this subject. Bad Parking collects photographic documentation of poorly parked cars. Most images show cars parked crossing the lines in parking lots, making it difficult for other cars to find a space. The occasional image shows a car parked entirely outside of the parking spaces, where they will interfere with traffic. Even more rarely, you may find a car parked in the middle of a public street. It also turns out that there are some Americans who do not realize that it is illegal to park in front of a driveway or other exit. While some sites are kind enough to blur license plates, this one does not. As such, some of its photos may qualify as evidence of traffic violations.
This is not all. There are plenty of other web sites documenting various uncivil or otherwise stupid activities perpetrated by people. YouTube has plenty of videos showing people doing really stupid things and often paying fairly severe consequences. Darwin Awards documents ways people manage to accidentally kill themselves or make themselves infertile by their own stupidity. There are plenty of websites dedicated to stupid things done during the commission of a crime. Thinking before acting or speaking is becoming more and more important, as it becomes ever easier to permanently document poor behavior.
The point with all of this is that doing stupid or uncivil things is exactly that: stupid and uncivil. Really, people should try to be intelligent and civil, even when no one is looking. Now, though, stupid or uncivil acts may result in long term embarrassment and even other harmful consequences. Many employers now search the names of job applicants online to make sure they have not done anything that might reflect poorly on their business. Even a photo from a drinking party can result in rejection for employment, regardless of qualification. Many people have discovered that putting videos or pictures of their bad behavior on Facebook can destroy many of the most desirable employment opportunities. The cost of bad behavior is quickly getting very high, because of how easy it is to document and share. Something like parking inappropriately could jeopardize even a really low end job, like food delivery, if some annoyed person happens to take a picture of your poor choice and post it on the internet. If you cannot even park properly, how can an employer trust you to drive safely? Even if the job does not involve driving, a person who does not conform to social conventions of civility cannot be trusted with any job where they might ever interact with other people.
Serious consequences aside though, and the entire point of this article, publicly documented poor behavior will definitely result in mocking and reputation loss. Even if they never meet you or figure out who you are, consider that every time you are rude to a cashier, park your car poorly, or otherwise behave poorly when other people are around, you could end up on a website where millions of people make fun of your stupidity every day for the rest of your life.
If you want to have your faith in humanity destroyed, Not Always Right is a great website documenting some of most stupid and inconsiderate customers on the face of the planet. These are stories about customers who believe that because they are the customer, they must be right. One thing you might find is that many Americans think Canada is part of the U.S. and expect to be able to use U.S. money in Canada. You will probably also discover that a lot of Americans have a hard time recognizing when a problem was created by their own actions.
A great site for making you wonder about the effectiveness of U.S. drivers tests is Bad Parking. There are actually several web sites dedicated to this subject. Bad Parking collects photographic documentation of poorly parked cars. Most images show cars parked crossing the lines in parking lots, making it difficult for other cars to find a space. The occasional image shows a car parked entirely outside of the parking spaces, where they will interfere with traffic. Even more rarely, you may find a car parked in the middle of a public street. It also turns out that there are some Americans who do not realize that it is illegal to park in front of a driveway or other exit. While some sites are kind enough to blur license plates, this one does not. As such, some of its photos may qualify as evidence of traffic violations.
This is not all. There are plenty of other web sites documenting various uncivil or otherwise stupid activities perpetrated by people. YouTube has plenty of videos showing people doing really stupid things and often paying fairly severe consequences. Darwin Awards documents ways people manage to accidentally kill themselves or make themselves infertile by their own stupidity. There are plenty of websites dedicated to stupid things done during the commission of a crime. Thinking before acting or speaking is becoming more and more important, as it becomes ever easier to permanently document poor behavior.
The point with all of this is that doing stupid or uncivil things is exactly that: stupid and uncivil. Really, people should try to be intelligent and civil, even when no one is looking. Now, though, stupid or uncivil acts may result in long term embarrassment and even other harmful consequences. Many employers now search the names of job applicants online to make sure they have not done anything that might reflect poorly on their business. Even a photo from a drinking party can result in rejection for employment, regardless of qualification. Many people have discovered that putting videos or pictures of their bad behavior on Facebook can destroy many of the most desirable employment opportunities. The cost of bad behavior is quickly getting very high, because of how easy it is to document and share. Something like parking inappropriately could jeopardize even a really low end job, like food delivery, if some annoyed person happens to take a picture of your poor choice and post it on the internet. If you cannot even park properly, how can an employer trust you to drive safely? Even if the job does not involve driving, a person who does not conform to social conventions of civility cannot be trusted with any job where they might ever interact with other people.
Serious consequences aside though, and the entire point of this article, publicly documented poor behavior will definitely result in mocking and reputation loss. Even if they never meet you or figure out who you are, consider that every time you are rude to a cashier, park your car poorly, or otherwise behave poorly when other people are around, you could end up on a website where millions of people make fun of your stupidity every day for the rest of your life.
19 August 2014
Vaccine and Vitamin K Refusal
I just read this article from Scientific American. While I have great respect for the magazine, I find the author somewhat lacking. In fact, I have found a great deal lacking in nearly every author promoting the medical industry and attacking skeptics of modern medicine. Now, I am not saying that the medical industry is wrong, but it is at fault in a large degree for the various movements opposing vaccination and other things like vitamin K shots or eye drops for newborns.
The primary problem is not the media and movements encouraging parents to avoid potentially life saving treatments for their children. The problem is general mistrust of doctors, which has been caused by their own poor behavior. My wife is a doula (a professional labor coach and educator). We have chosen to forgo both the vitamin K shots and the eye drops that hospitals typically give all newborns. Our first child was born in a birthing center, where we were educated on all of the risks involved with both sides. Further, we did some research of our own. We found that the risk of complications is extremely low without the treatments. Contrary to the article, both treatments do indeed carry risks, however they are also extremely low. Based on our knowledge, we chose not to allow the midwives to administer either of the treatments. Similarly, we have been very selective about vaccinations. Now, let me first assure you that we do not believe the claims (which have been proven false) that vaccines cause autism. This is a bunch of crock spread by celebrities that have no medical education. Our first reason to limit vaccination is that many vaccines contain small amounts of latex, and my wife and at least one of our children has shown a sensitivity to latex. Latex allergies can quickly become life threatening with repeated exposure, so we chose to limit vaccinations to limit latex exposure. We have had our children vaccinated for a few things. These are diseases that either have a high probability of fatality or permanent injury or that cannot be cured once contracted. While I have seen no empirical data on this, I have observed that people who get every single vaccine and thus rarely get sick tend to fare less well when they do get sick, while people who avoid common vaccines that are mostly just for convenience (the flu vaccine for most people) tend to get over nearly anything fairly quickly. So, why would anyone choose to forgo even vaccines for higher risk diseases?
As a doula, by wife is present when her patients give birth. This typically occurs in a hospital. Additionally, we have had several of our children born in hospitals. My wife has had multiple experiences where doctors or nurses administer treatments without informing or consulting the patient. In many cases, these treatments have not been strictly necessary and were administered either for the convenience of the patient or for the convenience of the medical professional. I am also aware of instances where a doctor has recommended an unnecessary, high risk treatment to a patient for personal convenience. In one case, the doctor used scare tactics to convince the patient to agree to a cesearan section because the birth was taking too long and was going to cut into a birthday party the doctor wanted to attend. In one case where my wife was present, the doctor and nurses completely ignored a list of documented requests from the patient without any medical reason for doing so. In this last case, the patient is now showing symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder related to pregnancy and hospitals. This is why people refuse vaccinations and other treatments for their children. After an experience where your human rights are blatantly violated by medical professionals, it becomes very natural to distrust the medical industry in general.
The problem is not those who spread lies about potential side effects of vaccinations or other treatments. The problem is the doctors that mistreat patients and breed mistrust. Sadly, the most common place this occurs is in hospitals. Private practices and family doctors tend to be much better at informing patients about treatments, with one small exception (I'll get to this). In hospitals, it is very common for nurses and doctors to treat patients without ever discussing the treatment with the patient. With births, doctors will frequently tell the patient a treatment will be administered without any concern for the desires of the patient (unnecessary C-sections and inductions are a very major problem in the US, and typically the mother is never even offered a choice). This is wrong, and to most people it is clearly a violation of human rights. It really should come as no surprise that many parents are willing to trust unknowns over the people who have violated them and lied to them.
Now I want to look at the one exception. Vaccinations always carry risks. In fact, any time the skin is pierced with something, there is a risk of infection. Modern sanitation practices have reduced this risk to almost nothing, but it does exist. There is also a risk that any given patient is allergic to something in a vaccine. Again, this is typically very small. Most pre-drawn vaccines contain latex, and the rubber stopper on vaccine containers that are not pre-drawn frequently contain latex. For those with a threshold allergy to latex (this is the kind of allergy that becomes more severe with each exposure), even this small exposure to latex can be life threatening. Even if it is not, it can cause the next reaction to be more severe. Overall though, for most people the risk of complications from vaccination is extremely small. In fact, the risks are so small that beyond asking about allergies first, I do not see any reason why doctors should be forced to discuss them in detail.
On the other hand though, there is the risk of serious complications from catching the disease that the vaccination would have prevented. For instance, the flu almost never kills. When it does, it is almost exclusively very young children and extremely old people. On occasion, it kills someone else who has a severely compromised immune system. Outside of these easily identifiable groups, the flu is merely a brief and slightly painful inconvenience. Chicken pox is even less severe than the flu (though it does carry the risk of getting shingles later in life, which rarely kills but is extremely painful). Getting these trivial diseases does little more than cause inconvenience, but they can ultimately strengthen the immune system (something like exercise strengthens muscles). Now, these two diseases are trivial, but fairly common. That is not true of the rest of the diseases that we typically vaccinate against. Most vaccines provide immunity for diseases that less than a percent of a percent of the population will ever be exposed to. Further, many of these diseases, while they can be severe, are no longer as deadly as they were when we did not know how to treat them. The chance of serious complications, when combined with the extremely low chance of exposure, may even start to approach the potential risk caused just by getting the vaccine in the first place. This is what doctors do not tell you. Most vaccinations will never even matter and may even increase the overall risk of harm.
How can we deal with this? First, I think that doctors should be required by law to discuss both potential negative and positive consequences of any treatment with the patient or guardian before administering any treatment (except in serious emergency cases where there is not time, in which case the discussion should take place after the emergency situation is over). Until this happens though, parents and patients will have to figure out how to deal with these things on their own. I would suggest asking you doctor a lot of questions. You can legally refuse any treatment (the doctor may ask you to sign a wavier though). This means that you can tell the doctor that you will not permit treatment until you are fully informed of all potential risks involved. You can also search the internet, but make sure you find sources from both sides of any debate, otherwise you will only get half of the knowledge you need to make an informed decision (also, learn to distinguish reputable sources from random people running their mouths; in medicine, celebrities are not reputable sources). Look for numbers. If you find something saying that some treatment increases the chances of some horrible outcome by 50%, try to find what it is 50% of. If the chances are 1 in 1 million, that means they are only 1.5 in one million with the treatment. Relatively, that 50% increase seems large, but the actual probability is still extremely low.
There is one other thing doctors will rarely tell you. Most vaccinations now are given to improve "herd immunity." What this means is, the chance that your child will get the measles, even without the vaccination, is almost non-existent. Your child will probably not benefit at all from it, in fact. Many vaccines target diseases that are almost extinct (at least in the 1st world). The goal of the vaccinations is to keep the disease isolated or even to eliminate it, not to benefit the individual getting the vaccine. This is called herd immunity, because it benefits the group (or "herd") as a whole, but it almost never benefits the individual. In other words, there is almost no individual risk of getting the disease to balance the negative risks associated with getting the vaccine. Now, in case you are feeling disgust that doctors would value the well being of the abstract herd over the well being of your child, you should know that this herd immunity gained from widespread vaccination is what eliminated small pox. It was so effective that we no longer vaccinate for small pox because the risk is almost literally zero. Now, with that in mind, feel free to form your own opinions.
Here is our solution to the problem. My wife and I avoid vaccinations for trivial diseases like chicken pox or the flu. If there was an extremely severe strain of the flu going around (and a vaccine was made available quickly enough; for the flu, they usually are not), then we might consider getting our children vaccinated. Otherwise, we do not consider the risk, though small, worth the minor convenience. We also opted out of many of the vaccinations for extremely uncommon diseases with very low risk of permanent harm. We did, however, get our children vaccinated for one of the hepatitis versions that is difficult or impossible to cure once contracted. One reason is that we are occasionally exposed to people who have recently come from a country where that disease is more common; the other is that a serious disease that cannot be cured is probably worth getting vaccinated for, even if it is pretty rare in the US. The hepatitis vaccination happens to be commonly administered in combination with a few other vaccinations, so we decided to get the combo, because the difference in risk between the single and the combo is negligible (if existent at all).
Our solution to the vitamin K and eye drops was to opt out. Our reasoning is this: Most complications requiring vitamin K occur in the hospital. Other complications are extremely rare (and at least one is genetic, and neither of us has any family history of it). The eye drops are designed to more or less sanitize the eyes after birth, in case some dangerous bacteria got into the eyes. This is also extremely rare. At the time, the eye drops were made of some silver compound that happens to be toxic to humans as well. There has been no research showing the silver drops to be safe for humans, so we decided the risk was higher than the benefits and opted out. (Note that most hospitals are now using a different compound for this. I do not know anything about the safety record of the new compound.) Anyhow, we have opted out of these two things with all four of our children, without any issues.
Now, all of this is personal choice. I do not want to convince you to vaccinate or to avoid vaccination. Similarly, I am not trying to encourage or discourage trusting doctors. Not all doctors are as negligent as those you frequently hear about. I want two things to come out of this article. First, I want regular people to know that they do not have to let doctors bully them. You never have to accept treatment you do not want. You can ask about the risks of a treatment, and you can refuse it if you are not willing to take the risk (this is even true of "mandatory" things, like the IV our local hospital requires for birthing mothers). You also have the ability to learn for yourself and to keep yourself well informed (most hospitals offer free WiFi; bring your tablet, smart phone, or laptop, but make sure you find reputable sources of information). Second, I really would like to see doctors be held more accountable. An honest mistake or impossible situation can happen where the doctor may not be entirely responsible, but cases where the doctor makes a judgment call without any concern for the desire or well being of the patient should never be permitted. No person should be practicing medicine who is willing to subject a patient to unnecessary surgery to get to a party on time, and a patient who comes away from the hospital with post traumatic stress disorder due to poor treatment from the nurses and doctors should be compensated very well for the suffering (not to mention be compensated for treatment for the PTSD). If accountability were higher, fewer doctors would mistreat patients, people would trust doctors more, and scare tactics and lies designed to trick people into avoiding beneficial treatments would be far less effective.
The primary problem is not the media and movements encouraging parents to avoid potentially life saving treatments for their children. The problem is general mistrust of doctors, which has been caused by their own poor behavior. My wife is a doula (a professional labor coach and educator). We have chosen to forgo both the vitamin K shots and the eye drops that hospitals typically give all newborns. Our first child was born in a birthing center, where we were educated on all of the risks involved with both sides. Further, we did some research of our own. We found that the risk of complications is extremely low without the treatments. Contrary to the article, both treatments do indeed carry risks, however they are also extremely low. Based on our knowledge, we chose not to allow the midwives to administer either of the treatments. Similarly, we have been very selective about vaccinations. Now, let me first assure you that we do not believe the claims (which have been proven false) that vaccines cause autism. This is a bunch of crock spread by celebrities that have no medical education. Our first reason to limit vaccination is that many vaccines contain small amounts of latex, and my wife and at least one of our children has shown a sensitivity to latex. Latex allergies can quickly become life threatening with repeated exposure, so we chose to limit vaccinations to limit latex exposure. We have had our children vaccinated for a few things. These are diseases that either have a high probability of fatality or permanent injury or that cannot be cured once contracted. While I have seen no empirical data on this, I have observed that people who get every single vaccine and thus rarely get sick tend to fare less well when they do get sick, while people who avoid common vaccines that are mostly just for convenience (the flu vaccine for most people) tend to get over nearly anything fairly quickly. So, why would anyone choose to forgo even vaccines for higher risk diseases?
As a doula, by wife is present when her patients give birth. This typically occurs in a hospital. Additionally, we have had several of our children born in hospitals. My wife has had multiple experiences where doctors or nurses administer treatments without informing or consulting the patient. In many cases, these treatments have not been strictly necessary and were administered either for the convenience of the patient or for the convenience of the medical professional. I am also aware of instances where a doctor has recommended an unnecessary, high risk treatment to a patient for personal convenience. In one case, the doctor used scare tactics to convince the patient to agree to a cesearan section because the birth was taking too long and was going to cut into a birthday party the doctor wanted to attend. In one case where my wife was present, the doctor and nurses completely ignored a list of documented requests from the patient without any medical reason for doing so. In this last case, the patient is now showing symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder related to pregnancy and hospitals. This is why people refuse vaccinations and other treatments for their children. After an experience where your human rights are blatantly violated by medical professionals, it becomes very natural to distrust the medical industry in general.
The problem is not those who spread lies about potential side effects of vaccinations or other treatments. The problem is the doctors that mistreat patients and breed mistrust. Sadly, the most common place this occurs is in hospitals. Private practices and family doctors tend to be much better at informing patients about treatments, with one small exception (I'll get to this). In hospitals, it is very common for nurses and doctors to treat patients without ever discussing the treatment with the patient. With births, doctors will frequently tell the patient a treatment will be administered without any concern for the desires of the patient (unnecessary C-sections and inductions are a very major problem in the US, and typically the mother is never even offered a choice). This is wrong, and to most people it is clearly a violation of human rights. It really should come as no surprise that many parents are willing to trust unknowns over the people who have violated them and lied to them.
Now I want to look at the one exception. Vaccinations always carry risks. In fact, any time the skin is pierced with something, there is a risk of infection. Modern sanitation practices have reduced this risk to almost nothing, but it does exist. There is also a risk that any given patient is allergic to something in a vaccine. Again, this is typically very small. Most pre-drawn vaccines contain latex, and the rubber stopper on vaccine containers that are not pre-drawn frequently contain latex. For those with a threshold allergy to latex (this is the kind of allergy that becomes more severe with each exposure), even this small exposure to latex can be life threatening. Even if it is not, it can cause the next reaction to be more severe. Overall though, for most people the risk of complications from vaccination is extremely small. In fact, the risks are so small that beyond asking about allergies first, I do not see any reason why doctors should be forced to discuss them in detail.
On the other hand though, there is the risk of serious complications from catching the disease that the vaccination would have prevented. For instance, the flu almost never kills. When it does, it is almost exclusively very young children and extremely old people. On occasion, it kills someone else who has a severely compromised immune system. Outside of these easily identifiable groups, the flu is merely a brief and slightly painful inconvenience. Chicken pox is even less severe than the flu (though it does carry the risk of getting shingles later in life, which rarely kills but is extremely painful). Getting these trivial diseases does little more than cause inconvenience, but they can ultimately strengthen the immune system (something like exercise strengthens muscles). Now, these two diseases are trivial, but fairly common. That is not true of the rest of the diseases that we typically vaccinate against. Most vaccines provide immunity for diseases that less than a percent of a percent of the population will ever be exposed to. Further, many of these diseases, while they can be severe, are no longer as deadly as they were when we did not know how to treat them. The chance of serious complications, when combined with the extremely low chance of exposure, may even start to approach the potential risk caused just by getting the vaccine in the first place. This is what doctors do not tell you. Most vaccinations will never even matter and may even increase the overall risk of harm.
How can we deal with this? First, I think that doctors should be required by law to discuss both potential negative and positive consequences of any treatment with the patient or guardian before administering any treatment (except in serious emergency cases where there is not time, in which case the discussion should take place after the emergency situation is over). Until this happens though, parents and patients will have to figure out how to deal with these things on their own. I would suggest asking you doctor a lot of questions. You can legally refuse any treatment (the doctor may ask you to sign a wavier though). This means that you can tell the doctor that you will not permit treatment until you are fully informed of all potential risks involved. You can also search the internet, but make sure you find sources from both sides of any debate, otherwise you will only get half of the knowledge you need to make an informed decision (also, learn to distinguish reputable sources from random people running their mouths; in medicine, celebrities are not reputable sources). Look for numbers. If you find something saying that some treatment increases the chances of some horrible outcome by 50%, try to find what it is 50% of. If the chances are 1 in 1 million, that means they are only 1.5 in one million with the treatment. Relatively, that 50% increase seems large, but the actual probability is still extremely low.
There is one other thing doctors will rarely tell you. Most vaccinations now are given to improve "herd immunity." What this means is, the chance that your child will get the measles, even without the vaccination, is almost non-existent. Your child will probably not benefit at all from it, in fact. Many vaccines target diseases that are almost extinct (at least in the 1st world). The goal of the vaccinations is to keep the disease isolated or even to eliminate it, not to benefit the individual getting the vaccine. This is called herd immunity, because it benefits the group (or "herd") as a whole, but it almost never benefits the individual. In other words, there is almost no individual risk of getting the disease to balance the negative risks associated with getting the vaccine. Now, in case you are feeling disgust that doctors would value the well being of the abstract herd over the well being of your child, you should know that this herd immunity gained from widespread vaccination is what eliminated small pox. It was so effective that we no longer vaccinate for small pox because the risk is almost literally zero. Now, with that in mind, feel free to form your own opinions.
Here is our solution to the problem. My wife and I avoid vaccinations for trivial diseases like chicken pox or the flu. If there was an extremely severe strain of the flu going around (and a vaccine was made available quickly enough; for the flu, they usually are not), then we might consider getting our children vaccinated. Otherwise, we do not consider the risk, though small, worth the minor convenience. We also opted out of many of the vaccinations for extremely uncommon diseases with very low risk of permanent harm. We did, however, get our children vaccinated for one of the hepatitis versions that is difficult or impossible to cure once contracted. One reason is that we are occasionally exposed to people who have recently come from a country where that disease is more common; the other is that a serious disease that cannot be cured is probably worth getting vaccinated for, even if it is pretty rare in the US. The hepatitis vaccination happens to be commonly administered in combination with a few other vaccinations, so we decided to get the combo, because the difference in risk between the single and the combo is negligible (if existent at all).
Our solution to the vitamin K and eye drops was to opt out. Our reasoning is this: Most complications requiring vitamin K occur in the hospital. Other complications are extremely rare (and at least one is genetic, and neither of us has any family history of it). The eye drops are designed to more or less sanitize the eyes after birth, in case some dangerous bacteria got into the eyes. This is also extremely rare. At the time, the eye drops were made of some silver compound that happens to be toxic to humans as well. There has been no research showing the silver drops to be safe for humans, so we decided the risk was higher than the benefits and opted out. (Note that most hospitals are now using a different compound for this. I do not know anything about the safety record of the new compound.) Anyhow, we have opted out of these two things with all four of our children, without any issues.
Now, all of this is personal choice. I do not want to convince you to vaccinate or to avoid vaccination. Similarly, I am not trying to encourage or discourage trusting doctors. Not all doctors are as negligent as those you frequently hear about. I want two things to come out of this article. First, I want regular people to know that they do not have to let doctors bully them. You never have to accept treatment you do not want. You can ask about the risks of a treatment, and you can refuse it if you are not willing to take the risk (this is even true of "mandatory" things, like the IV our local hospital requires for birthing mothers). You also have the ability to learn for yourself and to keep yourself well informed (most hospitals offer free WiFi; bring your tablet, smart phone, or laptop, but make sure you find reputable sources of information). Second, I really would like to see doctors be held more accountable. An honest mistake or impossible situation can happen where the doctor may not be entirely responsible, but cases where the doctor makes a judgment call without any concern for the desire or well being of the patient should never be permitted. No person should be practicing medicine who is willing to subject a patient to unnecessary surgery to get to a party on time, and a patient who comes away from the hospital with post traumatic stress disorder due to poor treatment from the nurses and doctors should be compensated very well for the suffering (not to mention be compensated for treatment for the PTSD). If accountability were higher, fewer doctors would mistreat patients, people would trust doctors more, and scare tactics and lies designed to trick people into avoiding beneficial treatments would be far less effective.
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