5 Things I've noticed about... the Anti-Vaccination Movement

The anti-vaccination movement is a large group of like minded people whom believe that vaccines cause autism (along with some other stuff, but mostly autism). While there are a lot of things I've noticed about this movement, I've managed to narrow it down to five.

So here are five things I've noticed about the anti-vaccination movement:

5. There's no need for it to exist.

If you are part of the anti-vaccination movement, then you are in a movement that does not need to exist, and in fact shouldn't exist.

Every claim made about vaccines being harmful and causing debilitating neurological conditions (most commonly autism) has been proven to be false, and vaccines have been proven to be not only the cheapest method of disease control and prevention, but also the best, and the safest.

Complications from vaccines are rare (around maybe 1 and 1000) and mostly minor. Serious complications are extremely rare (around 1 to 2 per million), and deaths are even rarer than that.

4. It's biggest supporters are a bunch of cranks.

The biggest supporters (and leaders) of the anti-vaccination are not only people who should not be giving out medical advice, most of them aren't even doctors (and the ones that are tend to have some questionable credentials).

Jenny McCarthy, one of the top supporters, is not a doctor. In fact she left nursing school in order to become a model. She promotes therapies that are harmful, and she's also a liar too...

Andrew Wakefield, the ex-doctor whom's 1998 research paper that was published in the Lancet that claimed to show a connection between vaccines and autism, was stuck off of the British General Medical Council register (the British equivalent of having your medical license revoked) after the Lancet retracted his paper after it was proven his research was based off of fraud. He still claims his research was not fraudulent, and that there was a conspiracy against him to destroy his research (despite the fact that it took over ten years from the time his paper was published for his paper to be retracted, and for the GMC to strike off his name).

Then there is Alex Jones, who thinks that vaccines are being used to create genetically modified people and causes diseases, not prevent them.

3. The movement is based off of lies.

The whole bases for the anti-vaccine movement is based off of the proven fraudulent 1998 research paper by Andrew Wakefield that claims there is a connection between the MMR vaccines and austim. The paper was highly controversial even when it came out, and the claims made in it had been dis-proven years before it was formally retracted for fraud.

Other lies made by the movement are that vaccines have been made more dangerous over the years (in fact they have been made safer) and that and the rates of autism in children who are un-vaccinated is far lower then those that have been vaccinated, which is false. In fact the rates are the same.

2. People in the movement do stuff that's legally iffy.

Many of the things that people in the anti-vaccination movement do could be considered walking on the edge of the law, and even illegal.

Most states won't allow a parent to enroll their child into school unless they have been vaccinated.

Not vaccinating your child could be seen as form of child neglect.

The constant claims made against the companies that make vaccines could be considered liable and slander.

And even telling people that vaccines cause autism could be considered distribution of fraudulent medical advice.

1. What it's promoting is dangerous.

The anti-vaccination movement has been linked to the deaths of thousands of children, and not just children whom's parents got caught up in the anti-vaccine hysteria, but children who were to young to get vaccinated too.

Not only are people in this movement are putting their own children at risk of getting a serious illness, they're putting other children at risk as well. Not only is that dangerous, that's pretty selfish too.

The Pros and Cons of Paper Money and Coins

There are a lot of pros and cons when it comes to coins, and a lot of pros and cons when it comes to paper money (or bills, as they are sometimes called). But which is better?

To help you answer that question for yourself I've made a list of five things that should mainly be considered in determining which is better, paper money, or coins:

Durability

Hands down this goes to coins.

Paper money only lasts for a few years at the most before finally it has to be taken out of circulation as a result rips and tears and the ink fading, while coins practically last forever.

In fact there are coins that are thousands of years old that are still around (although not in circulation) and I still occasionally get a wheat penny.

Cost effectiveness

Paper money wins this one

While you still have to manufacture new bills every year to replace the old ones, it's still a lot cheaper to manufacturer paper money than it is coins.

In fact the penny and the nickel actually cost more to make than what they are actually worth, and many countries have actually stopped manufacturing pennies altogether because they are just not worth the cost (Canada being the most recent as of this post).

Portability

Again this goes to paper money as well.

This reason why paper money is more portable than coins is very simple: you can put bills into wallets, putting them all in one nice little place, and they are much lighter than coins, thus easier to transport. Plus, because you can actually put bills in wallets, it makes it much harder to lose them then coins (unless of course you lose your wallet).

Counterfeiting

When it comes to counterfeiting, coins win this.

While coins can be counterfeited, simply because there is so much more involved (and expensive) with making a coin then paper money, most counterfeiters don't even bother to try to make counterfeit coins, and instead make counterfeit bills.

Heck, the only thing you really need to make your own counterfeit paper money is a scanner and printer combo. You'll of course be caught very quickly if you try to send it anywhere and arrested, but you can do that a lot easier then making a coin.

Disabled friendly

Unless paper money is made at different sizes, the blind can't tell a $1 bill from a $100 bill.

Simply by the fact that no two coin denominations are alike (in size, thickness, engravings, and the edges along the coins) it's far easier for the blind to tell one coin apart from another.

In fact the reason why coins were designed the way they were is so that it would be easier for the blind to use in the first place.