tl;dr Congress is Stupid about Zika, or Public Health Measures are for Poor People (and they don't fund our...
tl;dr Congress is Stupid about Zika, or Public Health Measures are for Poor People (and they don't fund our campaigns, also, they are icky).
This is a pretty well written article on the importance of public health to issues of infectious disease at the population level, as well as the individual level. Normally, I get truly irritated at loaded language, omgomgomg we're all going to die, zombie plague! presentations. Mostly because they distort necessary factual understanding of things that really don't ever have the impact in this country that they tend to elsewhere. However, it's also because I don't think aw, it's just a littlebunny mosquito! or what have you, and understand the impact of a new disease on a naive population.
Public Health is generally agreed to have had a great, probably the greatest, impact on medical care since it coalesced in the 20th century. Generally successful impact, as well. Meanwhile, it always seems less shiny than "real" science and medicine, because it's usually related to things like making sure there are proper sanitation systems, and people don't live in inappropriate housing conditions, and have well-fitted screens on their doors and windows, etc.. DDT may have caused a lot of severe problems, but it was one of the most successful worldwide public health measures I can think of because it eradicated disease carrying mosquitoes (along with everything else in its path). So it's looked down on as a dirty necessity and a step-cousin you have to invite to the holiday dinner in a lot of quarters.
Timing-wise, following the intensive DDT spraying, there was a positive explosion in successful vaccine development. By 1970, you essentially had almost nothing devastating to worry about on a widespread scale in this country. Yes, that's an arbitrary cutoff based on the fact that the MMR was licensed in 1971, which means the three vaccines it combined had been out in the 1960's, along with the polio and smallpox vaccines. (The last case of smallpox in the US was 1949; routine vaccination in the US stopped in 1972.)
Which brings me to wonder, since the article is talking about Congress not wanting to divert some funds for Zika before there's a bunch of cases, here, how old they were and if they'd personally even remember anything before the 70's era of we don't gotta worry about nuthin'. Thus, I looked it up, and 15% of the Senate, ~66% of the House were born in 1965 or later, which means they don't remember anything, except possibly chicken pox, in terms of widespread disease outbreaks, and people treated chicken pox like it was benign, although it, too, could have complications. If they were born in some extremely poor areas of the country, they might have seen some of the effect of the pre-vaccine era, but that's a couple of people.
The vast majority of them have no idea what any of this is like, and probably think of it as something that happens in India, or Africa, or places they might have trouble locating on a map. Their institutional attitude toward science is not exactly friendly, and I'm sure there are a few people who just haven't gotten around to telling us it's a biblical plague for our sins and we deserve it.
Within that post-1965 group, especially in the House, it's highly unlikely that any of them lost a child or other family member, or have a child or other family member who is blind, deaf, brain-damaged, or paralyzed due to one of these classic infectious diseases. (Oddly, they probably do know someone personally who has been negatively affected, perhaps permanently, by Lyme disease, and yet we pretend it's a benign infection, as well. But I digress.)
So no empathy. Won't happen to them or their families. Besides, they have good health insurance. The foolish thing here is that if Zika could have a larger social impact, it means no matter what they do, it will end up costing tax dollars, and it always costs more after the fact. Unless you just shoot all the people affected, and kill all the babies. This is going to turn into an elephant repellent argument. We don't need any. Why? Do you see any elephants? Oh, right! No repellent, then.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2016/04/14/zika-highlights-weaknesses-in-public-health/#1efed7453913
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2016/04/14/zika-highlights-weaknesses-in-public-health/#1efed7453913
This is a pretty well written article on the importance of public health to issues of infectious disease at the population level, as well as the individual level. Normally, I get truly irritated at loaded language, omgomgomg we're all going to die, zombie plague! presentations. Mostly because they distort necessary factual understanding of things that really don't ever have the impact in this country that they tend to elsewhere. However, it's also because I don't think aw, it's just a little
Public Health is generally agreed to have had a great, probably the greatest, impact on medical care since it coalesced in the 20th century. Generally successful impact, as well. Meanwhile, it always seems less shiny than "real" science and medicine, because it's usually related to things like making sure there are proper sanitation systems, and people don't live in inappropriate housing conditions, and have well-fitted screens on their doors and windows, etc.. DDT may have caused a lot of severe problems, but it was one of the most successful worldwide public health measures I can think of because it eradicated disease carrying mosquitoes (along with everything else in its path). So it's looked down on as a dirty necessity and a step-cousin you have to invite to the holiday dinner in a lot of quarters.
Timing-wise, following the intensive DDT spraying, there was a positive explosion in successful vaccine development. By 1970, you essentially had almost nothing devastating to worry about on a widespread scale in this country. Yes, that's an arbitrary cutoff based on the fact that the MMR was licensed in 1971, which means the three vaccines it combined had been out in the 1960's, along with the polio and smallpox vaccines. (The last case of smallpox in the US was 1949; routine vaccination in the US stopped in 1972.)
Which brings me to wonder, since the article is talking about Congress not wanting to divert some funds for Zika before there's a bunch of cases, here, how old they were and if they'd personally even remember anything before the 70's era of we don't gotta worry about nuthin'. Thus, I looked it up, and 15% of the Senate, ~66% of the House were born in 1965 or later, which means they don't remember anything, except possibly chicken pox, in terms of widespread disease outbreaks, and people treated chicken pox like it was benign, although it, too, could have complications. If they were born in some extremely poor areas of the country, they might have seen some of the effect of the pre-vaccine era, but that's a couple of people.
The vast majority of them have no idea what any of this is like, and probably think of it as something that happens in India, or Africa, or places they might have trouble locating on a map. Their institutional attitude toward science is not exactly friendly, and I'm sure there are a few people who just haven't gotten around to telling us it's a biblical plague for our sins and we deserve it.
Within that post-1965 group, especially in the House, it's highly unlikely that any of them lost a child or other family member, or have a child or other family member who is blind, deaf, brain-damaged, or paralyzed due to one of these classic infectious diseases. (Oddly, they probably do know someone personally who has been negatively affected, perhaps permanently, by Lyme disease, and yet we pretend it's a benign infection, as well. But I digress.)
So no empathy. Won't happen to them or their families. Besides, they have good health insurance. The foolish thing here is that if Zika could have a larger social impact, it means no matter what they do, it will end up costing tax dollars, and it always costs more after the fact. Unless you just shoot all the people affected, and kill all the babies. This is going to turn into an elephant repellent argument. We don't need any. Why? Do you see any elephants? Oh, right! No repellent, then.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2016/04/14/zika-highlights-weaknesses-in-public-health/#1efed7453913
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2016/04/14/zika-highlights-weaknesses-in-public-health/#1efed7453913
My grandfather originally had four sisters. By the time polio was done with the family, he had three - and one had a partially-paralyzed leg for the rest of her life.
ReplyDelete...no one in my family ever complained about vaccinations anywhere he could hear them.
(but yeah, defending against things we've never encountered runs smack against the monkey-brain biases that not all of us have even learned EXIST, let alone how to compensate for.
ReplyDeleteWhich actually is supposed to be, by some of the classic arguments, what government is for - doing the things that private enterprise is too short-sighted or small-scope to bother with or manage. But that doesn't actually seem to, y'know, happen.)
I have been totally lax about keeping up with all of our vaccines out of sheer laziness, but with as bad as the mosquitoes get in our area, I would and will get us all vaccinated for Zika as soon as possible if/when it becomes available.
ReplyDeleteI don't know in your particular area, but it used to be that a lot of states and counties and even cities had clinics where you could just show up and get yourself or your kids vaccinated. Also, I'm pretty sure that pediatricians and so forth are happy to get people caught up on their vaccines. It's not like if you miss the official timetable, oops, too bad, so sad for you. You can get them whenever. In fact, I'm pretty sure at some point kids could even get vaccinated at school.
ReplyDeleteThe last time they went, they were all up in arms about our insurance company covering more than one "wellness" appointment in, like 6 months, so we have to space them all way out and it is a huge PITA. It's not that we don't want to do it, it's just apparently super stupid from a billing/scheduling perspective.
ReplyDeleteOh, that. The insurance doesn't make healthcare decisions for you lie. Another reason that stuff in the pubic interest, like vaccination, should be available somehow through subsidized clinics.
ReplyDelete