[p2p-research] Inflamed passions -- Why do vaccines trigger such passionate debate?

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Good points. Again I agree with you about the legitimacy issue.

Still, I see you are sidestepping the issues of cost/effectiveness (thanks 
Ed), creation of alternatives, and obvious cases where vaccination has 
harmed millions of people in Africa by giving them AIDS. See, what kind of 
an argument is it for something like vaccination when every time it goes 
wrong it us just either ignored or just gets explained away as an anomaly?

Or, for that matter, consider what happened to US soldiers being vaccinated:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_syndrome#Anthrax_vaccine
"Even after the war, troops that had never been deployed overseas, after 
receiving the anthrax vaccine, developed symptoms similar to those of 
Persian Gulf War Syndrome. The Pentagon failed to report to Congress 20,000 
cases where soldiers were hospitalized after receiving the vaccine between 
1998 and 2000. Despite repeated assurances that the vaccine was safe and 
necessary, a U.S. Federal Judge ruled that there was good cause to believe 
it was harmful, and he ordered the Pentagon to stop administering it in 
October 2004. The ban was lifted in February 2008 after the FDA re-examined 
and approved the drug again. Anthrax vaccine is the only substance suspected 
in Persian Gulf War syndrome to which forced exposure has since been banned 
to protect troops from it."

Here are many comments of differing views on this one web page bashing those 
who do not believe 100% in all vaccines (if you read *all* of them, many 
start half way down as the resistance picks up speed) -- great example of 
peers talking past each other (though it may take about two hours to read):
"More parents forgoing vaccinations"
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/more_parents_forgoing_vaccinat.php

And various links from the comments or from the articles:

"Vaccininity"
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/03/vaccininity.html

"In defense of parents with informed vaccine skepticism"
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/03/24/in-defense-of-parents-with-informed-vaccine-skepticism/

"THE AUTOIMMUNE EPIDEMIC: Diseases Like Mine Are a Growing Hazard"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/14/AR2008031403386.html

Contrast that one above with the next (also from WHO, quoting the US CDC) 
which essentially ignores the potential for vaccines creating autoimmune 
disorders:

"Vaccine Misconception #4: Vaccines cause many harmful side effects, 
illnesses, and even death":
http://www.who.int/immunization_safety/aefi/immunization_misconceptions/en/index4.html

Others, autism related (pro and con):

"Autism and the Amish"
http://autism-news-beat.com/archives/29

"The Age of Autism: 'A pretty big secret'"
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2005/12/07/The-Age-of-Autism-A-pretty-big-secret/UPI-68291133982531/

"Autism rates drop as mercury removed from vaccines"
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=32&idsub=120&id=2771

These next ones are suggested indirectly by comments in that very first link:

"Philip Morris CEO Tells Pregnant Moms Smoking is Safe in 1971"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpwcF3Malj8
"A news clip from 1971 where then Philip Morris CEO Joseph Cullman vows to 
take any ingredients found to be dangerous out of cigarettes. He also 
assures pregnant moms that smoking is safe and that cigarettes can actually 
be good for moms as "some women prefer smaller babies.""

""The doctors' choice is America's choice": the physician in US cigarette 
advertisements, 1930-1953."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16434689
"In the 1930s and 1940s, smoking became the norm for both men and women in 
the United States, and a majority of physicians smoked. At the same time, 
there was rising public anxiety about the health risks of cigarette smoking. 
One strategic response of tobacco companies was to devise advertising 
referring directly to physicians. As ad campaigns featuring physicians 
developed through the early 1950s, tobacco executives used the doctor image 
to assure the consumer that their respective brands were safe. These 
advertisements also suggested that the individual physicians' clinical 
judgment should continue to be the arbiter of the harms of cigarette smoking 
even as systematic health evidence accumulated. However, by 1954, industry 
strategists deemed physician images in advertisements no longer credible in 
the face of growing public concern about the health evidence implicating 
cigarettes."

Looking at bottle feeding vs. breastfeeding is relevant because most of the 
people who vaccinate do not nurse for two years according to WHO guidelines 
and so put everyone at risk of disease as well as social violence as their 
child may grow up with developmental issues related to poor nutrition. So, 
at length:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_formula
"""
... In the late 1920s, Alfred Bosworth released Similac (for "similar to 
lactation"), and Mead Johnson released Sobee.[6] Several other formulas were 
released over the next few decades, but commercial formulas did not begin to 
seriously compete with evaporated milk formulas until the 1950s. The 
reformulation and concentration of Similac in 1951, and the introduction (by 
Mead Johnson) of Enfamil in 1959 were accompanied by marketing campaigns 
that provided inexpensive formula to hospitals and pediatricians.[6] By the 
early 1960s, commercial formulas were more commonly used than evaporated 
milk formulas, which all but vanished in the 1970s. By the early 1970s, over 
75% of babies in the United States were fed on formulas, almost entirely 
commercially produced.[1] ... Infant formula is nutritionally inferior to 
breast milk, and superior to other substitutes such as animal milk. ...
  Most of the world's supply of infant formula is produced in the United 
States. ...
   The use and marketing of infant formula has come under scrutiny; as 
discussed at breastfeeding, breast milk is considered the "ideal food" for 
babies, and the "ideal addition" to other foods, and exclusive breast 
feeding for the first 6 months of a baby's life is advocated by health 
authorities and accordingly by infant formula manufactures. ...
   Use of infant formula is cited in numerous health risks. Studies have 
found infants in developed countries who consume formula are at increased 
risk for acute otitis media, non-specific gastroenteritis, severe lower 
respiratory tract infections, atopic dermatitis, asthma, obesity, type 1 and 
2 diabetes, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), eczema, necrotizing 
enterocolitis and autism when compared to infants who are breastfed. 
Although some early studies have found an association between infant formula 
and lower cognitive development, other studies have found no correlation. 
However recently more questions have arisen. It has been discovered that 
iron supplementation in baby formula is linked to lowered I.Q. and other 
neurodevelopmental delays. ...
   In the United States, infant formula is heavily subsidized by the 
government: at least one third of the US market is supported by the 
government,[64] with over half of infant formula in the US provided through 
WIC[61] – WIC is the US food aid program, not a medical program, which is 
Medicaid. Breastfeeding rates are substantially lower for WIC 
recipients;[65] this is partly attributed to formula being free of charge to 
WIC mothers, and partly to WIC recipients being poor and uneducated, hence 
less likely to breastfeed. ...
   Practices that are banned in the code include most advertising, claiming 
health benefits for formula, and giving free samples to women able to 
breastfeed – this latter practice is particularly criticized because it can 
interfere with lactation, creating dependence on formula.
   Free samples of infant formula have been provided to hospitals since the 
1930s, which practice has been criticized continuously since then; further, 
infant formula is the only product routinely provided free of charge to 
hospitals. ...
"""

Doctors in the 1950s used to recommend infant formula as superior to 
breastfeeding. Why is that? Should women who resisted have been locked up?

Why are you not holding most families to account for not nursing their 
children to two years, or employers and government for not making that the 
encouraged norm? Why are you so ready to advocate state violence against 
families that question vaccination in any way (when, if you looked, you'd 
see the science about vaccine safety is much weaker than you might expect; 
most of the evidence for safety is essentially the *lack* of studies on long 
range health effects)? But, then why are you not advocating state violence 
against the formula industry or families who use formula? Could it be that 
your opinions are being shaped by money (even indirectly, by control of the 
mainstream media)? Seriously, maybe you think this is such a big issue 
because people have spent many millions of dollars to shape your opinions 
about it? As well as doctors' opinions about it?

Here are the facts:
* Doctors said smoking in safe for decades.
* Scientists said leaded gas is safe for decades.
* Doctors said infant formula is best for decades.
* CEOs said smoking is good for you for decades and that they had the 
science to prove it (or at least, there was no science to disprove it).

One thing the Nazis got right, apparently:
"Why Did Western Drs. Promote Tobacco While the Nazis Fought Cancer?"
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/08-why-did-western-drs-promote-tobacco
"""
Last May saw the release of Proctor’s latest book, Agnotology: The Making & 
Unmaking of Ignorance, coedited with Londa Schiebinger. DISCOVER caught up 
with him at his Stanford office.
   Just what is agnotology?
   It’s the study of the politics of ignorance. I’m looking at how ignorance 
is actively created through things like military secrecy in science or 
through deliberate policies like the tobacco industry’s effort to 
manufacture doubt through their “doubt is our product” strategy [spelled out 
in a 1969 tobacco company memo].
   http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/rgy93f00/pdf
So it’s not that science inherently always grows. It can actually be 
destroyed in certain ways, or ignorance can actually be created. ...
   Bad ideologies can produce good science, and good ideologies can produce 
bad science. In my book The Nazi War on Cancer, I showed that a horrific 
ideology can produce world-class science, and in my human origins work I 
showed that liberal antiracism can produce bad science. ...
"""

What I am saying is that you are ignoring how corporate profits is shaping 
science, in this case, a vaccination industry that may be, overall, not the 
best use of our societies resources. And the resistance to acknowledging 
that means that even if safer vaccines were possible, we will never get them 
anytime soon because people will deny the current risks. I mean, why stick 
aluminum in vaccines?
"Mercury In Vaccines Was Replaced With Something Even MORE Toxic "
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/01/27/mercury-in-vaccines-was-replaced-with-something-even-more-toxic.aspx
http://www.themomcrowd.com/aluminum-in-vaccines

 From another direction, US doctors have performed male genital mutilation 
of infants routinely for decades.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision_controversies
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_circumcision
""""
Fox and Thomson (2005) state that in the absence of "unequivocal evidence of 
medical benefit", it is "ethically inappropriate to subject a child to the 
acknowledged risks of infant male circumcision." Thus, they believe, "the 
emerging consensus, whereby parental choice holds sway, appears ethically 
indefensible".
"""

By the way, just so someone does not start playing the antisemitism card:
   http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/
"We are a group of educated and enlightened Jews who realize that the 
barbaric, primitive, torturous, and mutilating practice of circumcision has 
no place in modern Judaism. "

So, maybe there is something to your mandating state violence towards 
parents after all? :-) As well as the doctors who perform that? :-)

Or still, maybe not? How far are you willing to go on that?

But, interesting, look at the social norm on circumcision in the USA, pushed 
up from 30% in the 1930s to almost 80% in the 1970s:
   http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/USA/

Like Cesarean sections, circumcisions are a profitable thing for hospitals 
to do. It may not be a "conspiracy"; let's call it more "drift" like Manuel 
de Landa talks about:
   http://www.t0.or.at/delanda/meshwork.htm
"After all, meshworks grow by drift and they may drift to places where we do 
not want to go. The goal-directedness of hierarchies is the kind of property 
that we may desire to keep at least for certain institutions."

Those who advocate male circumcision for medical reasons now defend it on 
grounds similar to the logic of removing a woman's breasts as a child as a 
precaution to prevent any possible later breast cancer as an adult. Example:
"Should Infant Male Circumcision be Mandatory?"
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/50/33204/should-infant-male-circumcision-be-mandatory.html
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly considering 
mandatory circumcision for all male infants born in the United States, as 
some studies show that uncircumcised males have a much higher rate of HIV 
infection than those who are circumcised. Advocates of mandatory 
circumcision believe this step will significantly reduce the incidence of 
HIV and subsequently, AIDS."

If the CDC is talking about it, must be the right thing to do, right? :-(

If you are going down that route, why stop at just circumcision? Why not 
just go all the way it the cutting, as it would cut down on lots of sexually 
transmitted diseases? :-) Would you be happy if your parents had chosen that 
route to "protect" you from cancer and STDs? Why stop there? Why not burn 
out the related part of the brain too, while we're at it? Then you'll be 
much safer for lots of reasons.

Anyway, again, by the standards you outlined, pregnant women who did *not* 
smoke in the 1930s through 1950s should be locked up because their larger 
babies were more at risk of delivery complications; all women who actually 
nursed their children during the last century should also locked up as going 
against social norms of bottlefeeding as being "better"; and parents who do 
not mutilate their infant son's genitals should be locked up as creating a 
health hazard. Who profits from those social norms? Who spend vast sums of 
money *creating* those social norms?

Who actually benefits from a dumbed down or damaged workforce?
   "Dumbing us down: the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling" By John 
Taylor Gatto
   http://books.google.com/books?id=KS0jIGX0sOEC

But, beyond that, what sort of industrial ideology makes all seem a good 
idea? It all shows a vast distrust of nature. Why mess with stuff we don't 
full understand? The appendix used to be called useless too:
   http://health.howstuffworks.com/appendix3.htm
"While everyone agrees that the appendix can be removed without causing any 
adverse health consequences to the patient, some physicians and researchers 
believe that the appendix does serve a function as part of the immune system."

Tonsils used to be considered useless too:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonsil
"Like other organs of the lymphatic system, the tonsils act as part of the 
immune system to help protect against infection. In particular, they are 
believed to be involved in helping fight off pharyngeal and upper 
respiratory tract infections."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonsillectomy
"The effectiveness of the tonsillectomy has been questioned in a 2009 
systematic review of 7765 papers, published in the journal 
Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery. The review found that it was most 
likely not effective all the time, but rather was modestly effective, and 
that "not a single paper reported that tonsillectomy is invariably effective 
in eliminating sore throats". Another systematic review of cases involving 
children found that there there was only a short-term benefit - "A child who 
meets these strict criteria will probably suffer from 6 throat infections in 
the next two years. A child who has surgery now will probably suffer from 3 
throat infections. In two years there will probably be no difference."

Parents in the last few decades who resisted having their child's tonsils or 
their appendix routinely (without a serious immediate problem) should be 
locked up of course, right? It used to be fairly routine to remove an 
appendix if a person was operated on for other reasons.

Lots of things about the way we raise kids in the USA are pretty odd.
"Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" by 
Meredith Small
http://www.amazon.com/Our-Babies-Ourselves-Biology-Culture/dp/0385483627
"In this thoroughly researched and well-referenced book, anthropology 
professor Small (What's Love Got To Do with It, LJ 9/15/95) explores 
ethnopediatrics, an interdisciplinary science that combines anthropology, 
pediatrics, and child development research in order to examine how 
child-rearing styles across cultures affect the health and survival of 
infants. Small describes the different parenting styles of several cultures, 
including (but not limited to) the nomadic Ache tribe of Paraguay, the 
agrarian !Kung San society of the Kalahari Desert in Africa, and the 
American industrialized society. In discussing these societies, she 
illustrates that although there are numerous ways to care for babies, some 
cultural norms of care are actually at odds with the way infants have 
evolved. Thus, parents should expect "trade-offs" when they act in 
opposition to how babies are designed. Small speculates that the custom of 
mothers in industrialized nations to wean early or not to breastfeed at all 
may be responsible for the higher incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, 
more medical problems and fatalities, and more crying than is commonly noted 
in babies of more agrarian societies. She urges parents to recognize that 
although their native culture does have an impact on their parenting, they 
can adopt aspects of child rearing from other cultures, if they choose. 
Highly recommended for all anthropology and child development collections 
and appropriate for general audiences as well."

That book points out that a common question other cultures have about US 
Americans is if they really keep their children in cages much of the time?
   http://www.continuum-concept.org/
   http://www.cosleeping.org/
   http://www.attachmentparenting.org/
   http://www.thebabywearer.com/
   http://www.askdrsears.com/html/5/t051100.asp

Other cultures see US cribs differently than people in the US do. But, if 
parents don't stick their babies in a crib (nice for crib and mattress 
sales), why, let's lock 'em up.

Also, if the NICHD's "Back to sleep" campaign to reduce SIDS that most 
pediatricians and the AAP promotes was a drug, considering it can cause 
flattening of a kid's skull and delaying crawling by months, would it even 
be legal?
   http://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/

(AAP == American Academy of Pediatrics, sorry about typing APA in the last 
email.)

The campaign may work (I'm not disputing that) -- but what about the cost to 
everyone else who does not need it, either the 1999 babies out of 2000 who 
then don't sleep as well (and so, neither do the parents sleep as well, 
perhaps leading to other problems), babies who get more deformed skulls, or 
babies who don't crawl much at an early age? But, of course, MDs say not to 
worry that babies don't crawl much anymore:
http://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/IN%20THE%20NEWS%20FOLDER/Oct3NoCrawling.doc
"The story discusses the recent phenomenon of many infants' not crawling, 
instead "sublimating" straight from sitting to walking (I thought I'd use 
that term as a malapropistic blend of chemistry and misuse of the 
psychoanalytic term just for kicks).  Why is this happening?  How can babies 
miss such an important milestone?  The story features a research study Dr. 
Davis did. It seems that as a consequence of "Back to Sleep" prevention of 
SIDS, babies don't "discover" crawling the way tummy-bound infants do.  (For 
a fun read on how infants make these scientific discoveries, read "The 
Scientist in the Crib" by the U.W.'s Andy Meltzoff, Patricia Kuhl and Alison 
Gopnick).  Developmental consequences?  Apparently none -- and Dr. Davis 
emphasizes that communication milestones are much more sensitive to 
developmental delays than are physical milestones. "

Hard to say if they are right? But, it shows the logic -- make 1999 babies 
out of 2000 suffer so that one is saved. Maybe we need more research to 
identify the one baby out of 2000 who could benefit from this strategy and 
just having that one kid sleep that way?

Even *diapers* themselves are a profitable thing babies don't really need: :-)
   http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/
"DiaperFreeBaby is a network of free support groups promoting a natural 
approach to responding to babies' elimination needs. This practice is 
followed worldwide and is known as Elimination Communication, Natural Infant 
Hygiene, and Infant Potty Training. The process involves observing one's 
baby's signs and signals, providing cue sounds and elimination-place 
associations, and can be done with or without any diaper use."

As for that matter are toilets you sit on instead of squat over:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet

And where should we stop? People get colon cancer, maybe we should remove 
children's colons too, at birth? :-(
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colostomy

Actually, many more of those sorts issues *will* come up in the decades to 
come as transhumanism advocates gain more power. Why have a colon if you can 
plug in to a wall outlet to recharge instead? Feces can spread disease. 
Maybe it will be considered irresponsible of parents to allow their children 
to retain their natural colons? So, in the future, why not lock up the 
parents and have the state remove the child's colon as a public health 
measure? :-( We are perhaps just decades from that sort of thing being a big 
issue, IMHO. :-)

What precedents do you want to set before transhumanism becomes bigger and 
bigger?

And, then, why not just dispense with the whole disease-ridden body idea 
entirely, as public health measure? :-) If parents don't want their child 
digitized as a public health measure, then lock 'em up.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading

Once the kid is digitized, then there is no need for the kid's body anymore, 
which is just a public health nuisance. Some plans for dealing with the 
unneeded body:
   http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/augas.html

I actually agree with the sentiment that we need (and we really have no 
choice but to find) a balance of the forces of meshworks and hierarchies 
(Manuel de Landa), but how those balances get worked out, and what the 
ground rules are, are interesting questions.

What I'm trying to call into question here is point after point of how US 
social norms about child raising are questionable, and how US doctors have 
given very bad advice for decades in the past on a variety of issues.

Anyway, so, this another set of data points about "legitimacy" which you so 
rightly suggest is an important issue to explore, especially as it relates 
to using state violence to impose changes on the human body.

Something on that, and the slippery slope problem we need to watch out for, 
even as the state or a bureaucracy can do wonderful things sometimes:
   "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45"
   http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
"""
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, 
all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and 
some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, 
saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that 
everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. 
The world you live in — your nation, your people — is not the world you were 
born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the 
houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the 
cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you 
made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now 
you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do 
not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is 
transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility 
even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the 
beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
"""

When you are setting up your guidelines for who to lock up, or otherwise to 
use state violence against, in relation to their children, remember:
   http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own 
children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, 
you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with 
a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. 
Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an 
abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you 
have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in 
systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; 
the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, 
and die there."

Well, by systems logic, the vaccines we have are already the vaccines the 
medical system needs; the only way they could be much improved is if there 
were more of them. Same with leaded gas (for past decades), smoking (for 
past decades), infant formula, cesareans, and circumcisions; the only way 
things can be improved would be to have more of each of them, by that logic.

But yes, I can agree with your implicit point as well as Kevin's explicit 
point (in the newspaper bailout thread) that only the composite blogosphere 
can as a whole work through these issues. So, it is a good idea to keep an 
open mind and keep looking for new information, or re-evaluating old 
information and old paradigms and old trade-offs.

Just be careful that when you say "Scientific peer processes so far appear 
the best we've got", that what you really mean is not "Whatever a bunch of 
scientists say right now is the truth and justifies any violation of the 
human body for any political end".

Because this is the kind of place that stuff goes:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

By your proposed political logic, parents who don't abort children who may 
have weaker immune systems are a public health threat, and so should be 
locked up, right?

We'll soon have the tools to test for that, courtesy of my new adopted news 
source, Faux News: :-)
   "IBM Builds 'Bar Code Reader' for DNA"
   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,560760,00.html?test=latestnews
"""
“The technologies that make reading DNA fast, cheap and widely available 
have the potential to revolutionize bio-medical research and herald an era 
of personalized medicine,” said IBM research scientist Gustavo Stolovitzky. 
“Ultimately, it could improve the quality of medical care by identifying 
patients who will gain the greatest benefit from a particular medicine and 
those who are most at risk of adverse reaction.”
"""

Ask yourself what sort of society you want to build before that technology 
to scan your DNA to the ends of the state becomes common?

Hopefully we've matured as a society since these days?
   http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
"""
IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with 
Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to 
power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked 
upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped 
create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and 
cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.
"""

Are you ready for people to ask you, what kind of genes do you have, Ryan? 
Are they "healthy enough" by the state's standards? :-) If not, maybe they 
might say you should not get a parenting license?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
"The film presents a biopunk vision of a society driven by liberal eugenics. 
Children of the middle and upper classes are selected through 
preimplantation genetic diagnosis to ensure they possess the best hereditary 
traits of their parents. A genetic registry database uses biometrics to 
instantly identify and classify those so created as valids while those 
conceived by traditional means are derisively known as in-valids. While 
genetic discrimination is forbidden by law, in practice it is easy to 
profile one's genotype resulting in the Valids qualifying for professional 
employment while the In-Valids who are susceptible to disease are relegated 
to menial jobs. The movie draws on concerns over reproductive technologies 
which facilitate eugenics, and the possible consequences of such 
technological developments for society. It also explores the idea of destiny 
and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca 
continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place 
in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes."

No doubt we will see such worlds. It's sad. The question is, will all such 
world be like that? Will enhancements be forced on people? Will work and 
fitting people to work still be the dominant factor ins structuring 
state-mandated medical interventions? Another related story:
   http://www.huxley.net/bnw/two.html

What kind of world do we want to build? What kind of research do we want to 
focus on? It's more than "legitimacy". It is also vision and imagination.

How about moving beyond "punishment" as a state-parenting style?
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parenting_styles
"""
Maccoby and Martin expanded the styles to four: authoritative, 
authoritarian, indulgent and neglectful. "These four styles of parenting 
involve combinations of acceptance and responsiveness on the one hand and 
demand and control on the other." These four styles are described below.
"""

This can help too:
   "Don't shoot the dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training"
   http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Shoot-Dog-Teaching-Training/dp/0553380397
   http://www.clickertraining.com/

Even though there are many more ways to effect human behavior than the ten 
or some approaches Karen Pryor mentions in that book based on behaviorism. I 
was making a list once and I think I was up to around forty approaches.

The best one was something suggested to me, essentially that when you see a 
behavior you don't like by someone, be thankful they are in your life. :-)

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/

Ryan Lanham wrote:
> Hi Paul,
> 
> The points you raise are interesting.  I doubt you have the capacity (as I
> would doubt about any of us) to determine what is "balanced."   I trust you
> about as much as I trust Fox to be "fair and balanced."  I don't mean that
> as an insult.  I trust myself similarly.  Balance is a peer project not an
> institutional or individual one.  Fairness entails conflict, doubt and
> vetting, in my opinion...as does all legitimacy.
> 
> Science, health and public health peers now overwhelmingly find vaccines to
> be good science and good public health policy.  Is it possible the peers are
> wrong?  Yes.  That judgment needs to be weighed by all competent
> individuals.  Most are not competent--even those who believe themselves to
> be competent (see recent discussions regarding self-assessments of
> competence).
> 
> The consequences of any person's decisions need to be weighed by various
> levels of social communities...just like FSG or other abominable social
> practices (like not vaccinating for Hep B, in my opinion).  Personally, I
> feel people should be punished for FSG, and people should be punished for
> their children getting Hep B if they were offered a vaccine.  But I am a
> strong statist, and I find libertarian ideas intriguing but dangerous, in
> the main.  Contextually for where humans are today, I see them as
> interesting but simply wrong.
> 
> Others start from differing views and perspectives.  One perspective ought
> not to rule.  In my view, various perspectives must be vetted through some
> logical decision process that is transparent, open to realistic change, and
> hard to corrupt by individuals and groups.  Those are hard to find.
> Scientific peer processes so far appear the best we've got.
> 
> Part of the issue for P2P is whether social education, norms, standards and
> approaches can be institutionalized in distributed environments.  If they
> cannot, P2P is the greatest elitist scheme yet devised.  It clearly does
> have an elitist aspect to it so far...that is why I think it is popular
> with intellectuals and loners rather than highly social community-builder
> types (in my experience).  I would type myself, by the way, as the former,
> and a wannabe in the latter group.  The social leaders are generally out
> there building communities of those in need, not those who see the world
> like themselves.  It takes all types, however, to make progress.
> 
> It is possible, though extremely unlikely, that vaccines are the next leaded
> gas..  But I seriously doubt it.  Science doubts it, more importantly.
> Seemly only cranks and ignorant persons are in the opposition judging from
> the wide-scale and frequent science blogging and journalism on this topic
> from well-respected peers.  If half of the scientific community sat up and
> said...whoa...there is grave doubt here!  I would listen more intently.  So
> far, that is not the case.  No major scientific board, union, institution or
> even well-qualified leader has worked to discredit wide-scale vaccination.
> Most who have done so have extremely dubious credentials and histories.
> 
> I do not share you suspicion that profit motives move most people to evil.
> It clearly does move some.  For my part, large numbers of institutions are
> generally not involved in great conspiracies to enrich themselves while
> shooting people up with dangerous drugs.  Whether there are systematic
> issues associated with profit and ill-placed incentives is a whole other
> story.  On that I think we could easily agree.  But healthcare is not about
> enriching doctors and pharmaceutical companies any more than P2P is about
> building the intellectual and technological reputations of a few vanguard
> coders and social innovators.  In the short run, people can make bad
> decisions based on their ego and social needs and desires.  It is, in my
> view, a dangerous and nearly psychotic sort of cynicism to see ill-motives
> everywhere.  I do not accuse you of that.  I'm just saying that there is a
> spectrum of good faith, and it is easy to lose good faith in humanity and
> most of its institutions.  I personally describe those who reach such points
> as socially/mentally ill.
> 
> Still, those who work for the future must break social relationships more
> easily than those who more inclined to live in the present.  Innovators are
> destroyers.  But so are quacks, charlatans, cranks and (often) the mentally
> ill.  Legitimacy is everything.  That's why I think it is such a profound
> P2P topic.  It is also one we little focus on.  The source of legitimacy in
> science is peer review by vetted experts.  It is imperfect, but so are all
> other schemes of legitimacy.  The future of P2P will belong to those who
> sort out legitimacy in a way that is workable and acceptable to large
> numbers of loners/intellectuals and also those with conventional systematic
> legitimacy as it already exists.  Hard to do...maybe impossible.
> 
> Ryan
>